Figured I'd finally sit down and attempt a report on our little trip northwards this year. We hit the road at the start of may for four weeks away with our little boat, dive gear, bit of fishin gear and a tent. Hope it doesn't go too long, probably will...

First day started off well with a late departure from perth to jurien for two nights to get some fish in the esky for the next week or so. We got to Jurien, set up camp, met the neighbours and set off to check out the hill river mouth in our magna... and anyway magna's are only usefull for about the first 2 k's of the beach track and after the first 200k's of our 4000k trip i was in the sand digging out my poor bottomed out car with a pissed off girlfriend watching from the sidelines arms folded... great start to the trip.

The next day was the start we we're hoping for and we had a cracker day out with an awesome dive and boating 2 macks from 3 hits in less than half an hour. One baldy kept from the dive and a mac, both kept for the icebox back at the park. Wrote a report on it a month or so ago for pics and such.

The afternoon was then spent vac packing our bounty, some of which got shared with the neighbours. That night we had a cool sunset to finish an awesome day and then the night was spent packing the car again for an early departure for shark bay so jac could see the dolphin feeding.

Arrived in sharkbay for the first time for both of us and with no real intinary we checked the place out and decided to head over to monkey mia to see what they were all about. Unknown to me they had a ramp there which was a big plus and once we saw the only campsite left was right on the water front we decided we'd settle in here... then the flies settled in... and there she was again, even though she was asleep behind flyscreen I'm sure she had her arms folded as the tent was besieged by an onslaught of flies, me I probably just inhaled half the fly population that afternoon walking around. But I was happy as i stood there trying to regurgitate a fly outside some backpackers balcony and taking photo's as the sun went down. Good thing flies dont show up in photo's, place really was awesome though.

The next day we we're up and at the dolphin feeding contending with the other 400 tourists getting their kung fu on and trying to get pole position, we just stood on the jetty and watched a motley bunch of dolphins with varying degrees of shark bite come and go, one had a fresh gaping hole missing out of its head. cool but pretty average expirience and we were itching to do some exploring. An hour later we were pushing the dory into the water without a clue of where to go and what to fish but conditions couldn't have been better and they stayed that way all day.

Jacqui had never seen a turtle in the wild and seeing "green turtle flats" on the chart had us burning over to the northern tip of faure island, surely with a name like that she'd see a turtle. As we dropped anchor near the beach the place was alive with all kinds of activity literally hunders of juvenile shovelnose basking in an inch of water, blacktips rounding up and slicing through schools of mullet and turtles popping up everywhere over a glassed off ocean all within a hundred meter stretch of beach. we spent a few hours there casting the old twisty golds at choppers and snorkelling in poor vis trying to get some reef shark action.

After a while expecting a SW wind that never came we belted back towards the western side of the gulf stopping on the way to troll through the channels and to harrass a large group of dolphins. didn't have much luck trollin just a few snook. We then went to venture up in the direction of point peron to see what we could find.

Conditions were still magic and from 100's of meters away we could see turtles coming up for air all around and little ripples travelling on the surface that on closer inspection they turned out to be schools of golden trevally breaking the surface with their fins, the water was that good! so we spent the rest of the day casting everything at these little ripples that would bolt when a few meters from the boat. hooked up a fair few but unfortunately boated none so it was back to harassing the local dolphins that were everywhere. Clocked up almost 50 NM that day in the little dory chasing all kinds of wildlife pulling the boat out of the water just as the sun set... no folded arms today.

Next stop was coral bay for a week, pretty much a week of wind and we never got outside the reef. Fishing wasn't high on the priority list anyway as we still had a mountain of mackerel to eat. The first day out we had a whipping easterly so it was inclose snorkelling just off five finger reef dodging the big boats burning past for south passage. The water was a lovely 28 degrees and gotta love that moment when you jump into the water up north with a totally different surrounding to the southern waters we're both used to. Huge gardens of plate corals and staghorns all in really good condition. Hump Head mouri wrasse, flute fish everywhere, but never saw any crays outside of a sanctuary for the whole trip.

