Wahoo up the Wazoo

Current Location: Fanny Bay Anchorage, Darwin, Australia
Current Position: 12 25.49 S 130 49.08 E
Next Destination: Kupang Indonesia



Well the curse of the freezer is over, and it's chocka block (full) of fish. After a slow start to the fishing season, we are finally catching fish at will again. In fact, we've never really seen anything quite like it. The wahoo are literally jumping out of the water at our lures. At first I thought it was a fluke. I was coming up the companionway when a huge wahoo leaped through the air right behind the boat, in the perfect spot right between the arch supports, about 7-8 feet in the air. Then the hand-line snubber went tight and I hauled it in, a nice 3.5 footer. Well now that we have the freezer, we can be a little more selective in what we keep and I get to continue fishing.

It started in Lizard Island, you know home of the huge Marlin. We were sitting on the boat when a HUGE school of Trevally came chasing baitfish, slamming into the hull in the process. I got out my surface popper and hooked a nice size one... only to find out that it was a protected fishing area. Australia is trying to preserve areas and has all sorts of categories of fishing restrictions and the boundaries change over time. Some cruising books are out of date so make sure you get the latest info before you wonder why the fishing is "too easy". After our first taste of fish in a while, KT encouraged me to continue fishing by offering fresh made rotis (like tortillas) for fish tacos if I caught us some more. Never being one to shy from a challenge, I immediately got in the dinghy and went around the point to a legal fishing spot. No sooner than I had put in the lure and got up to plane, I had a fish on; and it was a fighter. I use the same 400 lb test hand-lines in the dinghy as I do on Billabong, so I can land some huge fish. It's always exciting to fight a fish mano-a-mano and it is even more exciting to be so low to the water in the dinghy. You usually don't know what you have until right at the end. Well, just as I got this guy close it did a final deep fast dive, tearing the line from my hands. I even got some line burn marks on my hands it was so fast. I finally landed a 2.5 foot Shark Mackerel and almost headed back to claim my fish tacos. I decided I'd take a couple more runs around the point and see what happened. I got a couple of big hits but nothing stuck. Well I've mentioned before that I've always wanted to see a Marlin tail walk, and I finally got my wish. While this wasn't the 1000 plus pound monsters of the deep that frequent Lizard Island (this was a little 2-3 footer juvenile one), it was cool to watch just the same.

I planned our course from Lizard to Cape York at the edge of the shipping channel (to avoid the frequent, huge freighters), and when possible, through the reefs. We got some strange looks from the other yachts as we headed off in a different direction to the same anchorage, but getting amongst the reefs did wonders for our fishing. We kept getting these jumping Wahoo. After throwing back some smaller wahoo and some huge Barracuda with Doberman Picher sized teeth, we finally hooked a 4-foot keeper that had jumped as well. It got so that I could recognize the sound of the fish leaving the water and turn to see it in the air. One time a 5+ footer landed so close to the cockpit (missing the lure) that we both got splashed. I think the record height was 10 feet, and one guy leapt in such a way that the stretch of the snubber pulled the line forward and his height allowed the snubber loop to come off the cleat and it took the whole lot with it. The jumping must have happened 8 or 9 times over the course of a couple of days before KT finally got out the video camera and used a rail mount I made her to film our wake. I guess a filmed wahoo never jumps, as all jumping ceased the minute the camera came out! We froze 7.5 feet of Wahoo, about 25 meals for the both of us, and threw back about twice that much.

Now KT wanted a tuna for sashimi. The problem was that I was already running my lures tweaked for tuna not wahoo. Everything I had read about wahoo said they like to hit fast lures, running deep. Well I was running surface action lures at 4-5 knots and they were loving it, leaping at them. The problem with Wahoo is they kill your lure; the teeth are so sharp they tear the skirt to bits. It got so funny that I would re-skirt a lure, we would guess how long till it caught a fish (20-40 minutes) and I would show KT what was left after the attack; usually just the head of the lure. It got to the point that I would just throw out the ratty lure and they would still hit it. The tuna we finally caught was on a tired lure with only a couple of strands of the skirt left over green glow beads. Oh well.
Sitting in Darwin it is nice to be able to dig into the freezer for a great Wahoo dinner (it freezes well) and I've even started to try and make jerky. The problem is I can't seem to keep any. I "test" its progress usually with nothing making it below decks for more than an hour. We'll keep you posted on our success.
Continue reading "Wahoo up the Wazoo"...

