Wind   SE  15 – 20 Sunny  30nm

John cooked us delicious omelettes on board before we dinghied to shore to send Martin and Ed further north on their holiday.

We bundled their luggage and the seven of us into the dinghy and motored ashore for a last coffee together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on Ovive we pulled the thermostat in the cold box out from behind the cooling fins and repositioned it elsewhere in the box in the hope that the pipes and unit would not freeze up anymore. It worked for a while but by the afternoon the pipes had started to freeze again so we had to defrost it as the fridge cant drop in temp as the compressor begins to short cycle. Guess we keep on experimenting.

 

 

Steve, Leanne, Morgan and I departed Magnetic at about 11:30  and just in the entrance to the bay a mother humpback and her calf were relaxing. They would come up and surface for a breath every few minutes then disappear. We turned the motors off and floated and watched them for a while, it was quite a treat for Steve and Leanne so early in the trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hauled up the main and unfurled the jib in the hope of having a good sail but the winds were not as forecast in our area so John turned on the starboard motor as well. Steve put the rods out and not far out of Horseshoe we hooked a fish. There was mad panic as the jib was furled, the port motor started, the other rod reeled in and we turned up into the wind while Steve struggled to pull the fish in. It was hooked in the back so we were lucky to get it in and when it got close we could see it was a large Spanish mackeral, Johns second favourite.. What a beauty!

There was a swell running up the back transom so it was quite a job for John and Steve to get it in without getting washed overboard however with Leanne yelling encouragement  and me steering and taking photos the fish was finally gaffed and secured onboard.

 

 

 

 

 

It took some time to fillet on the back transom with John feeling somewhat green around the gills by the time the job was finished. The mackeral was between 25 – 30 lbs. There was a lot of meat on the skeleton so we cooked it on the barbie for lunch. Beautiful.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful as we motor sailed past Palm island where John once drilled for a new dam. Palm is a very large granite based island with a sole indigenous population with a long difficult history. We anchored at 5:30 at Juno Bay off the northern end of Fantome Island just north of Palm in 10 metres of water.

We didn’t want to go further in due to to the coral bottom. John and I put the camera down and it seems we were anchored the bottom consists of sand and low lying coral outcrops. Stump fished while we cooked dinner but he only succeeded in catching a shark, red emporer and long finned cod, all too small. Dinner was a lovely piece of mackerel with  creamy pepper sauce, chat potatoes and salad before Leanne retired early and we played scrabble.