Wednesday, 7 May 2014
The weather forecast was supposed to be another awesome day when we had looked previously, but now it was saying that the wind is supposed to pick up around 11am. We decided to risk it and run down to the Manta’s again as this will be our last chance, given that the weather report says today is the best for about a week. We got down there as fast as we could go as there were already small wind chops blowing from the south west. We cruised over the cleaning station for ages and found nothing. We are not sure whether it was because today we were earlier than and they just hadn’t arrived yet, or whether they just weren’t coming today. We then did a lap around the area, again nothing. Over it again. None. It was getting on so we had morning tea while floating over it and still couldn’t find any. After eating, we went over the whole area again and found none. After a long time we had to make the call and gave up.
We headed back to the “spango spot” from yesterday for Nath to have a really good go at catching one. He caught a small one and a Charlie court on a Halco red and white Max, which we were rather surprised about. Elokin and Hendrix swam happily around the boat again, this time with goggles and snorkels so they could see what was around them. We then tried somewhere new and also cast on some fish chopping up, but couldn’t entice a fish to take a bite. On the way to our squid spot Nath found some ledgy country and he and Hendrix jumped in looking for crayfish. They spotted a painted cray, along with 3 wobbegongs and reef shark all hanging out under a ledge together. Nath tried really hard, but couldn’t quite grab the cray. There was also lots of reef sharks swimming around. A big one went past and then left. Hendrix then called his dad up to the surface and said “Dad, look, that big shark went and got a mate”. The big one had gone off and brought back a smaller shark. It was so cool that Hendrix was not scared of the sharks at all. Seen as there was so many sharks hanging around, Nath thought it best that I keep close with the boat. So Elokin threw the anchor as it looked like a good place to also catch squid. Elokin caught the first one and it didn’t take long. When Hendrix got back on board he had a go too. Nath then swam under the boat and while looking ahead of him, caught a glimpse of a massive shark. He is not sure what it was, but it was huge and didn’t stick around.
Over at our usual squid fishing spot, we did a few drifts and landed 16. We had only planned on bringing home 12, but we were all having so much fun catching them that we figured a few extra wouldn’t go astray as we love eating our squid. We then headed back to camp. Today was supposed to be a small day on the water, but when we arrived, it was just before 4pm, again! It was a good day in terms of weather after all. Just as I was walking back to camp with our cleaned squid tubes and bait, Nath called me back to the water’s edge. I thought there must have been something cool in the water to see, so I ditched the squid on the boat and ran over. There he informed me that he had lost his wedding ring. Oh no. We searched in the water but couldn’t find it. Hendrix and Elokin had come back down so I asked Elokin to run back to camp and ask the other campers if one of them had a metal detector. Hendrix suggested to look in the hole we had buried the squid guts. So as Nath was sifting through the sand of the hole, he found it! I stopped Elokin from running off as luckily she no longer needed to ask the question. One of the squid he had cleaned had really sticky guts and in the process of flicking the guts off his fingers, the ring slipped off and fell in the hole. We were feeling so relieved, thankful and extremely lucky. Wow.
It started to rain again after dinner but all was well because Nath still had his wedding ring on his finger.
Until next time…. Happy and Safe Travels.