Weather Blues

Current Location: Cape Greenville (Margaret Bay), Australia
Current Position: 11º57.45' S 143º12.38' E
Next Destination: Escape River, AU (en route to Darwin)



Weather. Sometimes I think it should be a four-letter word. I never used to feel that way. Actually, I never really paid much attention one-way or the other. Perhaps that’s because I grew up in Arizona and Southern California – extremely temperate climates. Okay, maybe it gets a wee-bit hot in Arizona, but it’s a dry heat (at least that’s one everyone always says to discount 120 F)!!! Well, let me tell you, there is no dismissing the weather when you are cruising. It seems that we live and breathe it. I honestly can’t recall a single day where we haven’t discussed the weather at least once! It’s crazy how much it affects our lives. The weather determines the “if, when, where”, and sometimes the “why” for us. It determines how long it takes us to get somewhere, and most the time how long we stay at a locale. It also has an extremely strong impact on our opinion of a place. Whenever we get feedback from other cruisers, we have to always ask, “What kind of weather did you have?” It’s amazing how an opinion of the same anchorage/island/port can vary from cruiser to cruiser -- and almost always it’s due to the weather. One group might experience island exploring on sunny days with flat calm nights. Three days later a different group might be in the same spot when the wind picks up, and BAM the anchorage is a rolling nightmare and the rain keeps them from going ashore. Ask, “did you like it” and you’ll get two hugely different takes on the place. It can be frustrating being so dependant on something that we have no control of, and worse, is terribly difficult to accurately predict.

Since cruising it seems that we may have also become a bit wimpy in our tolerance of weather ‘extremes’. We bitch that it’s freezing, donning on our entire fleece wardrobe and digging out the blankets, only to find that the temperature barely dipped below 70 F! Try calling home to the east coast family and complaining about the cold weather when they are buried under 10 feet of snow – you don’t get much sympathy! In our defense, you should know that in Darwin the crocodiles are starving because it’s to ‘cold’ for them to digest their food (now go to weather.com and see just how un-cold it is in Darwin). My favorite thing to point out when complaining about the cold is that we are supposed to be in the tropics, however that doesn’t stop me from whining when the weather turns hot! Then we find ourselves lethargically lying in the cockpit, unable to function for fear of melting (and the temperature no where near the west coast family’s 120F). Oh, and don’t even get me started on rain. So okay, perhaps it’s a bit true that we have become wimpish with the respect to the weather. But I don’t think we are as bad as it might sound. As I continuously point out to Chris, we are exposed to the elements. It’s not like living in a house or driving around in a car. We can’t just turn on the heat or air and wait a few minutes. There is no reprieve. Rain doesn’t make for a cozy day reading a book, it makes for a wet, soggy cockpit (and sometimes severe cases of cabin-fever), and god-forbid you have to actually be sailing while it’s raining … how fun do you think it is to sit watch soaking wet?

Since Great Kepple Island (back around May 7th), the weather has dominated our lives more so than normal. In those seven weeks, I honestly think we’ve had less than twelve sunny days (and that’s counting the partly sunny one’s as well). Our tans are fading under the thick layer of clouds that seem to continuously move overhead. The last two weeks (at least) have been wet, sometimes pouring down, sometimes thick layers of mist, both of which ruin visibility. It’s gotten so bad, that if either us sees even the tiniest patch of blue, we start jumping up and down, screaming, “Blue, Blue, Blue”! The wind taunts us by dying one day and blowing 20-30 kts the next (although truth be told, we’ve had more windy days than not). One day we covered 83 nautical miles, averaging over 7kts (boat speed), while the next we barely made 50 n.m., averaging 5.1kts, just making the anchorage by sunset. It’s frustrating, and sometimes depressing, but, as Chris pointed out to me the other day, it could be worse -- we could be working!!!

