Wind NE 10 – 15 Sunny Meg’s Birthday 23 nm
This morning the reef looked grey and unimpressive but as the sun rose higher the reef started to gain some colour. We pulled the anchor at 9:30 and headed out and sailed a good angle on a course of 255° to the Low Isles which are just NE of Port Douglas.
Both the screecher and main were up when we had a fish on, so we had to turn downwind and furl the screecher while John pulled the fish in. Lucky we had a few more sailors on board to help. This time a 12 lb yellow finned tuna came onboard so John bled it, cut it up and pickled some of it for sashimi for lunch.
Not long after a 7lb shark mackerel was hooked up and Doug reeled it in but we already had plenty of fish so we let it go.
Half an hour later another fish was on, it took a while for John to reel it in as we didn’t want to lose this one. It was a very decent sized Spanish Mackeral about 20 lbs, his second favourite fish. Looks like Mackeral for the next few meals.
The sail across was very pleasant averaging 7 knts almost on a reach.
We reached the Low Isles about 1:00 and sat down to Tuna sashimi. John used the pickled onion juice, soy sauce, dill and some other secret ingredients to marinate the raw tuna resulting in very mouth watering pieces.
Several bat fish had greeted us on arrival and were milling round the transoms looking for scraps with quite a few remoras and several black tip reef sharks. Sandra had fun feeding them fresh tuna scraps but she had to be careful of the sharks as they came right up next to the boat. We were hoping Morgan wouldn’t fall in as she was getting very excited.
After lunch, Sandra Doug and I climbed into the dinghy and went for an explore on the island.
The Low Isles are a group of three islands all very small with a lighthouse dominating the main island . They are classified Marine Park so Morgan wasn’t allowed ashore. We strolled along the short sandy track around the island which took all of 15 minutes and back out onto the beach.
The houses of the lighthouse keeper and his assistant have been well maintained over the years and now are used for accommodation by marine park staff.
The Low Isles are a popular tourist destination as they are only 8 nautical miles from Port Douglas so several large sailing charter boats had anchored in the lagoon and disgorged their passengers for a snorkelling trip. With noodles under their arms they listened patiently to their instructor on the finer arts of snorkelling.
Later in the afternoon Sandra Doug and I put the paddle board in and took trips to the other island The coral was uninteresting and there weren’t many fish to see. Sandra saw a few whiting in the shallows.
John cooked an excellent Thai fish curry from scratch ( or should I say from a mixture of ingredients) but it was too hot for my lips that seem to be permanently sore from the sun these days. What little I could eat tasty great.