Up anchor at 7:30 for what most likely would be a slow day of mostly motoring into the little wind forecast. There was a slight swell to start the day but as the day grew longer the ocean was a flat as a shit carters hat or so the saying goes. ( Cant speak from experience as when we were kids in the south of Sydney our shit carter never wore a hat).
Conditions were calm, at one stage we had a sea fog for a while,felt like something out of Pirates of the Carribean.
Nothing to report until about 10 am when a Mackeral Tuna grabbed the the trolling lure. John reeled it in and took a couple of fillets off it for bait. We kept the carcass for the next crabbing trip.
We had to head out on a bearing of 355° to avoid the Talisman Sabre Exersise, the military exclusion zone. Talisman Sabre is conducted biannually. Traditionally it was a training activity between the Australian defence force and the USA, however over the years it has got bigger and this year 13 nations including forces from Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Korea, Tonga and the United Kingdom, participate in high-end warfighting across sea, land, air, cyber and space. 2023 is the largest exercise Talisman Sabre, it involves more than 30,000 military personnel deploying across Queensland, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales.
The exclusion areas up the coast of Queensland are designated for certain dates and we are not allowed to sail in thes areas. We were advised that live firing activities will be conducted in the area from the 17th June to the 10th July.
Luckily this time they have left a couple of safe harbours where they won’t bomb us and where we can’t see whats going on in their war games.
It wasnt too much out of our way just a dog leg around the exclusion zone. According to the Notice to Mariners if we go inside the exclusion zone we will be prosecuted. We kept an eye out but didn’t see any military vessels,however just when we anchored at Port Clinton three large helicopters flew over.
The trip was fairly uneventful for the rest of the day with the jib and motors pushing us towards our destination. Towards the afternoon we found a litle wind and managed 5 knts. We were even able to have a conversation with Nyeki at one stage.
Arriving at Port Clinton we dropped the anchor in 3.7 metres water on the northern bay near Perforated Point.
John and I lowered the dinghy and headed along the rocky outcrops at the end of the beach to fish, We were using the Tuna Mac for bait and pulled in a long finned cod, not quite large enough to keep. Jenny caught another decent size cod a blue tuskfish and a Spanish flag which we took home for dinner. The fishing was very entertaining with one of us pulling in fish every few minutes.
One good thing about Port Clinton is beacause its in the Shaolwater Bay military area no roads lead to it so the area is not all fished out.
Blue Tuskfish
Back on Ovive it was fish in lime pepper sauce cooked by John and fried potatoes with grapefruit salad. We couldn’t get any TV reception for John to watch the cricket so he listened to it on his transistor radio.
Nyeki and Eva Louise are leaving early in the morning and heading for Hexham Island. We have decided to stay and and try some more fishing.
After dinner we changed our mind as we’d had a good afternoon of fishing and decided to follow the others north.
Eva Louise at dusk