June 2007 and we left New Zealand to head to Fiji. We had waited for 3 weeks for the right weather so we grabbed the first ‘window’ and headed north. Ten days later and we were still 400 miles from Fiji but only 80 miles from Minerva Reef so we headed there to rest up and wait for some decent wind.

Minerva Reef is a magical place. A dormant underwater volcano chain 600 miles north of NZ, 350 miles south of Tonga and Fiji. North Minerva is about five miles across and barely breaks the surface of the water at low tide. There is a small pass in the volcano wall – big enough to sail through. Inside the wall is around 35 feet deep, outside the drop off is over 1,000 feet.

We sailed through the pass and headed to the south of the volcano, anchoring in 25 feet around 200 feet from the southern wall. After 2 days we spotted another sail boat who headed around to the pass and anchored about half a mile away. 10 minutes later we had a call on the radio – did we want some wahoo? The skipper headed over in our inflatable and came back half an hour later with half of a 3 foot wahoo – much too much for us to eat so, without a freezer the only answer was to dry the fish. Recipe to follow.