The day after I visited Mick I called in to see a mate at his work and he was just knocking off and said come fishing , so by 6.00 pm we were anchored in Double Island Lagoon , trip from Boonaroo down the sandy straights and across the bar were un-eventful except that I got my backbone pounded up through the back of my head and ended up with a sore back and a ripper of a headache , mate reckoned that we were lucky in that the sea was calm , he obviously has a different idea of what calm is to me , to me it was extremely lumpy , slept in the boat [ 19 ft plate alloy Cuddy cabin ] , well that is to say the mate laid out his swag on the deck and snored like the grunting and growling of a terrible beast from a horror movie while I laid up in the V-bunk and listened to it for 6 hours ,
3.00 am saw us under way out to where we were to fish for the day , pitch black and the mate was running on his GPS only , doing 10 miles a hour and getting knocked about pretty well , wedged my self into the seat and still got dumped out onto the floor a time or two , mate said again how lucky we were to be having good weather for the trip , I'm thinking that the only good thing about 25 knot winds is that it keeps the mosquitoes and sandflies away , the sea just doesn't look all that calm to me and I can see the mast head lights of a yacht and a couple of trawlers that are anchored up in the sheltered bay disappear every few seconds as we go down into the trough of a swell , good thing the boat is self bailing as all the water that come over the front and sides would have filled up the boat very quickly other wise ,
We finally get out to where we were to fish , 4.00 am , still pitch black and the mate motors around in circles for a while until he finds the mark on his sounder , he gets me to anchor off and we start fishing , there was no way I could stand with out grabbing hold of some thing but the mate who spends almost as much time in his boat fishing as he does on land had no problem just standing on deck and swivelling with the movement of the boat , only having to grab hold of some thing every now and then , me I gave up trying to stand and sat down on the swivel seat and wedged my self in , still managed to get tossed onto the deck a few more times , I caught two nice Pearl Perch , a under size Red throat emperor [ thrown back ] and a couple of bait fish , mate caught about a dozen Pearl Perch and a couple of Sweetlip , and had about a half dozen more fish taken by sharks , after the first hour in which I caught my fish I couldn't even get a bite , just changed my bait to freshen it up every 20 minutes or so , wind was changing around making it impossible to keep on the mark so mate kept changing position of the boat which meant pulling up anchor about 60 times or so , even using the big float to make it easier it was still very tiring after a while with 190 feet or so of anchor rope out
The run back to Boonaroo was bumpy so I got tired of getting thrown out of the seat so went and laid down in the v-bunk and promptly went to sleep until we got across the bar and hit the sandy straight , wind coming straight down the channel made it bumpier than the open ocean and getting thrown up into the air on the bunk lost it's gloss after a little while so back up onto the seat , when we got back the first thing I did was to have some good strong pain killers as the pounding of the boat had but my back and my neck out a little so they were pressing on a nerve and causing considerable pain , another thing that was making me uncomfortable was that I felt like I was still on the moving deck of the boat , that feeling was to last for two more days , but after the pain killers I felt much better and we got into cleaning all the gear and the boat , after that was finished we got into cleaning all the fish , then a shower after which I felt much much better , after another 6 beers and a dozen rums I felt even better , on the whole it was a good trip with a good mate but I've learnt that my back just won't take the pounding of a planing boat in rough water so it looks like displacement boats in calm water for me from now on
David
3.00 am saw us under way out to where we were to fish for the day , pitch black and the mate was running on his GPS only , doing 10 miles a hour and getting knocked about pretty well , wedged my self into the seat and still got dumped out onto the floor a time or two , mate said again how lucky we were to be having good weather for the trip , I'm thinking that the only good thing about 25 knot winds is that it keeps the mosquitoes and sandflies away , the sea just doesn't look all that calm to me and I can see the mast head lights of a yacht and a couple of trawlers that are anchored up in the sheltered bay disappear every few seconds as we go down into the trough of a swell , good thing the boat is self bailing as all the water that come over the front and sides would have filled up the boat very quickly other wise ,
We finally get out to where we were to fish , 4.00 am , still pitch black and the mate motors around in circles for a while until he finds the mark on his sounder , he gets me to anchor off and we start fishing , there was no way I could stand with out grabbing hold of some thing but the mate who spends almost as much time in his boat fishing as he does on land had no problem just standing on deck and swivelling with the movement of the boat , only having to grab hold of some thing every now and then , me I gave up trying to stand and sat down on the swivel seat and wedged my self in , still managed to get tossed onto the deck a few more times , I caught two nice Pearl Perch , a under size Red throat emperor [ thrown back ] and a couple of bait fish , mate caught about a dozen Pearl Perch and a couple of Sweetlip , and had about a half dozen more fish taken by sharks , after the first hour in which I caught my fish I couldn't even get a bite , just changed my bait to freshen it up every 20 minutes or so , wind was changing around making it impossible to keep on the mark so mate kept changing position of the boat which meant pulling up anchor about 60 times or so , even using the big float to make it easier it was still very tiring after a while with 190 feet or so of anchor rope out
The run back to Boonaroo was bumpy so I got tired of getting thrown out of the seat so went and laid down in the v-bunk and promptly went to sleep until we got across the bar and hit the sandy straight , wind coming straight down the channel made it bumpier than the open ocean and getting thrown up into the air on the bunk lost it's gloss after a little while so back up onto the seat , when we got back the first thing I did was to have some good strong pain killers as the pounding of the boat had but my back and my neck out a little so they were pressing on a nerve and causing considerable pain , another thing that was making me uncomfortable was that I felt like I was still on the moving deck of the boat , that feeling was to last for two more days , but after the pain killers I felt much better and we got into cleaning all the gear and the boat , after that was finished we got into cleaning all the fish , then a shower after which I felt much much better , after another 6 beers and a dozen rums I felt even better , on the whole it was a good trip with a good mate but I've learnt that my back just won't take the pounding of a planing boat in rough water so it looks like displacement boats in calm water for me from now on
David