Got to Exxy early morning (after getting to Minilya the day before from Perth) and did the fresh food shopping, grabbed some pies at Brumby's (we debated whether we were hungry or that they were really good - concluded the latter given we did have brekky) and continued through until getting to the Lighthouse Caravan Park at about 10.30. The boat and cabin sorted and organised by 1 meant we were ripe to head out and check the lay of the land, so we headed to Tantabiddi.  There was some discussion as to whether this was the best option, given forum feedback about the difficulty in launching/retrieving - but we found this was no issue, even when the water was low we still had plenty of ramp.  It was a little blowy, but the water looked fine.  So, we headed out the back of the reef, trolled a bit (with no takers), bounced the bottom inside and out, only to land the obligatory swarms of Charlie Court when inside.  The other boat that came in had had success diving inside the reef - he held up the painted cray he'd bagged, and it looked like a fake trophy it was so big...1 crustacean that'd do a couple of meals was a good catch!

 

We were up and ready to rock for the first full day, in the boat and out to the ramp by 8.  A few more boats were there than what we'd seen, and by the look of the trailers some of the vessels weren't small.  Given our aim was to raise some billies, we headed outside and trolled 3 divers for about an hour, ranging from about 20m (for macks) to about 40m (for tuna, etc).  Some bird action was spotted as we headed south, so we tried to keep a steady course to shoot outside what was happening under the water.  Just when it was feeling like we'd left it behind us, 1, 2, 3 (!!!!) rods went off.  In my excitement I jumped from the driver's seat without knocking the boat into neutral, fortunately that was quickly sorted by HunterDive.  We each grabbed our rods, and while HunterDive and I leaned back, our 3rd member Johno was limply retrieving what appeared to be weightless line - his clip-swivel had opened up, and a pelagic was running around the ocean with some funky bling.  The 2 fish were brought in (1 per pic #1), a couple of very healthy Mack Tuna were then on ice meaning we at least had some fresh food for the night.  We continued trolling, gradually getting wide enough to be in 100m+ depth.  By this stage we'd changed to skirted lures, and HunterDive could throw out his enticing fish attractors - a home-made witch doctor and a good surface teaser.  After a few hours of winding back and forth, de-weeding lures and staring out the stern, we had nothing at all and were feeling disheartened.  We saw 2 other boats out as wide, but they went further north.  We decided to head back in and try something else.  Bottom bouncing didn't bring much, although Johno did get a baby ramora - very amusing to stick it on the side of the boat and watch it flop around until it drops off. We then popped along the back of the reef, and HunterDive had 2 big follows.  I had a go as well even though I wasn't as well geared for anything worthwhile, but had 1 big follow and then a bigger one that resulted in a hook-up - woohoo, first ever GT (pic #2), and with the visual of poping to boot.  I thus ticked off 1 of my deisred species for the trip.  We tried to raise a few spanglies in the shallows, but this again resulted only in Charlie's driving us mental.  We then enjoyed a snorkel around inside the reef, which was fantastic.  We came across a huge coral lump where a big school of large buff bream were weaving in and out, and the other reef fish around were cool.  I spotted a coral trout for about 3 seconds, but it quickly took cover.  When we got back to the ramp, a couple of others had just come in - they'd likewise had a quiet day, but the latter I think had scored a monster mack (30kgs+) and raised a small blue.  However, fresh tuna slabs for dinner didn't go astray.  And did make up for the story without explanation - somehow a popper that had been hooked next to one of the guides had come off as we travelled and hooked onto the side of the road.  Worse still, the bail arm had come over and thus 300m of braid had been stripped off.  By the time we got to the cabin, I had about 50m of backing mono left flagging behind us which is when the issue was spotted.  I should have had about 100m, but when I followed it back to the fuel pumps it had busted off, so who knows where the popper and braid was.  I'm still flabbergasted about about it could have happened, given I've had to retrieve lures from overhanging trees when heading out at Coral Bay and am always careful to make sure all's secured...

