Week Three in Darwin

And still trying to find that big fish - in fact any sort of fish would be good!  But talking to other fishing people in the caravan park, there doesn't seem to be any around and word has it that some of the fishing charter people are also having a tough time.  Maybe it is all of this cold weather that the area is experiencing lately that has sent the fish on holidays to somewhere warm?  Hhmmmm, whatever happened to global warming?

We have had a couple of very nice days on the water though.  One day we went about 20klms north (closer to the equator) to a spot called Gunn Point.  It is basically a huge, flat reef!  Most of it is covered in mangroves, then a system of two channels (about 20 metres deep and 4 klms long) and then the bare reef.  We put a couple of crab traps in the mangroves and then went for a fish.  The tide was dropping so we stayed well clear of the reef itself (a lesson learnt from previous experiences) but it was a real "Malcolm Douglas" experience to see and hear the way the water drained off the rocks - totally awesome!  The tidal difference on the day was about 6 metres so it had a long way to go in a short time.

Gunn Reef

Reef Waterfall

The darker rock in the above pic was exposed by the time the tide had finished dropping.  We spent a few hours trying to catch fish and when the tide had started to come back in, decided to pick up the crab traps and head for home.  We knew we would have a little bit of trouble trying to access the traps but not to the extent that we did - they we hiding amongst the mangroves.

The mangroves in the distance!

The brown stuff is not flat reef but was about 4 metres high (from the water level).  When we put the traps in a few hours earlier there were two metres of water over it!  We were in one of the deep channels that we  were only just able to get into to which are 'cut off' during the low tides.  The fish were also hiding in there and our catch of the day was just a coral fish.  Instead of waiting until dark to retrieve our traps we headed for home and returned the next day for them.  Unfortunately, we couldn't even catch crabs!

Coral Fish

In the meantime, Tuf Cat's new legs arrived so she is felling pretty good and she will just have to stay away from crocologs and crocorocks cause they can hurt!!

Lets hope that we can all try and keep warm this weekend!!