Tag Archives: beach

One and half days on the Tiwi Islands

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Recently friends took jobs in the school on Melville Island. We decided to use May-Day long weekend as an excuse to go and see them, unfortunately Claire and I couldn’t get Friday arvo off so we had to get the Saturday afternoon flight over.

We got our permits sorted and headed over, on Sunday me and my mate spent all day in Shark Bay. He only got his boat in Easter so hadn’t really got his spots sorted yet, with that in mind it was a reasonable day. He got a nice 70cm barra for dinner and I got a lot of fish, but they were all pretty small. It is pretty eerie fishing in a location where you don’t see a boat for the entire day, and there are zero other cars at the boat ramp!

Some highlights include:
– tom hooking a huge groper and it getting itself wrapped around a snag. It was at the surface so we gave it a shot at netting it but it scared and ran, managing to break off his braid
– a kingfisher deciding to hit my lure, lucky I was running a weedless rig and it didn’t hook it
– the mist off the water on an untouched morning was pretty nice

While we were off fishing Claire went to a nice waterfall for a swim.

The next morning we headed to a billabong. We only had two hours fishing as we needed to get the ferry back. When we got there – devastation! The boat ramp had eroded so we couldn’t launch. Ah well, might as well cast from the shore. A few casts and I had a couple of tarpon. Then I hooked a small barra! I yelled to my mate, excited that there were barra there, and he came running with the net… looked at me like I was stupid when he saw it was 30cm.

But anyway… soon we were hooking barra each couple of casts. I estimate that most were between 25 and 40cm. It was amazing fun. I landed two thumping saratoga’s, check out the story of the trip. The biggest I would estimate to be 45 to 50… I was thinking of measuring him but got a hook in the throat so I really wanted to return him to the water asap, and the tape measure was in the car.

It is how I imagine Coroborree would have been before it became Darwin’s favourite spot.

They loved a new lure, and it gave me a chance to try some lures I’m not that familiar with, like vibes and poppers.

Got
Saturday
46, 47cm barra, mangrove jack, golden snapper, catfish, cod

Sunday
A few tarpon, 20 odd barra, two saratogas

Story of the trip:
Banks can be hard to cast from with overhanging trees. So I threw my popper out and accidentally cast over the tree, so before I could wind I had to get the braid out of the tree. Once I did I realized I couldn’t see my popper… had it sunk? Well, as I would up I discovered a saratoga had liked the look of a popper sitting there doing nothing, and had decided to hook itself!

 

Hydeaway Bay for a wedding

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Spent the week in Hydeaway Bay for a wedding, was a great trip. A few boats hanging around, including a cat, plenty of fishing and crabbing.

No fish were caught but we got heaps of mudcrabs, and tons of oysters. There was a small island that had basically been untouched, and we could pop over there and get our bag limit, and bring them back for everyone.

Some highlights include getting stuck on the sandbanks and getting to push a boat, some captain (who was also getting married) allowing his crew to through out 10 crab pots completely collapsed, and a bonfire on the beach ‘let’s try to run as far as we can up a palm before we fall off’ contest.

Good times!

 


Fishing in Queensland, love it!

 


Swimming off the catamaran


Fishing at sunset

Dugong Beach Trip

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A good friend of mine was having a 30th, so they decided to do a camping trip at Dugong Beach on Whitsunday Island. It is home of the famous Whitehaven Beach, but it is a huge island, and one isn’t really accessible from the other. “Damn” I thought.

Well I turned out to be wrong. It was, and still is, the best place I have camped. The beaches were amazing, great sunset, fishing (I only managed a small bream, despite the all the effort), crabbing, a great bushwalk up to a lookout that could only seen to be believed.

Not trying to sound conceited but the photos taken are not photoshopped in anyway, taken on the “auto” setting of a Canon Powershot D10. It looked way better than they seem.

And the trip was great, great chat, lots of people, everyone just having a ball. How could you not? The place was paradise.

 

 


Sunset fishing, I just got a bream


View from the Beach at the camp site


Crabbing unsuccessfully


View from the top of the walk


Me at the top

Camira sailing trip – one year anniversary

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We decided to do a trip for our one year anniversary, sudden low lying clouds came over at the last minute which ruined part of the morning. Snorkelling is always better when it is clear.

The story of the trip was my confession to Claire that I wasn’t going to drink as I tended to get seasick in any sort of chop. She thought this was hilarious and proceeded to jump up and down next to me on the nets. Pretty soon, Claire was very seasick and I was trying hard not to laugh.

Not trying that hard though.

 


Snorkeling fun


Whitehaven Beach


Just another day in the whitsundays

Silent Night

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Wow.  Just wow. Went on a two day two night sailing trip on a yacht called ‘Silent Night’ and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Seriously, if I was to name off the top of my head all the best things I’ve ever done.
So we jumped on board on Friday at 2pm, our group consisted of:
3 canadian blokes, very funny, loved to party
3 english blokes who had just become dentists, loved to party
A couple from Liverpool, great value
A couple from Germany, a tad more conservative, but real nice
A young husband and wife from sweden
Me!
Everyone just got along great from the start. The first day we pulled up in a bay for the night and watched the sunset, everyone having a few beers and getting to know each other. I knew then we were onto a winner.
 
Then we woke up on Saturday and went for a snorkel for about an hour, saw some cool things, including a large bull-ray that we all named ‘steve’. They dropped us at Whitehaven beach for a few hours, which mostly consisted of us playing frisbee in the water. Not sure if you’ve heard of Whitehaven, but the sand is white, fine silica, and it is probably the best beach in the world. (although it has no waves so I have to veto that)
 
 
Had a sunet snorkel before the huge night of Saturday kicked off. Everyone got along great and we were all tearing through the beers. The canadians passed around their contribution to the night, and the deckie broke out his guitar. The skipper told us some stories, like the time a few years ago he woke up to discover an orgy on the boat. We all decided that, if that was to happen, we would all pretend that there was an equal number of girls and guys. The night is something that I am going to fail in my attempt to put into words, but the jokes were hilarious, the tunes were pumping, and towards the end we all starting singing in all the words and sitting under the clear star-filled sky I remember lying back looking up getting semi-philisophical about how lucky we were. I was also afraid to stand since there was a good chance I’d end up in the water.
 

I had to work Sunday, but we all booked a table for Sunday night (sans the swedes who had to leave) and once we got there we all introduced a drinking game. The canadians taught me ‘fingers’ which is a version of fives-in, and the english did ’21’ which is sort of like begurkin with numbers. I got everyone to do a boat race, with europe vs the rest of the world, and we kicked ass. I was especially proud to see the German nailing them, he claimed not to drink too often, but I find it hard to believe since he comes from the place where steins were born. I then had a personal race against one of the canadians, and since there were a few other boats groups around, we tried to challenge a few, but no one was in the mood of bliss that we were. Very glad I ended up on this trip, not one of their boring ones. After that we all went out to a club, I had to work the next day so I was home by 2am. Anyway, we all swapped contact details, but that was pretty much the end of a week filled with fun and Michael Jackson jokes. I hear, since he’s mostly plastic, that they are going to melt him down into lego blocks so the kids can play with him for a change.