Thursday, 3 July 2014
We woke to another cool morning. After breakfast we headed off to the rock pools again as the tide was low and about to turn. We found some blue crabs, but Hendrix missed all of them with his spear. We saw heaps of trochus again; another fish that we think is a stonefish, a long-legged starfish, and Hendrix found a green turtle. I took a couple of photos of it and got quite close, so when the phone ran out of battery power, I decided to attempt to give it a pat on the head. It didn’t seem to mind, and didn’t move at all. So the kids came over and gave it a pat too. Elokin went to pick it up but it didn’t like that and moved away from us. It seemed a bit freaked out then and went to a shallower part of the pool. Nath decided that it would be in the best interest of the turtle to release it back to the open water. Nath picked it up and after a short flap, she calmed completely. Elokin had a hold too but she was too heavy for her and she gave her back to her dad. Nath carried the calm little turtle back to the ocean and let her go. We think that she would have enjoyed the new experience and one that turtles don’t normally get to do… flying.
After the turtle experience we thought that our day was topped. But not yet. We walked further around the rock pools looking for more bait and to try to work out a good spot for fishing on high tide. We found a good spot but continued to look. All of a sudden Nath bent down and said he found a shell, but wasn’t sure what kind or if it was broken. He lifted a huge rock off it and out came a perfectly good trumpet shell, and a big one at that. While he was cleaning the sand out of it in a rock pool, I looked over and found another one. Not as big, but again under a big rock. Nath lifted it off and it too was in good condition. Awesome. Two good size trumpet shells within minutes. Who would have thought of looking under big rocks to find them. After that we kept looking, and found two more all in the same area, but those two were broken so we left them there. We then made our way back to camp to have a quick bite to eat as it was only a couple of hours until high tide.
Once we had a snack, we headed back to the furthest point to try our luck fishing off the rocks on the incoming tide. We got a few good bites, a couple of snags that managed to be temporary and came off, but didn’t catch anything. We had to make the call to leave as it was getting to scary to stay there. As soon as we left, I looked back and saw a huge way splash over where we had just been standing. Good time to get off!
We headed to our next spot near the rock pool where the turtle was and floating in the water was a turtle about the same size. Maybe it had something wrong with it, or just really likes this spot. Another one a bit bigger popped up right in front of us, so perhaps there is something here the turtles like. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t fish as we didn’t even get one bite between us. While we were fishing this spot, a pod of about 5 humpback whales surfaced about 200 metres off shore. They cruised along heading north and every so often they would surface for a breath. It was awesome and so close.
We decided that there was no fish here and moved to our last place on the headland. There was already one other guy here fishing and he had been getting heaps of bites. A fish had already busted him off. That sounds promising. We tried our luck and both got bites. I also got a really big snag that kept me stuck for quite a while. When I handed it over to Nath to break off for me, it freed itself and he retrieved both my hook and sinker, just no bait. I gave up at that point and headed back to camp with the kids as we were overdue for lunch. Nath stayed as there was bait left and his rule is that if we kill it we need to either eat it, or use it.
A while later Nath followed us back to camp after catching nothing. He did get more bites, but that was it. This afternoon we got organised and packed up most things. Elokin washed up and Hendrix dried up for the first time. As it the sun was getting low, Nath decided that we would leave them to it and take a beer and wine to the headland to watch our last sunset over the Indian Ocean. Elokin and Hendrix finished their job and joined us just as the last bit of sun went down past the horizon.
It was a really nice sunset too. It is rather sad to be leaving the WA coast after enjoying it for so long now. Neither of us is really ready, but we do have to leave at some point so it may as well be now. We are all going to miss the rock pools, ocean, beaches, coral, fish, shells and driftwood.
On our way back to camp, we chatted to a man that had just arrived. They had just come off the Gibb and said that the road was good as they are working on it. There was also lots of people, and he passed a car about every half hour. Just as we thought. We are now swaying towards not going on the Gibb and going on the tar as we haven’t done it before, and that way we can keep the memories of the Gibb from last time when there was hardly anyone on it.
Until next time…. Happy and Safe Travels.