 

Given the lack of success on the Ningaloo side, we decided to head around to the Gulf and shoot out from there.  We could tell from launching that it might be a bit bumpy, given the difficulty the previous boat had in picking up its last passenger from the walkway next to the ramp.  Fortunately he was kind enough to help keep our boat steady (cheers to him) so we can get in and away.  As we shot out over the Gulf, it was a bit like a washing machine.  We had a following sea that was going about 10% faster than we could.  Within 20 mins we were in sight of the Muirion Islands, and by the time we were level with the southern island the water had levelled out and was far more comfortable.  We threw the divers out the back again hoping for Macks, but again had nothing.  This was starting to feel a bit repetitive, especially given how easy it should have been to get one of these up here!  We continued motoring around and then in between the islands, and saw a team of boats in the distance...where there's smoke, there's fire, and was where we were headed anyway.  They had anchored on the edge of the reefy drop-off we sought, where the depth went from 3m to 12m pretty quickly.  We did the same, and after a while Johno had something veeeeery worthwhile take off on him.  When he got colour, it looked sizeable, and once netted and in the boat he'd caught a MONSTER spangled emperor, biggest I'd seen in the flesh or on screen.  We continued around that spot for a while, I thought I'd bagged the same but was disappointed by pulling up a huge trigger-fish.  It was so big that it had some festy infection on its top lip like an oceanic cold-sore, and he was thrust back into the water.  Eventually the day was trailing away, so we shot back through the Islands, and popped along the breaking reef of the southern Island.  Nothing worthwhile, I did get a red-throat emperor chasing a chromy but was too small to cheer about.  When we were back in, we need a bit more gear and bait, and chatted to the young bloke at Bluewater - he said our story was the same as many he'd heard for the last week, and could only put it down to the heat - with air temps in the high 30's for so long, we struggled to find water temps below 30.  We chatted to the blokes in the boat that launched before us, and they had a similar day, 1 spangled and 1 coral trout, I think.  HunterDive set about talking to a few others that were around, and no-one was enjoying great success.  1 boat was continually heading out to Peak Island to pop for trevs, which given the conditions would have been long and rough...not to mention the fuel bill.  Chicken pie for dinner, and it would have been topped off by chocolate pudding had I not dropped the flaming pyrex dish as I lifted it out of the electric fry pan it was warming in.  I tried to recover it, but there were too many shards (which I discoverred when I took what I thought was a safe spoonful, only to crunch on minute pieces of dish-slivers).

 

Given the apparent dearth in the Gulf, we went back to the Ningaloo side and again trolled, popped and bottom-bounced.  After 3-4 hrs, and nothing going but 1 red-throat I'd pulled up, happiness wasn't our primary emotion.  To top it off, the engine oil alarm started going off, which meant either a false alarm, or our week would be cut short by an oil pump.  We scooted back to the ramp, and then had to head into town to find someone to diagnose.  We got to Exmouth Automotive and Marine, and the guy was an absolute legend.  Issue was put down to aftermarket oil - the mechanism in the oil reservoir has a magnet glued to the float, and after-market oils eventually dissolve the glue creating a faulty reading.  The only fault w've had with the Merc Optimax.  We checked that the oil was being taken up as required, and with no issues he blanked it out so no error would come up.  However, new bottle required when back home.  As it was getting towards mid-afternoon, we were in 2 minds as to whether we should head out (which hadn't done us too well so far) or do something else.  I convince HunterDive to head for Turquoise Bay, it's a premier snorkel spot, we had some time to kill and how often do we get up that way?  We got there after 5, meaning we had about an hour's worth of decent sunlight.  The place is awesome, the coral and fish are EVERYWHERE, and they're not small.  There's so much happening, it's hard to know where to look or drift along to next...unless you get stung.  I copped a jelly sting on my left tricep, and it was flaming painful.  The salt water didn't appear to be helping, so I decided to head back to shore.  Once I got back there and rinsed it a bit, it was good enough and I headed back in.  No sooner was I in water deep enough to swim in when I thought someone had crept up behind me and stabbed me in the left shoulder with a piece of jagged coral.  On turning, I saw no person and no thing in the water either, but my shoulder was burning.  I swam back to shore (again), by which time HunterDive and Johno were heading back.  They'd seen a little reef shark of about 1.5m cruising about, which I'd sadly missed.  After 5 mins the stings on my shoulder had raised to big red welts, and I felt a combination of annoyance and pain.  We dried off, admired the grey-euro-nomad-bloke who was happily doing the same (and showing us his svelt, 60+ yr old nakedness) and back in to the car to make the trek back to the cabin.  It was bang on dusk now, meaning any animals around would come out...and roos everywhere!  We hovered at about 50km/h, as any faster was a risk to them and us.  We stopped at the lighthouse proper on the way back to see the view (and get phone reception), and by this stage the welts were forming small blisters and I was getting pain in my left arm-pit.  Having had the same from stray blue jelly tentacles while fishing in Coral Bay a few years ago, I knew it would go away - but the look of my skin was festy.  I took the drugs I thought would help and chucked some anti-sting cream on, and by morning all was good...except for what could only be described as cat-claw marks along my should blade where the tentacles had caught me (which are slowly going away, but will make a cool scar).  At least there was fresh spangly for dinner.

