in order to lessen the sting of my parents leaving, we had something planned for the following weekend that jim and i have both been looking forward to doing for a long, long time - DEEP SEA FISHING!
i got jim this deep sea fishing excursion for his birthday, in july, so i am happy we were finally able to enjoy it.
you may remember a post a couple of months ago about a deep sea fishing trip we took with adam & tara. the difference between that trip and this trip was that our first trip took us fishing around the islands and the trip we took a couple of weekends ago took us to the outer reef - 2 hours away from the main land. it was AMAZING!
we went with 4 other people who signed up for the tour and the captain and captain's assistant. so, there were 8 of us total. we started off the day fishing off the bottom with squid and almost as soon as our bait hit the bottom there was a bite! within the first 10 minutes i think the whole group had caught a fish. and these fish were FIGHTERS so it was so much fun to bring them in.
i will let the photos tell the rest of the story...
jim's first fish out of the gate...
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| spangled emperor |
my first fish out of the gate (mine was bigger... just sayin'.)...
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| spangled emperor |
this is a chinaman that one of the other people in the group caught, but i had to take a photo because of it's coloring. isn't it beautiful? they are not keepers because they feed on something that makes eating them poisonous.
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| chinaman |
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| long nose emperor |
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| tusk fish |
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| red throat |
this was our lunch... unfortunately, i was not able to try it because i felt sea sick about 20 minutes after catching this fish. no worries, though... about an hour of laying down and i was back up!
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| red emperor |
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| chinaman |
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| spanish mackerel |
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| shark mackerel |
this guy worked his tail off and had all of our fish filleted almost immediately after catching. he was very knowledgeable of all the fish and a true asset to the sea fever team.
this is the view from the upper deck down to where all the fishing action was...
i actually didn't even know i caught this fish until i brought up my line to check the bait... SURPRISE!
ok, raise your hand if you are tired of me talking about whales. if so, DO NOT PROCEED WITH THE REST OF THIS POST.
if you did not raise your hand then definitely read on because WE SAW MORE WHALES!!! and they keep getting better and better. we were told early in the whale watching season that the whales go through stages as they get more comfortable with their surroundings. at first, we just saw the whales rolling through the water. they weren't breaching or anything yet because they were still kind of shy and timid. then, we would occasionally see one pop their head or tail out of the water. on this very day, we saw them completely JUMP out of the water! it was SENSATIONAL!
**i tried to make the pictures larger so you can see them better. i hope it helps!**
here the whale is popping his head out of the water on the far left.
here the whale is popping out of the water backwards.
here the whale was literally waving at us... those two fins you see in the picture below kept going up and down. you know, waving.
this was spectacular! in the picture below the whale's body is entirely out of the water. the most amazing site ever.
the whales will be something jim and i will never forget about our australian experience. we feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to see so many of these amazing creatures.
here is the boat we spent the day on... it was VERY nice. if you are ever in the whitsunday area, i would highly recommend the sea fever charter. the crew is both professional and extremely hardworking. they book up quickly, though, so make your reservations a couple of months in advance.
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