IT'S NOT ABOUT THE FISH! Whilst camping at Nkata Bay we met up with a lovely South African couple travelling in a Land Cruiser from Jo'burg to Nairobi and back. John and Cathy have spent eight years living in London and are finally moving back to S.Africa to build a life there. Very few white South Africans venture further north than Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique but they are keen to experience and learn about the complexities of the continent that they will now return to and call home. One of John's passions is fishing and he has brought five rods on their trip. Not knowing anything about fishing, Rich decided to give it a try. How hard can it be to catch our supper in Lake Malawi, home to 80% of the world's fresh water fish found in aquariums? After four hours of fishing in the morning with not a single catch the lads were thinking a little differently. Excuses ranged from 'not enough sunlight', 'wrong time of year', 'the water's too murky', 'the colour of the hook is wrong' but the fact remained, we had nothing to eat that night. Drastic times called for drastic measures so the lads hired two kayaks and paddled off into the middle of the lake to catch our supper. After another two hours without a catch, John became more philosophical - 'It's about the fishing and not the fish' he proclaimed. All well and good but the hungry wives back on the beach (getting increasingly sloshed on Drostyhof!) might not agree to that. In the end the lads caught six small chomba fish; they may not have been the size of 'Jaws', but at least we couldn't starve. According to them, the ten other fish they caught got thrown to the fish eagle or given to local fishermen, an excuse, however true, the wives just didn't buy. That night we ate freshly caught fish on the bbq and savoured the effort more so than the result. It had been a fun day - and Rich had caught the bait!