Todays weather forecast was for sunny skies and a nor easter so no good for heading in the direction we needed to go. The night was uncomfortable with a swell rolling into the bay, I was feeling a little green. We thought if we up anchored and headed round to the south of the island to Rescue Bay, conditions might be calmer. It was only a half hour sail, even so we put the lure out but weren’t lucky.

We anchored in about 7 metres of water just before we got to the coral. As I lowered the anchor, the chain jumped off the gypsy and all 50 metres ran out with its own weight until it got to the rope which luckily caught on the feeder ring inside the chain box.  All our chain was sitting on the bottom, luckily we hadn’t anchored too close to the coral or we may had had trouble. We manually hauled up the first few metres and settled it back onto the gypsy and brought it up. I am not sure why it jumped of in the first place but it was a bit scary watching it roll off into the depths on its own with no way of stopping it.

This anchorage was calmer than around the other side. John got out his trolling lure and after taking Morgan and I ashore went for a troll along the edge of the coral hoping to catch a trout. He said he had a couple of hits but no luck.

The beach was beautiful with crystal clear water and only Eva Louise and Nyeki crew. Wayne was cast netting for live bait but he only managed to trap 3 hardy heads as the mullet kept eluding him. It didn’t help that Morgan kept following him in the shallows and scaring them away.

When Wayne sat his bucket on the sand Morgan was fascinated and eventually grabbed a fish out of the bucket and tossed it around then left it on the sand. We fed it to Roxy who quickly devoured it.

Back on Ovive the temperature had risen and it was rather hot so I jumped off the back of the boat to cool down. The water was so refreshing and clear .

After drying off I attempted to catch some small squid that were hanging around the anchor chain. They weren’t interested in my squid jig and they were too small anyway.

Wayne went for a dive and speared two decent size coral trout. We were really lucky when he delivered a large fillet to us for dinner.

After downloading emails and text messages (better reception here) we headed back round to West Bay where we anchored and went ashore for the usual, happy hour. More yachts had arrived in the day so new faces, we caught up with Geoff of Swell who we last had dinner with in Rosslyn Bay.

Coral trout in panko breadcrumbs with salad for dinner whilke the real captain slept after a big day.

John got up at 1:30 am to listen to the cricket on his radio. He is dedicated to beating those poms.