I went for a dive this morning, just snorkelling and collecting abs and shooting (or rather missing) fish. It is a a lovely experience anyway, although today was neither so calm or so clear as some days. I'm looking forward to giving you some fish pictures to look at. I spotted 6 more scallops, but they are really not very thick there. We probably spent about 2 and half hours in the water, and poor me, my muscles feel like jelly now.Yes, self-inflicted injury, insufficient exercise. Norman was getting into his wetsuit easier after shearing, me, harder. Then their cruiser had to get stuck leaving the beach and we had to go and borrow a rope and pull it out, because the rope we did have snapped like an elderly carrot. It popped out of the smelly mud with audible pop, so maybe there is lurking monster...

In theory I was going to try drying these Abs, but as the process starts from live, to cook, to dry and our dryer has not yet arrived, I will hold off on this batch and do it with the next. Anyway, we will have two for our tea.

A day with a hookah

I carefully ordered and stuck the new numbers on the Zoo.

And they have mostly peeled off. It was one of those sort of days. The poor ute was loaded to the gunnals and trundled to Patriarchs and blew up the Zoo (we have a trailer, just need a tire, so slowly we get organised, and soon she can be ready to go, not ready to unpack, inflate, load etc.)

We did have fun doing so, as the instruction were not with us. Anyway got there and back so no drama. Well, no drama except with the little motor (quite adequate for 350 - 450 meters offshore, and she pushed the boat through the waves well - better than expected, actually.) Which would not start... and we tried and tried and tried. Jamie and the other two, with the Hookah, launched and went out. We battled on - got it going after taking the plugs out, after a little adventure with the plug spanner. They do not swim at all well, really. We got out , taking a neat gap through the waves and out. Jamie's GPS was on strike, so we had to move a few times before finding some ground - not our usual bhommies but there were a quite a few small crays in the occasional crack. Nothing quite big enough - I caught 3 I had to throw back and Norm 2. We did find some enormous abalone, but not the best dive. We then came in - Jamie wanted to go to Babel and fish, and Russ and wanted in. We had a good run in but missed the mouth, and could not get the motor to tilt. So we put the motor in the boat - light enough and pulled it the 75 yards to the mouth. Only I tripped and my stormy cape - water sensitive life jacket... inflated. There goes another $25. On the bumpy near quicksand drive out two little struts for the Zoo's floor snapped. The ute battery was flat (from using the electric pump) and so I left the ute and came home Russ (who had to rush) to fetch the jumpers, have a cuppa and and a biccie, and went back. Backed up and waited. They'd had a slow afternoon - only 7 flathead, and got back in the dusk. I managed to get the ute stuck leaving the beach and had to get a tow (quick and easy but still) So... no disaster, but certainly LOTS of drama. Still, no lives were lost, no problems that were not overcome and Norm did get his chance to tell Barbs I have spent the day with a hookah. Maybe I should just have stayed in bed :-)

Ok, yesterday we went diving, and now my freezer has its quota of Abalone, all vac-packed and sorted, and also 3 wallaby. We have a new stock of mince for making wors and possibly dried wors. Today we made 8kg's of coarse mince - Wallaby are supposed to be lean meat, but my word these are fat. I seemed to spend forever washing up (OK, it's partly me. I can't handle greasy dishwater, so as soon as it's even discolored I tend to start again. And it needs to be white-hot. I am a bit of a waster of water, but it's at least rainwater off the shed roof, not something that is scarce right now.) James got off on the injured finger. I think I'll injure mine. I'd scrub toilets or change nappies (diapers) rather than wash dishes, and trust me there is no form of housework I haven't done. I don't object to housework, really disgusting jobs tend to be my share (the women in my family do not handle blood or poo easily. I just tune it out. It's like fish slime)I just don't like greasy water. If I was to end up a widower (unlikely, barring the unforeseen, which I hope never happens), a dishwasher I would have to have, or I'd starve avoiding dirtying anything (I actually don't like a grubby environment. I cannot imagine living like so many young guys - and women too, seem to. Up to a point a degree of clutter (especially at the end of a book) is OK, but it bothers me and suddenly I have to clear it. Whenever Barbs goes away the house gets radical putting away of stuff. Not being able to find things is her penance for leaving me behind.