UPDATE: We actually wrote the above BLOG on June 27th, but for one reason or another we didn’t get around to posting it until today (July 5th). As we want to keep the BLOGs “in the moment”, we didn’t want to re-write or change the above … instead here is a brief update. Since the 27th, we have traveled around the top of Australia and are now in Darwin, having arrived July 4th. Amazingly enough we’ve had at least a bit (and sometimes a full sky) of sun during those 7 days! We are thrilled (and of course happy). The wind was still been fluky (shifting and varying in strength), turning our usual lazy day sails into “work”, albeit this type of work has a terrific pay off! Funny though, yesterday as we were walking about, Chris said to me, “Damn it’s hot here”!
Continue reading "Weather Blues"...

Bad Day for Fishing

Current Location: Cairns, Australia
Current Position: 16º54.83' S 145º47.25' E
Next Destination: Lizard Island (Home of the 1000+ Kg Black Marlins)



We haven't had the best of luck fishing in Australia; it's not like in the Pacific islands where every trip yields a nice dinner or fresh fish taco lunch. KT calls it the curse of the freezer; We bought an Engel 12 volt freezer to keep our extra fish, and ever since then we haven't had any extra!! The only frozen fish we have is some bait for our crab traps, and that is really just a place holder to keep it from being filled with all things non-fish.

It's not like we haven't been trying. Every trip I immediately put out a couple of lines and drag them right to the anchorage. All I seem to catch is seaweed, and as of the other day a boobie. Not THAT kind; the bird. Every time a see a Boobie bird it reminds me of a dodo, I mean really stupid. I know Darwin never saw these things when he was coming up with his survival of the fittest theory, either that or I would hate to see how stupid the unfit boobies act. We were sailing along, relaxing in our new beanbag chairs, when I noticed these birds hovering around the back of the boat where the lures are. They keep circling and circling checking out the lures (at least something was interested). All of the sudden they both start diving at them and missing.. diving and missing!! By now we were yelling at them trying to scare them away, this only seemed to encourage the attempts. Finally I hooked one.. damn!! He's flopping all over getting dragged behind the boat at about 4 knots. Well now the other one is jealous and starts diving at the lure 10 feet up the line from where his buddy is getting rolled through the wake.

So I start reeling him in faster (so he doesn't drown) and his friend is still diving away, seemingly unaware that the two things are related.. maybe he thought his friend was doing a happy dance about his new food and he really wanted some too. I finally got the boobie up on the swim step, I couldn't have hooked him better if I tried.. right in the middle of the beak. I had to hold him down while he was flopping around; I mean this guy was moving more than a 50 lb Tuna. And wings; they REALLY get in the way sometimes. I finally released him and he flopped back into the air to join his buddy for a little in flight conversation; like gee Bill "What was that all about?". What ever they shared it wasn't anything to do with Darwin's theory; because the other one broke flight and came back for more. I don't know maybe they thought it was fun; but if they can't catch a lure one the surface at 4 knots I don't know how they survive.

That was how the day started!! We sailed through the night and as we were pulling into anchor at 4am I pulled in the hand lines but I waited until later to pull in our rail reel (it makes noise and I didn't want to wake up KT). Well later never came. I started the engine, took down the sails and finally woke KT for the final anchoring phase. I'm at the bow when I hear this screaming for help. The 150lb test line had gotten wrapped in the prop and was screaming off the reel. YIKES!! One problem about waking KT up for a quick thing, is KT doesn't really wake up quickly. She thought she had put the boat into neutral but it was still in reverse adding more line to the prop.

