Wind   SE  15 – 20  Sunny slightly overcast  Low tide 19.01                    13  nautical miles

A bit of a change from  Wednesday night as a swell through the night kept us listening to various slapping noises and the sound of a humming in the topping lift as we had pulled it fairly tight. John cooked a mackerel and scallop mornay for breakfast which was absolutely delicious. We have been doing fairly well substituting rice flour instead of plain to cater for our gluten intolerant guest Leanne.

 

 

 

 

 

I paddle boarded across to some rubbish we could see floating to remove it from the water but as I got close I started to smell a rotten odour. On closer inspection ( not too close) it looked to be a very large amount of intestine bloated and gaseous from the heat. My legs started shaking as I imagined the mass with a school of sharks or a croc swimming below it so I didn’t get in real close. I’m guessing it was from a very large shark or a cow as there was quite a bit below the surface and although I could see into the water something heavier appeared to be anchoring the mass as it wasn’t drifting very fast.

I headed back to the safety of O’vive where we departed for Dunk.

We alternatively motored sailed with the jib and main up as the wind was mostly behind us.

Steve had the lures out and got bitten off once and caught the next 1.4 metre black tip reef shark which wore him out pulling it in. John wanted his lure back so they gaffed it in the soft part of its mouth and extricated the lure.

Surprisingly after being out of the water for 15 minutes, losing some teeth, having a large hole in his mouth and having a shot of vodka he took off like a shot when we dropped him back in the water.

Arriving at Dunk we hopped in the dinghy and went ashore to see how the rebuilding of the resort was progressing after cyclone Yasi had severely damaged the island in Feb 2011.

The resort and its surrounds were out of bounds however they do have a cafe open Fri, Sat and Sunday which we might check out tomorrow

I took Morgan for a play on the back beach as she isn’t allowed anywhere near the resort while John, Steve and Leanne went for a short walk as far as the airstrip and the no enter signs.

.We dinghied over to a cruiser Mac’s Pride who had invited us over for happy hour and yarned with them for a while. They had  a custom made stink boat about 45 ‘ which was nice but totally different from a sail boat, especially since it used 50 litres of diesel and hour.

Arriving back on Ovive to a very excited Morgan, John whipped up a huge batch of oyster kilpatrick which we ate for dinner along with some heated up venison stew. The last ashes test was on so John stayed up till 1:00 am watching it.