Boating in the Harbor (Harbour)

Harbor Bridge in the background and a huge tanker coming at us

The forecast for this past weekend was looking absolutely beautiful so Amy and I rented a boat and ventured out into the harbor in search of dinner.

It was a stunning day, warm and sunny and we proceeded from the boat pickup in Drummoyne to Balmoral in search of some live bait to entice some monster kingfish.

After this it was up Middle Harbor to enjoy the idyllic, tree-lined waterways.  We had a quick lunch up there and then off to North Head to catch the big one.

James calm, cool, and collected

The ladies hard at work

North Head, Manly is on the other side of this

The city, off in the distance

We anchored up at a promising spot and all the lines were dropped down.  The sounder at times could not keep up with the volume of fish that were swimming by, although none of them were interested in what we had to offer.  Still, it was a promising glimpse of conditions as the weather warms up even more.

The sounder, struggling to keep up with the school of bait fish below us

We had also brought along James and Debs and this turned out to be good planning on our part as Debs caught the only edible fish of the day.

Debs clutching victory

The fish did not look large enough in the last shot, here is a closeup

It was a massive flathead, around 57cm which we brought back to their new place in Dee Why and devoured as the exhaustion of having fun in the sun all day long finally set in.

We are really happy we discovered this boat rental place and look forward to using it several more times this summer.  Eventually, we will find that monster fish and make him/her pay.

Thailand Part 3: Sailing and Fishing Phuket

Our sailboat in the background, that is the dinghy on the left

We spent the last leg of our Thai adventure on the island of Phuket where we did day trips on a sail boat and fishing boat.


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The islands around Phuket are made of limestone which makes the water a milky green color and leads to some interesting caves and rock formations. We took a sailing trip among them for a closer look that took us through some of these cases to see the hidden lagoons and stalagtite/stalagmite formations within.

One of the cave entrances on the left

The islands are lush green and feature many sheet walls that plunge straight into the ocean at sharp angles.

The beautiful islands off of Phuket

It was a relaxing day on the boat with some napping and lounging between out island hopping.

Inside one of the caves. Alas, there was no treasure.

The next day we ventured out with Wahoo Fishing Tours for some game fishing. We motored out to Racha Noi and Racha Yoi islands and trolled around for a couple hours. The fishing has highly productive as each person on the charter pulled up a striped tuna each from the game chair, including 2 double (simultaneous) hookups.

Double hookup with Amy reeling in a monster from the game chair

The gracious crew cleaned these fish for our lunch and we enjoyed the freshest sashimi and tuna steaks imaginable along with some traditional Thai rice and chicken.

Striped Tuna - Sashimi doesn't get any fresher

After lunch we went for a quick swim and then trolled around for a couple more hours on calm seas and during a gorgeous day.

Summer Camping 2: Port Stephens

One Mile Beach. Beautiful.

Towards the end of summer, we decided to have another go at fishing up in the Port Stephens/Seal Rocks area after our last failed attempt. We ventured up on a Friday evening with James and Debs not far behind. The race was on.

We camped at the amazing One Mile Beach Holiday park:

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Like our last camp ground at Treachery, this had its own beach. Unlike the last camp ground, you could go into the water without worrying about being dragged out to sea.

We made the most of this, bodysurfing and swimming for hours both days. The waves were perfect, medium sized but powerful and cleanly breaking. I actually rode across the face of a wave for a short period in a barrel for the first time, this was sublime.

On saturday, after a breakfast of chocolate-bannana pancakes and bodysurfing, we ventured out on a fishing charter via Pacific Blue Charters out of Port Stevens.

Amy, fishing for all womankind

This was a large boat with a knowledgable crew of typical chauvanistic Aussie blokes running the operation. The general attitude was that we were lucky to have the opportunity for them to share their boat with us.

Once we got out to the fishing site, we got geared up. Apparently they couldn't tell Debs and Amy apart either, as they continually called both of them, "doll". Goodonya, mate.

Amy defied them by catching more fish than the other 8 people on the boat combined for a total of 6 teraglin, 1 rock cod, and 1 flathead. James, Debs, and I caught 3 other fish over the course of the day.

The teraglin was something new to us, we had never seen these fish before. They fought most similarly to jewfish, which we catch regularly in Sydney.

At one point, the crew shouted out to the rest of the boat, "whose girlfriend is that in the back corner, I bet you're not bringing her fishing again". The doll they were talking abiut was Amy.

Response, "Are you kidding, if she keeps catching fish, I am going to bring her every time!"

What victory looks like

Anyways, with more fish than we could possibly eat, we ended up giving most of it away to the hapless charter-ees that were significantly less successful than our troupe.

We ended up cooling some with dill and lemon and the rest in a curry sauce. Mmmmmmm good.

Overall, it was a great trip. The campsite was nice and had a great beach and the fishing was leagues more successful than our previous abortive attempt. We left happy and stopped for ice cream on the way home, the perfect conclusion to any trip.

It's been a good week

The first autumn swell has hit and the waves have been massive this week. Good enough that 10X world champion surfer Kelly Slater was in the area earlier in the week. We managed to go bodysurfing 2 days after work and had some great rides both times. On top of that, Amy's parents arrived on Thursday and brought many gifts from America with them, including a new camera from Chris' mom and dad.

