Every morning when we opened the curtains we'd see whales, we ate fresh coconut and pawpaw on the deck for breakfast, and in the evening we ate fresh sashimi and sipped our NZ$5 mojitos and still the whales played beneath us. Ten days wasn't enough: we're going back!
MISS
We had the opportunity to fish in Principe. We travelled for more than 60 hours non-stop to get there. Kerikeri-Auckland- Dubai-Lisbon-Sao Tome-Principe. Travelling with fishing and camera gear is a niggle, but it went really pear-shaped in Sao Tome, when we arrived and had our passports taken off us by Customs.
We had our bags and just one flight to go, but Customs wanted €50 each for our passports. We didn't have enough cash, they wouldn't take credit cards, and there are no banks on the island.
Our once-a-week flight to Principe was about to leave, but because it was a domestic flight we were advised we could leave our passports, get some cash in Principe and get our passports back from him on the way home. We had no choice, we had to go, with no embassy, no money and no way of reasoning with them, we jammed our gear into the little plane.
There were chickens on the flight and the door was tied closed with rope, though it did look like good rope.
All the locals flew the entire flight in the braced recovery position and when we touched down they broke into cheers of joy and hugged each other.
Principe was incredibly beautiful and the people were fantastic, but we still had to get back through Sao Tome.
We bought our passports back, and I'd never been happier to take off on a plane with all the film crew safe.