 

Given it was likely this would be the last full day's fishing, we wanted to finish on a winner.  HunterDive had discovered heard the Muirions was firing a bit more, so we thought we'd head there and see if the ice-box could be filled up a little more.  We again trolled on the way out, with nothing, and on coming through the Islands we saw no-one else there.  Hmmmm, a bit weird.  Perhaps the firign was after high-tide, which was about midday.  Things were scratchy before lunch, with a bigger triggerfish than the other waste-of-space being pulled up - not a good feeling to spend energy on something you don't even want a photo of.  It was thrashing around (and I was a bit annoyed) and I tried to punch it in the head to keep it still - got more of the boat carpet thean the fish as it weaved like Ali being a butterfly.  It responded with the obligatory bowel issue all over my leg, and those things eat some shocking garbage given what was passed...  It was a bit zombied when returned to the water, but if a fish is going to be so stupid as to not allow you to help it back in, it deserves a cause for Panadol.  Johno did manage to raise a big estuary cod, which he soon discovered was more difficult to hold for a photo while alive than he thought.  We again popped near the reefy part of the southern Island, and by 12 we had only 2 more red throat.  A couple more boats turned up (good, very comforting) so we continued to drift along, occasionally anchor and berley, and caught a few more red throat.  Johno must have hooked some small fish and then got sharked, as he had line stripped in under a minute.  He probably had only 100m or so on it anyway, but was down to the last few turns of the spool when it busted off at the rigged end...otherwise he was within 2 seconds of being completely spooled and having zero line left!  Funny for us, I suppose.  Things were pretty dry, and HunterDive was keen on throwing this area away as another bad morning session.  I wanted to give this spot its due before heading out long, so we headed towards the Gulf following the inside of the southern Islan.  We were about 3/4 of the way to the southern tip when Jared and I spotted some reefy structure, so we headed over that way, and the sounder look promising in terms of activity on the bottom.  We drifted back and forth along there for a few hours, and we all caught a few spanglies each (per pic #3) and felt we were starting to win, plus a few red-throat into the bargain.  We switched down to lighter gear, and that was even more fun.  None of us had success bringing anything in, with whatever took mine on 1 run managing to bust my 100lb leader on the reef - darn, thought I had everything tight enough, obviously not!  We could see some Mack action a few hundred metres away (chasing bait schools), but knew if we moved there they'd go somewhere else.  At about this time Johno had hooked something large, which kept moving every so oftern so was not a snag (he'd had his share of those, and won the award for most rigs stuck in the ocean).  We called it for a big cod that was stuck on the bottom of the ocean (or could it be a groper?!?!), and motored around trying to retrieve some of the line.  It continued to be more weight than movement, and he was struggling to get any line back with purpose.  His forearm was burning (we told him it would be fun), and eventually the line started lifting.  He was wondering why there might be a big turtle near the fish that was coming up, until he realised he had no fish...but he had hooked the turtle.  We laughed, he didn't, and HunterDive cut the line to let the turtle swim away.  With an ice-box that had spanglies, red-throat and an estuary cod, we finally had a day where we felt a win.  Were it not for this one, it would have been graded as a fail on the fishing front, even though the other things seen while on and under the water (including a big manta a little smaller than our bowrider) made it gold...