Wind 15 – 20 SE . Sunny   12 nm

The alarm woke us up at six, as we wanted to make sure we caught the bar on the high tide, which according to the Qld tide booklet was at 6:45. By the time we crossed through the river entrance we could see the tide chart was out as the tide had already been ebbing for at least half an hour. We stayed on the same track as yesterday but there appeared to be more breaking waves on either side of us. Some of it probably wind against tide. The depth below the keel got down to .2 again for quite a while but then it gradually got deeper again. If we go up the river in the future we need to go when the tide is higher than a 2.3 high tide. If we had run aground this time we would have to wait 12 hours until the top of the next tide.

A celebration was called for so we splurged with a cup of tea and an apple as we sailed towards the Hope isles . With the jib up we averaged six knots. not bad , arriving at East Hope island at 9:30.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reef around the islands was difficult to see as the sun had not risen far enough in the sky so we took it very steady with me standing on the pullpit scanning the changes in water colour. As we arrived a boat was departing one of the two mooring buoys so we hooked up to the buoy rather than drop anchor on an unknown bottom.

Breakfast was better late than never, we cooked up a feast of bacon, sausages, fried potato and baked beans ( a real pommie breaky), followed by a short nap before exploring the island.

The crew from Cosmos, a Lagoon 380 ( Mick and Lauren) told us there was a  three metre crocodile spotted on the island yesterday so we stayed away from the vegetation and kept a wary eye on the beach. Morgan was disappointed as she wanted to chase fish in the shallows but her mum wouldn’t let her get too far ahead.

East Hope island is a small island covering about 2 acres so it didn’t take long to circumnavigate it. John took the gaff with him, just in case we met up with the big lizard. Of course every log, set of rocks or dark shape in the water put the wind up us for a while but luckily we didn’t see it. I’m not sure how he hoped to fend off a croc with a gaff.

As the tide was low the coral was exposed so we walked among the various coral formations looking at clams, shells and all manner of unidentifiable living organisms.

Back on O’vive we prepared for a fishing expedition with bait and lures. We unsuccessfully towed a lure right round the edges of the closest reef hoping for a coral trout. Time to bait fish. We chose a spot on the edge of the drop off and after a period of waiting, a school of sweetlip arrived and then we had a very frantic hour.

As soon as the bait got to the bottom a fish took it. We pulled in fish after fish, mostly sweetlip but the odd grass sweetlip, tusk fish, small cod, red emporer and spanish flag. We kept eight good size sweetlip and returned to O’vive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John filleted the fish on the port transom throwing the skeletons overboard. About ten reef sharks arrived competing aggressively for the scraps, one even head butting the transom trying to get a feed. Morgan was fascinated, though we couldn’t let her close to the water in case she fell in.

Needless to say we had sweetlip  for dinner cooked in a ginger, shallot sauce with baby potatoes and salad. The flesh of the grass sweetlip was firm and white and they say its comparable to coral trout. It was very delicious.