Day 4 – Tuesday 7th JANUARY
2020.
Steve had an
early start this morning. One of the
things he wanted to do last time we came to Norfolk Island was go out on a deep-sea
fishing charter, but the whole 10 days we were here last time the weather was
lousy and you couldn’t get out.
He was still
keen to do it again this time, so yesterday he rang the couple of fishing
charter companies to see if he could book on for one day this week. They offered for him to go out on Friday but
we had already booked to do the 4WD trek around the Island that day so in the
end he was able to book on a charter to go out this morning. He had to ring at 7am this morning to see if
the weather was ring to go out, and also to find out what pier they would be
leaving from.
He rang at
7am and it was a goer, so he needed to be down at Cassade Pier within half an
hour by 7.30am. Ian decided to run him
down. I should have thought about it and ran down with them, so that I could
have taken a photo of him being lowered down into the water in the boat.
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| Launching the boat ready for a morning fishing... |
He beat the boat
down there and was the first on the pier.
Some of the others started arriving then, and finally Darren arrived
with the boat right on 7.30am. It took
exactly 8 minutes to launch the boat with everyone in it. (Ian was disappointed that he had forgotten
to take his phone down also, as he could have photographed it).
The boat was
lowered to the upper level of the pier so that they could just set onto the
boat through the gunnel gate and all 5 of them plus the skipper and his
offsider climbed aboard as well. All
seven were then lowered into the water where they unhooked the 3 six tonne
traps (these straps need to be renewed every year) and they were stored on
board and it was full throttle and out to sea.
It took
about 20-25minutes to head the 10kms out to sea where they stopped to start
fishing in about 30 metres of water.
The fishing rods were short and thick (heavy duty) with alvey
reels. The interesting thing for Steve
was the sinkers, which weren’t made of lead but rather black rocks of oval shaped
stone about the size of a baseball or softball.
They were actually just straight off the beach. Somehow, he had drilled a hole through the
off centre towards one end. There was no
casting in of the line, it was just dropped over the side of the boat (they
were warned not to bang the sinker against the inside or outside of the boat as
he didn’t want a crack in his boat or a chip in the paintwork of his boat)
Steve was
the first to catch a fish, a lovely big trumpeter, commonly known in Australia as a sweet lip. A really delicious fish. He also caught lots of coral trout and some
scorpion cod, but these ones weren’t worth keeping, so mostly they had to be
chucked back into the sea.
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| One of the tubs of fish they caught |
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| The rest of the fish they caught.. |
Their were
five of them fishing and they probably fished for just over two and a half
hours and bought in two tubs of fish..
Steve thought this was the best kind of fishing, as Darren would take
the fish of their hooks as they caught them and rebait their lines… All they
had to do was drop the sinker and hook over the side of the boat and reel the
fish back in. It most of been good
fishing as he hardly had time to even drink a cup of tea and definitely didn’t
have time to eat morning tea… The cup of
tea was gulped down when ever Darren was taking a fish off his line and
rebaiting it for him.
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| Bringing the boat back in again after a morning of fishing... |
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| Loading the boat back onto the trailer.. |
They arrived
back at Cassade Pier just before 11am, where the boat was winched back up from
the sea and placed on the boat trailer,
a very quick and smooth process, all done in under 10 minutes. Darren and his offsider Marsh and another
lady (Steve thought she might have been Darren’s Mum) filleted the catch. They had a process for this also and had to
big tubs of fish all filleted in under an hour. The skeleton, heads and skins
all go overboard to feed the sharks and other fish swimming below. I was hoping to see all the sharks feeding
again today like we saw on Sunday, but there weren’t as many today.
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| They were already back in by the time we got back to the Pier.. |
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| The boat Steve went out on for his fishing expedition. |
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| One of the many fish Steve caught out on his fishing trip this morning... |
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| Very happy chappy... |
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| Not so good fish.... kept for bait... |
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| They had a great filleting process in place.. |
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| Waiting for the fish to be filleted... |
We arrived back at the Pier a little after 11am hoping to see them arrive back but they were already back, boat bought in and we then had to wait for the fish to be filleted. Steve was able to show me some of his catch though...
