Whilst having a nice sleep in, we were rudely awoken to the sound of large Zodiac’s
speeding up the river carrying loads of tourists to see the falls and to climb
the canyon for that iconic King George photo.
Putu and I had a relaxing morning on Sirocco, while Bruce
and Luke went for a climb back up the canyon. Later I went fishing and caught a massive golden trevally
that took about fifteen minutes to land and several other smaller fish, letting them all go.
When Bruce and Luke returned from their walk, they came over
to Sirocco and we had scones and coffee for morning tea. These blokes are
getting spoilt rotten by Putu and loving it.
After lunch, I went exploring looking for a swimming hole
close to the boat. There are several small gorges close to the boat and unfortunately
both of them were dry except for some small pools. One gorge had a small shower
coming down that was refreshing to stand under and both had lots of ferns and
moss growing everywhere.
I got a call from Putu saying our anchor was dragging and
Sirocco was getting dangerously close to the rocks, so I sped back and re-anchored
further out in the middle of the river. We were on a sand bar and I think there
must have been smooth rock underneath.
The wind was blowing quite hard as there is a large high in
the bight, and we currently have a strong wind warning, so it looks like we will
be stuck here for a while. Latter in the late afternoon I went fishing again and caught
several jacks, some small cod and several perch, releasing them all.
Bruce and Luke came over for dinner and after dinner we
played Boganology and Uno.
We noticed the last couple of nights, small glowing lights
in the water and tonight all of a sudden there were thousands of them, maybe
even hundreds of thousands of them. We all scrambled on deck to check them out
and they were tiny fish, like white bait.
They seemed to be able to turn the light on and off. They
looked like fire flies, swimming in all directions and every now and then there
was a huge swarm of them slowly moving past. This spectacle went on for a couple
of hours.
There were larger fish crashing through them, feeding and
leaving a light trail like a falling star. We were all mesmerised by the
spectacle, it was really out of this world.
I threw a lure out and when I wound it back in it was like a
trail of sparks. The water was electrified. Splashing your hand in the water
looked like swirling your hand in glowing paint.
I don’t know what the hell was going on, but it sure was a
pretty cool phenomenon. The light show lasted a couple of hours and then all
the lights disappeared. It has got me puzzled how the fish were able to control
the lights in their bodies. I wonder if we witnessed something that is yet to
be discovered?
With the light show over, it was back to playing Uno and then Bruce pulled
out his bottle of whiskey and Putu pulled out the apple pie and cream. It was
another fun night with the boys, and around 22:00 they sped off in the wrong
direction in the dark night, hopefully eventually finding Lizard.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
No comments:
Post a Comment