Usually we drive past coral bay but figured this time we'd pull in and give the car a break as everything is nice and close. Diving was awesome and we dived inside the reef in all the deepest water we could find from south of south passage all the way to the north passage(all around 7-9 meters). It sounds strange to say coz its was awesome reef and excellent condition but all the diving at coral bay is all much the very same no matter where you dive along the reef.  After 5 days straight of diving at CB we were itching to get to Exmouth for a bit of variety.

Second last day in coral bay it started pissing down so it was a mad rush to move the boat and dive gear out into the rain to get a good wash and with everything cleansed we were off to Exmouth, Seriously how good is to after a year of day dreaming to finally see this glorious sign in its unglorious immediate surroundings.

First night in exmouth was awesome........

Great tent weather as the thunderstorms rolled around in the distance and 40 knot easterlies handed our arses to us, in our little tent.

Next day the wind still blew hard so we pretty much just drove around down to yardie and got a few snaps. Next day we figured we'd take a chance and put the boat in at tanta's. A chance never came but we/I pushed out the passage for a bit of a troll but all I caught was a straight face and glaring from my faithful deckie so back in. The day then took a turn for the better as that night we got to eat steak!! after days and days of eating mackerel, mackerel stirfry, mackeral burgers, mackerel curry, mackerel drowned out in anything so it didn't taste like mackerel ect ect.. love mackerel but after so many days straight we were hanging for a f*&kn huge steak.

Next day it all came together and by 10am we were flying out through the passage in beautiful weather and sounding around for a good spot for our first dive out behind the reef.

We found our spot and dived in around 14 meters, we had a sweet dive with reef sharks constantly coming in to check us out and bolt off out of sight, coral was a fair bit damaged but we had heaps of fish life around with trev's and both spanish and school macks buzzing around. Trolled that day right out to the 90m depth with the skirts but with not much luck. Coming up to the 30m line out from Jansz both skirts went screaming only to both be bitten off half way through the fight, it was out with the wire and soon we boated another couple of small macs. My eyes began to light up with fish fever again with the bonanza of more fish for the ice box... after a few choice words and once again with folded arms i was then promptly releasing them back over the side. After that it was another snorkel at tantas sanctuary.

After that it was pretty much glass offs every afternoon. The next day we were diving out in 27meters on the west side. Seeing the massive Rankins on that dive soon after had me fishing with a salami sandwhich for bait and cursing that i never bought any SP's on the trip... soon gave up on that though. We spent the avo casting poppers at bait schools connecting up to those bastard macks that wouldn't leave us alone, good fun though watching them smash the surface lures as in the distance we could see them launchung 20 feet into the air and gliding back in on a perfect arc. Heading back to the ramp we almost collided with two fins breaking the surface and moments later Jac was in swimming with her own private whale shark i got her onto, but the b*^ch was refusing to pay my $395 fee. 

pic from the boat

Last day out for the trip we launched at about 2pm at bundegi for lighthouse bay to dive Blizzard ridge. Another day of pure glass and easily the best dive of the trip even in shocking conditions. We had a surface current of about two knots, the boat even had its own little bow wave while swinging on the mooring. Visability was around 5 meters and were litterally having to pull ourselves along and down the mooring rope, It had jac thinking to call off the dive for fear of being swept away. After talking it through she agreed to atleast decide at the bottom of the mooring and if it was no good we'd pull ourselves back up. Surprisingly when we let go we were able to hover almost motionless, smiles all around! Absolutely awesome dive in poor vis, no coral and everything was a sort of green colour but so much life! saw massive turtles, olive headed sea snakes, lionfish, trout everywhere, 3 types of nudi's we'd never seen before, morey eels and more all in a 45 minute dive in 10 meters. As we de-kitted all around us the bay was full of bait schools being smashed by fish, after a few casts with the popper on the old herring rod we found the culprits to be little trevs. What a great way to close the last boat trip of the trip, awesome dive and catch and releasing little trevs as the sunsets over a glassed off ocean.

Last thing I had to do was tick off something thats been on my exmouth bucket list for the last 7 years,

PLANET BURGER VAN!!!

Yep... thats a fly

After I melted the tent walls a little that night we packed up and it was off to a unit in kalbarri to sleep all day, enjoy a real bed,TV and showers without thongs.

 Just gotta try come to grips that now is the longest possible time before the next trip!

Thanks for reading!