Ross checked Google Earth to find a spot to launch the ship at The Entrance into Tuggerah Lake and found a ramp and a couple of other possibilities.
With the tides already worked out, that left some time for a relaxing nice skinny mocca decaf half shot latte at the park kiosk.
Waiting for the coffee in the caravan park kiosk Ross spied two nuggets of info, a ying and a yang, one good and one bad.
Good. The ying. The kiosk has a quality fried food smorgasbord of yak fat menu items including an $8 steak sandwich.
Although they lost the gold medal award when we found their $2 per hour pool noodle hire. $2 per hour … there only $2 each to buy. Full purchase price equivalent for an hour’s rental probably only works with pool noodles … or maybe a new car !!!
Bad. The yang. With the tides already dialled in, Ross casually scanned the tide table on the kiosk counter and immediately found a 2 hour difference in what Willie Weather had served up online. A check of the BOM confirmed we’d been duped by Willie Weather and had missed the tide … plus the coffee turned out to be very average.
Oh well. Hopefully the fish haven’t checked.
We headed into The Entrance and all the possible ship launch sites were stinky weed infested crap holes so we headed to the ramp.
As Ross was setting up the ship, a guy was scooping small shrimp in a landing net for bait. Barb took Ross’s net and scooped up some stuff which included a tiny fish. Daniel touch a little fish and obviously touch the spine of the dorsel fish stabbing his finger and he screamed his lungs out.
Barb, being the laid back stress free under estimator that she is, shrieked “Stone Fish, Stone Fish arghhhhhhhhh Stone Fish”
The little tiny 1 inch fish was so small it would be difficult to identify it without a microscope. Although it was clearly not a Stone Fish, Ross was reluctant to completely rule out Great White Shark.
The reaction was certainly appropriate for a Great White shark attack …. but possibly not a tiny weenie fish finger attack.
Ross launched the ship and paddled out to another yak fisher about 300 metres out. He had a full bag and happily pointed out the Captain Obvious ….. “should have been out at the turn of the tide”
Nice older retired guy with a lot of good local knowledge and very happy to share his extensive knowledge …… unfortunately for Ross that knowledge needed to have been received and actioned about 2 hours earlier.
The yak guy was super friendly and mention he not only enjoyed yak fishing but since retiring needed to supplement his diet with free fish at least 2 or 3 times per week. Ross thought “shit” and as he paddled away he was frantically logging onto his Super account on the mobile to check the current balance and fish clause.
Ross paddled about in the very weedy and very shallow water. There was a mass of boats and shore anglers …. all like Ross, missing the tide and catching nuffin.
The fish sounder shallow water alarm is set to the minimum of 1 metre and was constantly going off. Another fruitless day fishing but an enjoyable paddle anyway.
A few hours in, and Ross called Barb to see what she was upto. There was chaos, Daniel had just slipped in the water park and split his chin open ….. again. He did it once before on a previous trip and required 9 stitches that time and this was apparently worse.
That also meant Ross was left to bob around indefinitely until Barb found the hospital and got it sorted.
Killing some time Ross paddled out toward the entrance of the Tuggerah Lake to the sea which is a small creek like opening in a wide sandbar.
Might give the fishing another nudge tomorrow, although the surf is also calling. So much to do and so little time … and we also have to squeeze in hours of sitting around doin nuffin.
The weather tomorrow could also signal our last surf opportunity, so an early call on the weather, surf conditions and motivation and Daniels chin could combine to make the decision for us.
The caravan park on the water at The Entrance, on the opposite bank of the inlet to the town has a very unique feature. It has a row of sites on the waters edge, but the uniqueness is the park manager parks your van with his tractor, and puts it in nose first. So in our case we would have uninterrupted water views from our front bed and the annex would be facing the water where the yak could be sitting on the bank.
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