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Published: August 6th 2014
Welcome committee
There is an abundance of pelicans and other birds around the inlet. The caravan park is adjacent to The Sandy National Park.Our plans for the day of collecting bait and then fishing came to fruition today. Getting caught in a torrential downpour wasn't part of the plan, but that happened too. After breakfast we went down to the inlet to pump for yabbies. It is a joint effort. Frank does all the strenuous work and I hold the bucket. If they are near me, I will collect the yabbies, but mostly Frank disperses the sand in an area I can't reach, therefore I am happy to just hold the bucket and say "there's one". We we so absorbed in our hunting and gathering this morning, with our backs to the oncoming weather, that we managed to get soaked in long lasting heavy rain. Then it was a quick trip to the bait shop to but more bait (because fish like a variety in their diet) and other stuff in preparation for our fishing venture and first time out in Das Boot.
We managed to get the boat into the water at a suitable location with a small audience of two and a few pelicans. Actually, Frank put the boat in with a little assistance from me, then loaded it while I
Our Boat Ramp
As our boat is transported on the roof of the car, we can't use the public boat ramp. There is a channel in front of a small beach near us where we can put the boat in the water and moor it overnight. The pelicans are always watching for activity and a possible feed. liaised with the audience. Not the pelicans, I don't speak pelican. Our first location was unsuccessful, so we moved to another. I caught the first fish, as I usually do, but had to throw it back because it was undersize. In total I caught 6 whiting, five of which were returned to the water so that they could grow to be big and strong. Finally Frank caught something which put up a huge fight. He was convinced it was a stingray, but kept on fighting with it. I think it took almost ten minutes to reel in, and turned out to be too big for our landing net. By this time Frank had worked out that it was some sort of shark. In the meantime, it managed to get itself tangled in another line, I caught a fish which I didn't want to catch at the time, but it was pretty insistent so I had to reel it in so that I could help Frank with his battle. Frank decided the only way he was going to get his opponent into the boat was if I grabbed its tail and pulled it onboard. So I did. One could argue that
Preparing for the launch
Frank preparing to dismount the boat and launch it for the first time. it was actually me who caught it because I am the one who landed it. It turned out to be a shovel nose ray or shark, depending on what book you are referring to. Either way, it is an edible variety of sea creature, about 1.4 metres long and within the size limit so we kept it. I hooked another shortly after, but it was a bit too lively to land and got away.
Once we got back to the van, Frank spent about an hour skinning and filleting it. It was a lot of hard work and he said next time he catches one it is going back. There was enough meat on it for seven meals for two. We had it for dinner tonight and now it seems any others we catch we will be keeping. Delicious fresh flake.
Enough fish stories. Rainbow beach is famous for the coloured sands. We will go and look at them at some stage. Around the van park the colour of the sand is grey/black. The bottoms of my feet are now black and no amount of scrubbing in the shower tonight got rid of the colour. i think I
Das Boot at sea.
Frank has the boat in the water ready for our first fishing trip. might have to purchase a scrubbing brush tomorrow.
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