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.

Cairns Part II: Welcome to the Jungle

The latter part of our Cairns adventure was land-based and took us to the Daintree Rainforest region. Up there we hiked through the jungle and took a river cruise to see the abundant wildlife and verdant scenery.


View Larger Map

One thing that is commonplace up there that we do not have in Sydney is the saltwater crocs. These can grow up to 24 feet long and inhabit most of the waterways and beaches. In fact, there were signs at all of these areas warning you of the danger posed. Glad I don't have to worry about that every time we go out in the water down in Sydney.

Croc entering the water

No one volunteered to go in to find him

Go ahead and take a swim, what are the odds...?

And, if you weren't put off by the "Croc Danger" signs, they were often accompanied by the Box Jellyfish Warning signs at all the beaches. Mother Nature simply does not want you in the water.

If the crocs don't get you, the jellyfish are waiting

The crocs were evident on the river cruise we took and we spotted several lying on the muddy riverbanks. There was also abundant bird species around the Daintree River, some of which got the birders we were on the cruise with into a stir of excitement.

Heron in flight

Azure Kingfisher, got the birders really excited

Once we retreated to the jungle to hike around (where only spiders and snakes are out to get you), we were treated to old-growth forest as well as the apparently croc-free Mossman Gorge river. If you were wondering what differentiates a rain forest from a regular forest, the answer is of course: the rain. In the Daintree region, they measure the annual rainfall in meters, rather than most places, where it is measures in centimeters. We were told that in the last year, they had 4 meters of rainfall. That is higher than a basketball hoop.

We had a great time up there, it was nice to get away from the city/suburbs and to escape into untouched wilderness. Time to start planning the next adventure!

River running through the Mossman Gorge

This tree could have supported an Ewok village

Daintree River, beautiful scenery

Mangroves lined one side of the river, rain forest was on the other

Lush rain forest running all the way down to the ocean

Butterfly in the jungle, possibly the only thing that is not plotting your demise

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.


View Larger Map

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.

Thailand Part 2: Diving the Similian Islands

The next stage in our Thai adventure took us to the Similan Islands via a liveaboard dive boat for 4 nights. We completed 13 dives over the course of the trip and saw some amazing vistas both above and below the water.


The weather was fair and the seas calm allowing for great visibility of the abundant and diverse sea life.

The areas we dove in ranged from soft and hard coral bottoms to huge granite boulders that provided many swim throughs and caves to explore.dodging the pirates by ducking through an underwater cave

The Similan Islands provide a fertile ground for the huge abundance of live. We saw many species of animals that we had never seen before such as lionfish, harlequin shrimp, nudibranch, seahorse, blue spotted-stingrays, a sea snake and many more.Lionfish or alien creature?

We found Nemo!

Chris hiding in the school of fish

Most significantly, on the second morning, we looked up after frantic pointing by our guide to see a WHALE SHARK!!!!!

WHALE SHARK - WHALE SHARK - we saw a WHALE SHARK!!!

If Amy has spoken you to about diving at any point over the last several years she will no doubt have informed you that it was her mission to see one of these. All the anticipation, hoping, and wishing could not have prepared us for this, the thing was huge, dwarfing anything else we have seen. Imagine swimming along and then seeing something the size of a small school bus come past you.

Amy at her happiest moment - that's the whale shark she's pointing at

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean (whales are bigger but they are mammals). The one we saw was between 15 and 20 feet long. It swam over us then turned around and came back twice. They are extremely rare and everyone was freaking out with excitement. When we got to the surface, there were high fives all around.One of our dive group to give you an idea of the size - he's around 6ft tall without fins

We also encountered some large manta rays on two dives, they were beautiful and graceful as they flew through the water.

Is that manta about to attack Chris?!

Of the 13 dives we completed, one of these was a night dive. This is difficult to describe as it is both terrifying and awesome at the same time. In fact, it is mostly the terror that makes it awesome. We saw some different species at night and carefully tried to avoid the poisonous critters such as the lionfish, scorpionfish, and stonefish. No casualties to report. Some excitement at the end of the dive though as the current picked up and one of our divers was swept past the mooring line of the boat. We ended up forming a human chain to save her from disappearing onto the blackness. Good times.


Overall, the dive trip was the highlight of our tour in Thailand and the diving was among the best we have had. I would recommend it to anyone who dives and is keen to see some breathtaking scenery.

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:

View Larger Map

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.

Summer Camping: Seal Rocks

Summertime in Australia has been Bea-u-ti-ful and we have been taking advantage of the great outdoors this summer. Amy and I took a camping trip up to Seal Rocks, about 3 hours North of Sydney to try out the fishing there.


View Larger Map

We stayed at Treachery Beach, a great location and awesome campground. The beach itself is an incredible sight. From the campground, you hike over a 6 story sand dune and at the crest, the whole horizon is taken up by huge, perfect waves, broad, pristine beach, and massive cliffs.

Treachery Beach, deserted and beautiful.

It is a wild, ocean beach in every sense.


We hiked up and down it, watching incredible displays of surfing prowess and even saw for the first time in person, people tow-in surfing. This is a technique used to catch large waves using a boat or jet-ski to get the surfer up to speed and in the perfect spot for the wave.

Sweet wave

Tow-in!!!!

The next day, we ventured over to Seal Rocks to try fishing off of the cliffs. This was not meant to be. We had brought the rubber boat and motor and planned to troll around. The waves didnt look big from shore but once on the water it quickly became apparent that if we continued, we would capsize or simply sink the boat. Not far from shore, we got turned sideways and were thrown out of the boat. Sunglasses were lost, and someone got fishooked during the forced evacuation.

It was not one of our prouder moments and no, there are no pictures of it.

We settled for taking the boat to a lake in the area and napped/fished in more placid conditions.


View Larger Map
Bluey's Beach

On our last day, we stopped on the way home at Bluey's Beach. This was a locals beach in an area that is not very populated. We were once again treated to some impressive surfing and beautiful waves breaking off of the point nearest to us.

Ejected out of the barrel, so cruel

On the other hand, this guy is absolutely killing it. Win.

Treachery was a great place to spend some time and we look to go back there when we can have some calmer conditions to avenge ourselves.

Interested in camping or survival?  Come check out The Bug Out Bag Guide.

Visitor #1: James Legrand - Part 2

James with a frosty one

One of the other adventures we took James on while he was with us was to take a local SCUBA dive. We were originally supposed to do a wreck dive up the coast but due to rough conditions brought on by a strong southerly swell, we were rescheduled to dive the Queenscliff Bombura (which I have written about here) and North Head, which is the northern arm at the entrance to Sydney Harbor.

North Head:

View Larger Map

The diving was good and we saw lots of fish including Morwongs, cuttlefish, wobbegong sharks, leatherjackets, blue groper, snapper, and puffer fish. It was also cool to dive the Bombie, something I have seen the effect of on the surface but never been able to investigate the cause of that massive wave. It was amazing to see so much sea live just minutes from where we live. You can see Manly in the video which was taken from the boat.

James flashing the "Still Not Drowning" signal

About to go under at North Head

During the surface interval between dives, we were treated to watching the coast guard doing training of helicopter rescues. That was pretty cool.