Recent trip

Tough work but someone has to do it.

A French Koala

Lea (the assassin)

Elodie (streaky)

Leonie

Lenais

Full size dinner plate, fish was clean and very fat.

37 ich Catfish that took 20 minutes to land and was released unharmed.

17.11.2010

Finally decided to go for a sail, got together a crew and away we went. The weather up here has been tragic with constant strong South East winds and plenty of rain. I was lucky that the crew turned up at all as it was overcast with spits of rain. I ended up with 4 young ladies, 19 thru to 21 two from Germany and two from France. Despite the conditions we enjoyed a dive at Stonehaven Anchorage, where we were challenged for a mooring by a Catamaran which raced in to snatch it from under our noses as we manouvered to pick it up. I have never seen such blatant stupidity or rudeness in years of sailing. The boat was called Mischief. After the dive we went into Nara inlet for the night. The rain came in just after dark and the bullets of wind were strong. Sunday dawned reasonably fine and the late starters (10.00am) finally got going. I took each of them out in the dinghy for a fang and to show them how it all worked. We then geared up for a dive but had a bit of an explore and a feed of oysters, well myself and Elodie, the others abstaining. We then went for a dive and surprisingly enjoyed good coral in shallow water with lots of interesting animals to show them and explain about. After getting back to the boat we tried to go to Whitehaven but the wind was on the nose (again) and we settled for an anchorage in Macona Inlet. A walk on shore was followed with a bit of fishing. I hooked a monster fish , or shark but it broke off after walking me around the boat once. It was decided to try for Whitehaven in the still of the next morning but the wind and rain at 5.30am was intense. We settled for a trip up Hook inlet and then set sail back to Airlie and the wind dropped out almost completely and we ended up with a slow sail back arriving at Airlie at about 4.pm. The swell was up but I got everyone ashore safe and sound and that completed a successful, enjoyable trip, made that way mostly by the attitude of the girls who endured the rain, cold showers, and deckwork with laughter and good manners. More trips like that would be good.