Boating around the Harbour

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Claire and I finally had a Saturday together, so we decided to go out on the boat. Claire had actually never been out on the boat before, we weren’t sure how she would go.

I decided to hit a few more blue water locations, as it was across the low and therefore a bit prettier. It wasn’t a fishing trip, but I was planning on having a bit of a cast around.

We hit this nice area of exposed rocks and I flicked around a bit. Got a few small items like a cod and a blue bones. Finally hooked onto something decent, but it spat the lure half way through. Really wish I had of known what it was. Soon we stopped for ‘elevensies’ and Claire had some beer, water, and food. Then the wind kicked up. It wasn’t long before she started to feel sea sick, and that was the day. We tried to go up some mangroves, that stopped her feeling sea sick, but the sun was out and so were the bugs.

So we decided to call it a day. Cracked my first can at the car wash.

 

Saturday on the Great Barrier Reef

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The final full day we had on Hamilton Island we went to the great barrier reef with Cruise Whitsundays.

I have been 5 or 6 times before, so it wasn’t anything that I hadn’t seen before. Claire had a helicopter ride that she really enjoyed, I spent the majority of my time snorkeling, knowing it would be a very long time before I was there again.

On the Edge to Whitehaven

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On the Friday it was decided we would take a trip on the catamaran “On the Edge” to Whitehaven beach. We had sent out this in the letters we wrote to everyone as part of the wedding invite, so we made up nearly half of the crew. It was an amazing trip. You don’t need a lot to make a great day of Whitehaven, it looks like every single photo of every beach after it has been photoshopped. I don’t even know how to use photoshop, so these photos are just on my small Canon camera.

Before we got there we had a snorkel around Chalkies beach. Pretty good, although I was off to the outer reef tomorrow.

Then we headed over to Whitehaven. I guess not a lot to write about apart from it was really fun, water was amazing, wind was down, everything was great.

Story of the trip is that another crew had found a large turtle on the beach. A shark had eaten its fin off, it was breathing badly. They tried to keep it cool until it decided it wanted to leave. It swam off leaving a trail of blood behind it. Hopefully he made it.

Final land based session on Hammo

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Having day trips organised for the Friday and Saturday (more on my blog) we had one last crack at land based session. The wind was fierce that day and fishing on the beach was next to impossible. We tried a few locations, in the end settled on some rocks next to Catseye beach. Got a few small bites, and Chops managed to land a flathead.

Got:
Me: Nothing
Chops: Flathead, released

Story of the trip:
Saw some whales come through! When we were on the beach with too much wind, a whale and a calf came through, right near the airport. Pretty cool!

Snap

Fishing on my Wedding Day

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I was getting married at 2pm, plenty of time for a land based flick in the morning. I also thought that it would read as an omen: a fish would be equal good marriage, no fish would be a bad sign. We hit a sandy and rocky beach, flicking some plastics for not much success. Soon we saw some bait busting up so tried to flick there. Soon enough I caught a tiny cod. Hey, that’s good right? A good omen.

As I wound him in suddenly a little calamari came out of no where and latched on. I tried to drag him up the beach but he let go. I cast the cod back to him and he went it again. I tried again for a fail, but he latched on again to the cod.

We were frantically trying to figure out how we could land it – it wasn’t hooked, and we didn’t have a net or anything. So my mate decided to try to drag a treble lure through it to see if it would hook. It did, but not well, and the calamari bolted.

One final cast of the cod and even again the calamari came back and latched on! The second time we were able to hook it with the lure, and presto, we had a lunchtime feed.

Got:
Me: Small Cod and a claim on a Calamari
Chops: A claim on a calamari

Story of the trip:
Who caught the calamari? A lot of debate has raged on this one. Did I get it interested and he caught it? Did I catch it and he landed it?

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