Coral Bay
We arrived at the picturesque yet small town of Coral Bay, and we joined the queue of about a dozen other vans waiting to check in, lucky we booked. After we set up camp, and waited for the oldies (Mum, Peter, Lorraine and Crazy Graeme to arrive) we headed off down the beach. We waded in the shallow water while two stingrays were swimming around us – very cool. Then Andy and Charlotte were off snorkelling again, and Will and I opted for some quite time on the beach, more hide and seek with the cars (we didn’t have to sacrifice one this time). After a quick last minute dash to arrange something for Fathers Day (funnily not much to chose from in Coral Bay), our travelling friends were kind enough to put on a roast dinner for us.
This morning I got up to go for a run, and was back in 10 minutes, yep the road leads to nowhere and the tide was in so I couldn’t get around the corner to run on the beach, Andy attempted after me opting to go the other direction, and I think was back in 15 minutes. I cooked up pancakes for Fathers Day breakfast, which were a hit. It was a little windy and overcast today, so we didn’t head to the beach, but took the kids to the pool, the water was incredibly warm, I think the first warm pool that we have encountered on our trip!!! Andy spent the afternoon checking out fishing charters and deciding which one to try his luck on the following day.
Andy also went for a quick fish down at Maud’s landing with Peter just to make sure that Glenn’s surf rod wasn’t broken and came back with a couple of Trevally (and a very dejected Peter who once again caught nothing!!)
Andy was up and gone by 7.30, so the kids and I had a quite morning, Charlotte did some school work and I made some calls that needed to be made, then we headed back to the pool, I think the kids loved the warm water, and weren’t interested in going to the beach anymore!!! After some lunch it was time to hit the park for a while, then it babysitting time for Nana while I went to a much needed Beauty Therapy session. When I returned the kids weren’t to be found, but I could see Andy had returned, so I thought I would wander down to the beach to see if I could find them. There was a lot of commotion near the beach shelter area so I went to have a sticky beak – there were tubs and tubs of fish, I thought perhaps it was a market – but no it was the fishing charter Andy had been on. Well he was like a kid in a candy store – proudly showing me his tub of fish, which included a rather large red emperor!! He said he also hooked a sail fish, but it got away (ah yes the elusive one that got away). He had a very successful day, they bagged out, Andy caught 11 fish, although could only keep 7. Once we had them all back at the camp we divided them all up between us and the McCallums and Elliotts. There was so much fish that it feed all 8 of us for dinner that night, plus there was enough for another 2 feeds for each family. The feed was delicious that night, we just got some chips to accompany the fish, and there was not a scrap of food left.
Andy added – Thought I better mention a thing or two about the fishing charter....it was awesome. 20 nautical miles off shore, 116 fish caught in 3 hours (so we had to head back in early). We were fishing in 120 metres of water and ever cast caught at least one fish (2 hooks per line....pulling 2 fish up from 120 metres tires you out. We also saw a marlin jumping out of the water a few times after it got caught in our lines under the boat, and then a humpback whale also put on a performance on the way back in. I was extremely pleased with the trip, but would have loved to have landed the sail fish....will have to come back next year!
Off to Carnarvon tomorrow.
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