Did I mention this is Croc country and most beaches have shark nets off of them; oh and jelly fish that will kill you!! I kept thinking that I didn't REALLY need to get in the water, I could look off the transom and check it out from there. The water was so murky you couldn't see the prop, or the bottom of the rudder for that matter. I tried to use a boat hook to get something off of it and the first time I got my lure back.. but it was a mess; I had to get in the water. So I donned my light wetsuit; not the most flattering piece of apparel I own but I figured that would keep the jelly fish at bay. I had KT stand on the back with a spear pole, as if that would help against a 10m Croc. I had to get inches away from the prop to see it; and it was a mess. There was a huge ball of line wrapped right in front of our feather prop blades (I'm not sure we could have move forward), and it was bar tight. I tried to cut it with a knife and it just broke off. After a couple of dives I got most of it and just had to clean up the prop shaft. It was then that I noticed it had also walked its way up the shaft, into the hull and started rubbing on the hull from the inside. Luckily it was melting (and not ripping the hull apart) but now I had a melted ball of fishing line in a very tight space in the hull pretty far under water. I had to get out the hookah hose (air hose with a pump and regulator) and go to work for a while.. in murky croc/shark invested waters. While I was under the hull I sort of mounted the prop shaft and propeller, figuring that I didn't want to leave any dangling bits for somethings breakfast. I finally cleared all the tangles and we were free to go.. I had survived, the boat was ok, but my only catches for the day were a boobie and a prop!!

So that was our worst day of fishing but we've had bad luck since we left Bundaberg coming north. One day I took my 15 foot surf casting rod into the dinghy (10 feet) and went to do a little fishing. I finally hooked into a nice dog tooth tuna (my Favorite), but I couldn't figure out how to get the fish in the dinghy with the reel out the front of the dinghy and the fish out the back. He finally got off.. uggh!! North of Percy Isle there were HUGE schools of tuna running but every time we got close they went deep or disappeared. I finally had some luck in Scawfell. I took the dinghy to the point and on the second cast (small pole this time) the water erupted into a splash of whitewater the size of the dinghy.. snap line gone.. like it was cut. I threw in my trolling hand lines and immediately caught a spotted mackerel and got it into the boat (finally dinner). As I was getting ready to head back to the boat, to finally show I haven't lost my touch, I noticed a large school of tuna in the channel. I headed out did a wide loop and whammo.. got something on one of the hand lines. I put the dinghy in neutral and it immediately started getting pulled backwards like in the movie jaws. I started hauling it in when whatever it was decided it had had enough and took off; snapping the 400lb test line like a piece of thread!! Hey a least I had something and I wasn't shut out.

The following day, after a night evening meal of fish curry, we headed out into the schools of tuna again. This time we circled outside and let them swim into the lines. We caught our first one on the first pass.. nice size and hey we had a freezer, so we went back for more. We caught a second one and as I went to gaff it, I dropped the gaff into the water.. and to our amazement it floated. Now the fire drill began.. get the gaff before it sinks. I quickly threw the fish in our fish bag and hauled in all the lures (we had three lines with five lures). Then we tried to back up to the floating gaff. Just when we would get close it would drift off. Ten embarrassing minutes later it was finally on board. I'm glad we saved two tuna; after cutting open the first its meat was littered with small little white pearl balls. I thought it was a parasite so we didn't keep that one. But the Sashimi from the other we had was wonderful.

Now, we are getting ready to head north into the Black Marlin breeding area. I bought a rail reel just so I can see a Marlin tail walk. When we catch them on the hand line then don't put on acrobatic displays. They pop to the surface and swim just under it, or they snap the line. Anyway hopefully we'll be able to feed ourselves and with a little luck get some good video of a Marlin. Keep your fingers crossed!! I don't want another day of Boobies and Props!!

To see what we've been catching check out our catch log here.

Continue reading "Bad Day for Fishing"...

