24 Feb 2012

After our nights stay at Thompson Sound in Blanket Cove with stiff breezes and rain coming into the sleeping quarters all arose and made a beeline for the boats heads (WC). Unfortunately this placed a lot of strain on the heads which resulted in a near overflow. Quickly advised the skipper of the situation who in return advised that a stiring stick on the floor of the heads was to be used to break up the deposits before it reached the macerator. Problem was the stiring stick (a paint stirer) was only as long as the toilet bowl is deep which happen to be brimming (no length for a grip). Luckily found a small bucket to bail out the overflowing WC. Intriugingly there was a hand mincer on the floor of the heads...one can only assume it was there for these types of occasions. A horrid thought came to mind...the mincer had recently been used to mince the abalone (paua) we had the other night.

Before heading off we retracked our route to our anchorage from the previous night and picked up the craypot...still nothing.

The skipper took us for a run into Deep Cove...as he hadnt been there since 1967 delivering cement by ship for the hydro scheme. On arrival we were confronted by a stiff breeze....decided to head off...at which time the skipper was errecting a 6m long HF antenae off the roof of the wheel house...choice time!

While on route to Doubtful Sound we continued with boat maintenance finding where water was entering up forward hatch...good ol Sikaflex!

We continued fishing on route with the occasional stop where there was changes in the ocean floor depth providing ideal conditions for groper. The guys were pulling in couta, blue cod (we restricted the size to 46 cm (leagal limit is 33 cm)), sea perch, tereakee and a 12 kg gropper which we put back as we still had the remains of the 16 kg gropper previously caught to eat.

We continued steaming towards Doubtful Sounds into the evening and anchored for the night in Gaer Arm where the Cammelot River enters Shoal Cove.