The above picture was taken with the new camera on Friday evening before going out for dinner and drinks as the sun was setting. The double rainbow was actually so big that I could not get it in a single frame. I took several photos and put them together with Photostitch.

We are off tomorrow for boating and fishing with the Legrands and then if the weather holds out, some hiking on Sunday.

Wedding Gift: Deep Sea Fishing

We recently took a deep sea fishing trip to Brown's Mountain, a sea mount about 45 kilometers off of Sydney courtesy of our friends Ray and Jenn.

They gave us an awesome wedding present via Adrenaline, a company that offers experience from cooking classes to skydiving in Australia.

Thanks guys, you rock!!!

We managed to catch a shark, pictured above and saw a bunch of dolphins jumping around and infront of the boat. We were close enough to them that we could hear them squeaking to each other in the water.

The shark we marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and vodka and barbecued up for our friends. It was mmmmmmmm.


Sweet, thanks guys.

They didn't stand a chance

Me with my first Kingfish. They fight like monsters.

With summer in full swing, the fish have been biting with frenzied tenacity and we have been catching ourselves dinner nearly every time we have gone out. Here is a gallery of some of the fish we have caught with friends and visitors. If you needed any further encouragement, see this as evidence of why you should come visit.

James L. with a Kingfish. It was large enough to eat 4 different ways, including as sashimi.

James P. with a Shovel-nose Shark. Caught off the ski boat in the Hawksbury River.

Ryan came fishing with us once while visiting and caught us a Jewfish for dinner. It would not marry him to extend his visa so....we ate it with some Moroccan spices.

James P. with one of the first Jewfish we caught

Colin with his first Kingfish. To be eaten tonight!

James P. with a Kingie of his own. We ate it with cajun seasoning.

Lesson to be learned: Come to Australia and we will catch and eat tasty fish!

Summertime.....

Yes, she really is as good as she looks.

......And the livin's easy.

We had our first truly beautiful day last weekend and were fortunate enough to be out on the boat!

It made for a glorious day out skiing, wakeboarding, swimming, and fishing.

After the water sports, we put out the fishing rods with middling success. We ended up catching several fish and saw multiple schools of fish jumping out of the water. Many beers were consumed to further this pursuit.

Leatherjacket that should have known better

A beautiful day for relaxing on the boat

James shredding on the wakeboard

Chris Negrea shortly after vowing to ski successfully or die trying

Chris photographed while reflecting on all the good choices he has made in life

As we left the boat on the dock, smiles were all around from the afterglow of the day's awesomeness. In addition to the pure fun of skiing, wakeboarding, and generally bombing around the river, we also had the passive bonus of getting to see more of the beautiful Kuring-gai National Park from the water. We look forward to many more rockin' boat days over the upcoming summer months.

Fishing Victory

And tell your friends that they're next

On our most recent fishing expedition, we had the shocking divergence from our normal failure by actually catching an edible fish! It was a Flathead, landed by James and we could not contain our disbelief at this boon. We took it back home and fried it up. It was thankfully delicious enough to justify further fishing ventures.

The end result of our feast. Mmmmmmmm.

The next day, I went out with James to try out the rocks between Freshwater and Curl Curl beaches. This was a significantly less successful venture. We basically took turns throwing bait and tackle directly into the ocean’s laughing maw as we got snagged again and again immediately after casting our lines. It was a nice place to have a beer at least.

Then, after we had given up hope at our own success, something strange and serendipitous happened. We struck up a chat with an equally frustrated fisherman that was a little ways down the rocks from us. As it turned out, he had recently moved to Queenscliff – into Amy and my old apartment. After we realized this, he said that he remembered me from when he was shown the apartment. He even recalled that we had just gotten back from Vanuatu. How random is that? Anyways, after he expressed an equal level of frustration at the futility of continuing fishing at this spot, he offered to drive us to a spot of our choosing to continue fishing – we were in no condition to drive ourselves.

Sunset at the Spit Bridge

We ventured onward to our spot from the previous weekend – the Manly spit bridge where we finished up our fishing for the day under the setting sun.

A weekend of new things

Fishing by the Manly Spit Bridge

This weekend was a momentous one for us as we had 2 new things enter our lives.

The first is probably the most important as it will be the most impactful on our relative existences. The with the assistance of a licensed plumber and a stonemason, the kegerator has been completed. Shortly after completion, it was enjoyed by all. Much jubilation ensued.

Although you can't see them in the picture, there are angels overhead playing trumpets

The second new thing was we enlisted our local Aussie guide, James to help us pick out fishing poles and tried our fishing here in Australia for the first time. As we snagged our lined and lost our hooks, James played the part of "Dad," explaining what we were doing wrong and fixing our problems. We ended up catching 5 fish total (4 for Chris, 1 for Amy), although none that we could ea. Still, this is a marked improvement over our spearing ventures.

Between beers

Amy's Bream, exactly to scale

One more fish before sunset

And one more time for those of you that are on the fence about whether to come visit or not:

Your beer is waiting....