Driving in Australia

Current Location: Whitsunday Islands, Australia

Next Destination: Townsville, Australia

After 16,000km of driving in New Zealand I have no problem driving on the right side (i.e. wrong) of the road. In fact it feels a little strange driving on the left side now. Australia is a HUGE country (same size as the 48 states) and there is no way we could drive the entire thing during our land travel segment. First, the weather doesn't cooperate; there are cyclones to the north with flooding inland that makes it almost impossible to get to certain places. Then there are the droughts to the south. I guess the expression "when it rains it pours" was invented here, because a lot of the major roads have water markers to help drivers determine the depth of flooding even though the drought is in its fifth year. Most SUV's (called UTEs here) have snorkels which go up to the roof at the side of the windshield. This allows drivers to "keep on trucking" right through the flooded sections. The drought is so bad, at one place we stayed they touted waterfront camping sites, even though they were now about a 1/2 mile away from the edge of the reservoir.

You'd think a country the size of Australia, with all the major roads, could agree on a few standards. In Australia, state pride is a HUGE thing. So big you wonder if the state governments ever talk to each other. In the past, this competitive spirit has caused a lot of problems, like incompatible rail road track gauges which required cargo to be off loaded and reloaded at the state borders because one states trains couldn't operate on the other states "inferior" track design. As a tourist it can be rather frustrating trying to navigate around a country where you don't know the exact direction and name of every town. On major freeways you'd think they would mark North, South, East, West like in the states or at least put the next MAJOR city down that road (hey Sydney this way - Brisbane that way). No that would be much too easy; they want to make it a challenge!! It seems as if the sign designers looked at the map and chose the smallest non-bold font name and put that town on the sign. Not only do you have to scan the map in ever expanding circles from your current known location, you have to check EVERY town no matter how small, and then expand your search to include towns that are not even located on the same freeway. It's like heading south from Massachusetts towards Florida, but the sign only says "Grand Canyon"; because in 200 miles you COULD head west towards Arizona and actually get there. The signs just don't help you figure out what you'll find if you don't turn west and actually continue south.

There is one saving grace however; Australians have a thing for roundabouts (rotaries). I imagine some road designer realized it served multiple purposes, 1) no "crazy" intersections with things called lights or stop signs, 2) gives the driver multiple choices, 3) slows them down a wee bit, and my favorite (and most frequently used) .. 4) gives the unsuspecting tourist driver a place to "park it" (e.g. drive in circles) while evaluating the various options, multiple times, all while completely wearing out the left side tires. Rental cars must have to rotate tires every time they go out. I don't know how many times we circled roundabouts while I shouted out strange Aboriginal names and sign details while KT furiously scanned the map looking for some unpronounceable name. The first pass allows you to get the names sort of correct, additional passes provide map scanning time until the name is found and you determine that, "No you don't want that one". I think our record is five complete revolutions, and then we took the wrong exit anyway because people were starting to stare. It's ok because just down the road is another roundabout, you can almost count on it; that is unless you really need one!! If you want to practice go to the fair and ride the spinning tea cup rides for kids and try scanning a map. Maybe lights and stop signs are more expensive here and asphalt or concrete is subsidized, who knows.

The other thing that gets my goat is the position of the signage. Do you put the sign before the exit, at the exit past the road but still viewable, or up the road a bit with a left turn arrow in front of a smaller road? Yet another thing they don't seem to be able to agree upon. More than once we either turned too soon and ended up on the wrong small road or went flying past the exit because it was marked inconsistently. Sydney was the worst. We figured it should be pretty easy to follow the signs to the airport which happened to be right in the direction we were heading. The airport; you know the place where almost EVERY tourist needs to get to. They DO have the international airport sign, which we chose to follow. It started out fine, albeit crazy, as if you know you're supposed to be in the far right lane and turn at the NEXT intersection without any help from a sign. After a couple of cut offs and angry drivers later (they must take their training in Boston), we finally got off the freeway onto another and whammo the signage was gone. We went down the road violently scanning every sign until I happened to notice one behind us. We "flipped a bitch" (initiated a U-turn) and we were back on track again. Then we got a choice, Airport toll road or standard route. Being the cheap a@@ cruisers we are we took the standard route.. right over the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Well I knew this was wrong because we were now headed north instead of south. So we got off and turned around, paid our bridge toll and proceeded back towards the airport. This time we had five lanes of traffic to race across as the airport sign suggested we take the next exit (at the exit ramp). A couple more crazy turns and we were right back at our original turn-off. This gave us a chance to evaluate the signs, and determine that we were not insane; however the city planner or sign guy had obviously never been to the airport. I finally noticed an airport shuttle van and pulled in behind it like a sled dog following its leader and finally made it past the airport.