I'm being far too absent-headed at the moment. I just did a batch of rolls without yeast. Had to add yeast and let them rise, put the oven on, forgot to put rolls in. spotted it an hour later and put rolls in... and nearly burned them, forgetting about them.

Minced fish and other dark delights

If you're a cat, that is. As a human I am less convinced. Of course the hairy hound from Budapest AKA Roland is also very partial to fish. Nothing like a big fishy slobber to make you feel loved.
We turned some of the wrasse from yesterday into preparatory pet food in the freezer through one of the old fashioned hand mincers - it actually worked really well as the bones either get minced or stay behind. We must have 3 weeks of catfood ready. Yesterday I got to 100K in the book, and we celebrated the lovely weather and that and the Queen's birthday by a trip to 'the docks' which is a remote cliff completely without any docks/dogs/docs in sight. It was a lovely family outing as B said - James and I dived for a bit. Despite the rubber layers the water was serious sinus burn cold - only bit not rubber-coated. It was cold but crystal clear and barely a ripple in sight. We swam into a huge shoal of Australian Salmon and failed utterly to spear any fish with the hand-spear (I didn't take the gun, which I regretted). I speared a leather-jacket (triggerfish) in my determination to spear something... only they're... well, the skin is so tough I didn't penetrate! So we swam on, looking for Abalone, and utterly failing to call B and Pads to come catch these blessed Salmon (B and Pads were catching wrasse, which are now kitty-nubbins, barring the two we had in a green Thai curry tonight. Paddy who doesn't really do curry loved until he had a mouthful of wine - an error of judgement - which burned all the way down.) Anyway we eventually got 2 abalone - could have tried harder I guess, but we'd been swimming around for two hours and I was fairly cold. James decided to check on the Aussie Salmon, before we fished for them... and met a large grey something (probably a shark feeding on them) and got out very rapidly onto the little island and water-walked across to the shore. We tried fishing there anyway, but all I got was a big a big blue-head wrasse. I left James and B to go on fishing and went climbing with Pads. Ergo - the dwarf picture. I've done a lot more trad leading than the boys so I somehow got talked into onsighting a route next to the described one. The climb started delightfully - gentle gradient, pinch-grips and high friction and got steadily steeper, and ended some 30 metres on, with a water-etched granite groove - a little arpeggio of moves on crystals and tiny pinches. Eissh... not much in the way of runners. I ended up in a very wide straddle trying to place a wedge and got cramp. Newton was right, but experience with runner-placement stopped any tragedy beyond a scraped elbow. I had to go up twice more, fiddling out runners in very dodgey micro cracks before trying the thrutch and wobble to the top, and reached up and found a glorious hidden jug-handled hold, big enough to tie the Queen Mary to. So all was well that ended well. The climb is relatively easy and will do well as beginner route, now I know that the roundness at the top hides a wonderful hold.

There is nothing like the absence of dying in the meeting of man and cliff to leave you feeling uplifted...

or lifted up anyway. My arms and hands are still stiff, but it was good to feel alive and doing things.

Paddy went to Sing Australia in the evening, and it was a windless night and we hoped for some floundering - but were played false by James's tum. So we came home and I did some work.

Trousers Point

One of the joys of really long days is I can put in 5 hours work and then still have a reasonable amount of daylight - 11 hours or so to do a little exploring with the boys. - which usually means I can get another 3-4 hours before bed as we're seldom out all of it. Paddy leaves on Monday which will be hard, so we're exploring a little more than I really should (because I am behind). So yesterday we went to Trousers Point (where one points at trousers) - and we had the whole family in the water.



We found our first abalone and saw quite a range of fish... including the most immense skate (or a ray if you prefer - nearly caused a stack overload :-)) like big dirty 2 metre wide dishcloth that kept trying to follow us out of the water. Later when Pads and Barbs were fishing there where wrasse harrassing their baits and lures and the big triggerfish swiming out of holes and caves to peck at the possible food. It was probably about 18 in water and clear as gin (or as clear as one's mind after drinking it.) The waves were as gentle as anything inside a coral reef, and with the white sand and perfect rocky coves you could have been in some tropical paradise not south of the 40th parallel.