Goodbye Whitsundays - Hello Mr. Marlin

Our time in the Whitsundays was coming to a close as our plans had us traveling north to Cairns to leave the boat for cyclone season.  We decided to spend our final time back on the Great Barrier Reef to enjoy a few days of snorkeling/diving.  We stopped back in the well-protected Butterfly Bay and noticed our friends Sv Jams on AIS (a ship locating system) anchored in the next bay.  We contacted them by radio and soon we were aboard enjoying a chuckle and a cold beverage.  As the evening wore on we learned of their plans to sail to Indonesia.  It didn’t seem to take long before the planting of that idea caught our imagination. Murray and Carol were heading back to the mainland to pick up friends but as they sailed away our minds were almost made up to change our plans from spending cyclone season in Cairns...to sailing on to Indonesia...we had spent almost a year in the Land Down Unda...maybe it was time to move on.
 

With new plans in our heads...we headed north to Hook Reef in hopes of finding better coral conditions on the Reef.  We spent a couple of days in a rolly anchorage and were disappointed with the lack of marine life and the overall state of the reef which was also badly bleached.  Despite finding pockets of life it is not abundant and in our opinion, it will be many years before the once Great Barrier Reef is great again.  

We were now thinking seriously about sailing to Indonesia and what needed to be done to facilitate this change in plans.  If this was going to happen, we needed to pick up the pace and plan to be leaving Australia before Nov...instead of arriving in Cairns in November...time to make some tracks.  We left Hook reef and enjoyed one of the first really pleasant sails we had had since arriving in Australia.  We found a soft water anchorage on the back side to Gloucester and dropped the hook.  Early next morning we were off again...sailing north with the wind going our way.
  As is the case, whenever we are sailing, we are trailing a couple of hooks in hope of catching a wee bounty from the sea and a fresh meal.  Fishing for us in Australia was quite disappointing to date.  We saw no lack of fishing fleets and had to avoid more traps and floats than we could count...but caught very few fish.  However, this day was to be a day to remember.  Around mid-morning one of our hooks took off and started spooling fast.  It is always a dream to catch the ‘big fish’, but in reality, all we are hoping for is a nice 10lb mackerel, or wahoo or tuna.  We were not even in deep water in fact less than a 100 ft so any of those fish would be likely.  What we didn’t expect is what we finally saw jumping at the end of our line. 

From the distance when a big fish breaks and leaps skyward…it seems that time stops and as the sun reflects of the shiny blue/black silvery skin it can almost take your breath away…and when you see a spear and huge dorsal sail and a tail that is going wild…you know the fun is about to begin.  Your worst fear is that this will be the ‘one that got away’.  I settled in as Kaija prepared herself with the gaff and harness to strap herself to the boat in the event the fish still had enough fight remaining to make her job difficult.  She is very adept with the gaff and if I do my job and get Mr. Fishy within striking distance of the stern, I can pretty much count on her getting a good hook into it and hoisting it aboard.  However, that applies to our normal catch of 10 to 15 lbs.  When Mr Fishy is a Black Marlin, weighing almost as much as Kaija and standing just as tall, well things are a wee bit different.  Lucky for us, I had allowed Mr. Marlin to play himself out and after almost 20 minutes he was pretty much spent and came the last few yards to the boat with little struggle.  Having said all that, when he was up close and personal and he had a 2 foot very sharp very pointy spear at the business end it was nonetheless intimidating.  To Kaija’s credit she got the gaff in smoothly and between us we managed to hoist our prized catch up onto the stern.  Now was the most dangerous time…as he was not happy having a double #9 hook in his left eye and I fully expected that in his final attempt at freedom he would give us a demonstration of just how powerful a 30 kilo fish can be.  Thankfully, he passed quietly and a few minutes later we were able to bring him safely aboard.   These are the times, when you are living your dream…sailing on a beautiful day, hooking and landing a beautiful catch…and enjoying the bounty of the sea in this spectacular setting.  It is not always like this, but when it is…it sure is fantastic.