The scenery is amazing and varied but the most interesting side effect is driving amongst the wild life. Kangaroos and Wallabies are cute but some of the big Red Kangaroos are HUGE, with arms the size of my legs standing six feet tall. They have this incredible knack for standing right on the side of the road. I guess that is where the best grass must be. When they move it's usually right before you get there and then "boing boing" like a pin ball in a machine seemingly changing directions in mid-air. You never quite know where they're going to end up next. Luckily we never hit one but we've heard LOTs of stories and saw plenty of road kill. I don't think Aussies even slow down anymore. Once we were driving down some out of the way freeway frequented by logging trucks. I thought a tree branch had fallen off the back of a truck until it started moving. It was a HUGE lizard that took up the entire lane.

We survived our trek from Brisbane down the coast to Melbourne, our drive around Tasmania, and the trek back from Sydney to Mooloolaba. Would we do it again? .. in a second. You just have to adapt to the conditions and learn to use the roundabouts for a holding pattern. Oh and don't try to correctly pronounce the Aboriginal names until the navigator actually finds them on the map.

Continue reading "Driving in Australia"...

The Forth Season Begins

Current Location: Great Keppel Island, Australia
Current Position: 23.159º S 150.955º E
Next Destination: Brampton Island / Whitsunday Coast

No, we didn't sail off the edge of the world. We have just been extremely lame in regards to keeping up with the BLOG. It all started with our land travels – we just couldn't be bothered with finding an Internet cafe while trekking along the east coast from Brisbane to Melbourne and exploring Tasmania. (Sorry I won't be covering that journey in this BLOG – you'll have to visit our website) After we finished up our land travels we just seemed to have too much 'work' to do. Now, I know you are thinking what 'work' could two unemployed people on permanent 'vacation' possibly have – but really there is much to do after leaving the boat for six weeks. On top of that we both got new (really used but new to us) computers, and so there was tons of file transfers and OS setups, etc etc. Sure, I could've written a BLOG during that period, but really, did you come to a travel BLOG to read about the best way to optimize your XP environment? I think not.

For those loyal fans (ha ha) out there, you are in luck – we are cruising again. Which in theory means that our BLOGs will become more consistent, and hopefully a bit more entertaining too. After ten weeks of living the land life (to which we owe extreme thanks to Mark, Anne, Georgia & Jack, who gave Billabong a safe home during this period), we are back on the 'road' again. We are attempting to high-tail it to the Whitsundays, but so far we aren't moving too fast thanks to some crappy weather we are waiting out. It's blowing 30 knots and we have 15 foot tides to deal with so the wind against tide can make things very uncomfortable if we don't get it right. In the week since we left we did manage to get as far as Great Keppel Island. It's a terrific island but the anchorage is extremely rolly. We'd move, but there is nowhere nearby to move to (huge bummer). So instead we are holed up here waiting for better weather so that we can get on with it. Luckily there are worst places we could be stuck. Keppel Islands has quite a few hikes and terrific beaches, so when we get fed up with the rolling, there are at least some things to entertain us ashore. Yesterday we enjoyed a terrific four-hour hike around half the island, with some great look out points and a visit to the

nearby resort. Our departure from Mooloolaba on April 30th marked the beginning of our fourth year cruising. Seems crazy to think it's been that long since we left the States – for us it has gone by like the blink of an eye. This will be an exciting year for us as we make our way North to Darwin (Australia), and then on through Indonesia to Thailand. We will miss the South Pacific, but are excited for what lies ahead.

Continue reading "The Forth Season Begins"...