I was up at 06:00 and the wind was blowing twenty-five knots,
with very rough seas, so we decided to wait it out until the wind and sea state
abated.
There was a strong five knot current flowing in the channel
where we were anchored putting a good load on the ground tackle.
I spent several hours trying to connect to the Berkeley River
Resort WiFi using my long-range WiFi extender without success, so I gave up in
disgust and decided to go fishing.
With the wind blowing
so hard and the rough sea state, there was really only one place I could go and
that was to some shallow rocks on the south western side of Reveley Island.
Right away I pulled out a few cod, keeping several good size
ones and then WHAMO, a 780 mm barra took my lure and danced across the top of
the water, leaping high in the air.
Eventually I won the battle and had him in
my bucket.
I called up Bruce and told him to come over and hopefully he
will catch one too. Unfortunately, he didn’t catch a barra, but he did manage
to catch a good size snapper.
I went off looking for another place to fish and close to
our boats I saw a two-metre croc, probably the one we saw last night near our
bonfire.
I fished some other rocks, catching a couple more cod, then
went back to where I caught the barra. The tide was now low and there was a
small pond behind the rocks and I pulled the dinghy up onto the beach.
I had seen a large fish in the pond earlier on and as I
approached, I saw a small shark swimming past. I started casting my lure across
the pond and immediately I caught a couple of cod, and then WHAMO, my second
barra for the morning was on. It leapt in the air several times before I
eventually landed him on the beach, a nice 500 mm chrome barra.
I caught two more barra, but both of them spat the lure and
got away. I returned to Sirocco elated, and right away I cleaned all the fish.
Putu baked the smaller barra in the Webber and Luke and I ate it for lunch and
Putu cooked the cod to eat during the passage to Point Ford.
Gradually the wind and sea state abated and we headed off
around 17:00. It was a very dark night and I had a lot of trouble unfurling the
genoa as the top bearing has started to seize. (I just hope I can get the sail
furled when I need to)
It was a good night passage in light winds with about 30%
sailing and about 70% motoring or motor sailing. It was extremely dark and when
I went to the toilet, out the window I could see lots of phosphorescence that looked
like sparks flying everywhere.
The night was long and very tiring and I only got a few
twenty-minute cat naps while Putu slept the whole time.
We passed the Blacktip gas rig way out on our port side and
there were two tug boats anchored a long way off in the distance. We crossed
the dreaded Joseph Bonaparte Gulf (Commonly referred to as the “Blown Apart
Gulf”) about fifty miles offshore in benign conditions headed for Port Keats.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
No comments:
Post a Comment