The secret to fishing

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After an amazing nights sleep and waking up with a really clear head I walked up to grab some breakfast with Carmen and Des. I made myself a coffee and Carmen offered me some toast with Veggie-mite and honey. Now I never used to be a huge fan of Marmite back home, but it had grown on me and I was interested in trying it's Australian counterpart. As I spread a reasonably thick layer of Veggie-mite on to my toast I was passed the jar of honey. I looked at Carmen quizzically and she simply said 'Just try it, it's good!'. I drizzled some of the golden honey on to the already loaded toast and took a bite out of one corner. It was a strange taste with the taste of the Veggie-mite almost being overpowered by the sweetness of the honey but nonetheless delicious.

After ploughing my way through three slices of toast we were joined by Lee who looked as though he'd had a more sound nights sleep than me. We decided that we'd have a nice chilled out day at camp today doing nothing but relaxing in the sun and lapping up the beach lifestyle. I slapped on some sun cream as well as giving myself a coat of Bushman spray, to keep the horseflies away, before lying down on top of the dunes to soak up some sun. Everyone else kept undercover of the gazebo because the wind had dropped off significantly today making it even warmer in the glare of the sun. I loved every minute of it, feeling the heat of the sun warming my body up my entire body, something I had missed since leaving Southeast Asia. I had certainly noticed the difference in temperate up until now, often walking around in a fleece because I was so cold.

Just after lunchtime Kemton returned from a ridiculously early morning fishing trip on the other side of the point having caught two fish. One was a Baramundi and the other was a Parrot fish, both measuring just over a foot long. They had already been gutted and cleaned whist he was on the boat with his friend Brad, and he wasted no time in wrapping them in silver foil to cook them. They were cooked in no time, and although he'd only used simple vegetables to bake them with, you could taste the freshness in the tender fish. We all tried a little of both of the fish and I definitely preferred the taste of the Parrot fish.

Feeling inspired by the impressive catch, I decided I'd try my luck at some more beach casting. As I was setting up my rig Sean, one of Keith's friends who had joined us for the day, came over and asked if I'd caught anything. I told him that I hadn't had any luck yesterday and that it wad my first time beach casting. 'Let me tell you a secret to fishing' he said in his soft South African accent, and went on to show me how to set my bait up properly for beach casting. Sean also explained that most of the fish that lived in the shallows fed in the breaking waves and that I should be slowly reeling in the bait rather than letting the tide carry it. With the newly learnt information at the forefront of my mind I set off down the beach to the sea. I cast out a couple of times and could feel the fish nibbling at the bait as I wound the line back in. As I started to wind the bait back in for about the fifth time I suddenly felt the line pull and I was into a fish. Keith came over to me and was very excited as I pulled the small fish out of the water. It was a small and although it was only about eight inches from head to tail I felt a huge amount of satisfaction from the fact I'd finally caught something! Keith made me run up to grab my camera to take a shot of me and my minuet catch.

After releasing it I decided I'd try just a couple more times before giving up, as the light had started to fade. Within five minutes I had hooked another dart, smaller than the first but just as satisfying. I headed back up to the camp as the sun light faded into white blue sky casting a beautiful orange pink glow across the sky. After my shower I wandered down to the fire and grabbed a well earned beer from the eski before starting to rib Lee about my successful excursion.

After having a laugh about my hit rate in the fishing stakes we had a lovely homemade fish curry with roti. It was a South African spiced fish curry with chunky green lip muscles, prawns and white fish in it that Des served with pan fried roti flat bread. It was very different to the curries that I'd had in India, just as spicy but with a very different taste. I wolfed down the huge serving that I had been given along with two roti before I was passed the jam by Keith and told to apply it liberally to the remaining roti. It tasted a bit like a sweet pancake, with butter and apricot jam oozing out of the other end as I bit into it.

We retired to the roaring camp fire, sat back and relaxed under the stars. Lee had now become obsessed with catching a fish after my small success in the water this afternoon and we resolved to head out early the next morning to try our luck by the point. As the evening wore on, Lee and I became tired of trudging through the now cold, damp sand to get our beer from the eski. We decided to drag the eski down to the fire so that we could stay close to the heat and not have as far to walk. The only downfall to this plan was that the beer disappeared a lot faster than anticipated. Luckily Lee had had the forethought to pack his extra large bottle of Grey Goose for just such an emergency. No sooner had he poured the first couple, Keith decided that he wanted to join in and the three of us were soon struggling to keep upright. Needless to say, the stagger back to our tents was interesting.

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