Whilst we were waiting for the fish to be filleted we watched a few other boats come in from a mornings fishing and bring their boats in. Watching this process never ceases to amaze us. Even the Aussie Boarder control guys were down there this morning also...
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| Boarder control guys were down at the pier this morning... |
Today we noticed that the "Wisdom Line" was moored on the other side of the island.... It moves amost daily depending on the wind and weather...
Steve ended
up coming home with a huge bag of filleted fish for us all to enjoy this week.
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| Pretty happy with his big bag of fillets..... made even better because he didn't actually have to fillet them... |
Meanwhile,
Ian, Kathy and I had a pretty lazy morning at home. We had to wait until almost 9.30am before we
were able to do anything anyway as Wayne, (the owner of our house) had
organised to drop in a picnic basket, esky and flash for us to use whilst we
stayed on the Island. Ian and Kathy enjoyed
reading, whilst I was happy to catch up on my journal writing and editing
photos. We left the house just before 10.45am to head down and watch Steve come
back in from his fishing trip. I was
hoping to get some photos of them being winched back up onto the pier, but we
were too late, they were already In and filleting fish by the time we got
there.
After
picking Steve up we headed back into Burnt Pine, where we picked up a couple of
bottles of wine from the Liquor Bond Store so that we could enjoy some cheese
crackers and wine at Anson Bay this afternoon where we planned to go and watch
the sun set.
We also
dropped into the supermarket, as we had a few things we needed to pick up. We also visited the bakery and picked up some
apple slices and bun loaf and carrot cake to enjoy whilst picnicking around the
island over the next couple of days.
Then it was back to our house for lunch.
The day has
been quite overcast and we were all a little tired, so we ended up laying down
for a sleep. It was only meant to be for
a half hour or so but I think we all slept for over two hours.
It was just
after 5pm when we all woke up (how on earth are we ever going to sleep
tonight)….
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| Admiring all the Norfolk Island bunting hanging from the trees |
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| Admiring the views |
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| Views from the board walk |
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| Captain Cook Memorial |
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| Hugging a tree |
We decided
to pack our new picnic basket up with cheese, wine and crackers. We also boiled the kettle and packed in the thermos
and headed off to explore Captain Cook Memorial. A lot of work has been done here since we
last visited the Island. There are
picnicing facilities, although with a toilet block and great board walk with
views up and down the coast. Stunning
view in pack. This area of coastline on
Norfolk is liken to the Great Ocean Road in Australia and is equally as
impressive. We decided that we were
definitely coming back here when the weather was better to get some decent
photos….
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| Beautiful Anson Bay |
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| Wine and Cheese on the clifftop whilst we watch the sun set over the water |
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| What a view |
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| So blessed and so thankful |
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| And just to finish the afternoon off with a good cup of tea... |
From here we
headed back to Anson Bay for or Wine and Cheese and to just sit, relax and take
in the beautiful surroundings whilst we watched the sun set over the ocean…. We
spent a good hour or more here just watching the waves roll in and smash
against the cliff edges, seeing the mini water fall cascade over the rocky
ledges in the surf below as the waves rolled in as we also admired the birds
that soared above and below us. Steve
also noticed a flock of birds riding the swells of the ocean just off
shore. This all added to the feelings of
peace and contentment we felt as we lingered here….
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| Such a beautiful evening.... blessed and thankful |
Buy the time
the sun set (7.55pm) and we packed up it was after 8.30pm by the time we
arrived home. We had planned on having
another fish meal for dinner tonight, but I think we were quite content with
the cheese and crackers that we had consumed earlier so decided to leave our
fish till another night….
Instead, we
put on the kettle, had a cuppa and then proceeded to have a game of five
crowns. Kathy was our winner, followed
by Ian, myself and then Steve.
Ian decided
to go to bed after that game, so Kathy, Steve and I played a round of
Bananagrams before we all retired for the evening…
Buy the time
the sun set (7.55pm) and we packed up it was after 8.30pm by the time we
arrived home. We had planned on having
another fish meal for dinner tonight, but I think we were quite content with
the cheese and crackers that we had consumed earlier so decided to leave our
fish till another night….
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