Beach fishing and breakwaters

Friday 20th - Tuesday 24th May 2022. Nauti Time 075 - 079

Very stormy weather with pouring rain with very few short interludes where we would escape the confines of the boat to talk with neighbors or walk the breakwaters on both sides of the bay. We watched the extraordinary process or beach jet boat net fishing where they watch for a school of fish to come in close to shore then launch this little jet boat from a reverse trailer hitched to the front of a Ute that pushes it as far as possible out into the waves until the jet boat zooms off the trailer pulling out the net into a big semi circle coming back onto the beach about 200meters along then they use the vehicles at each end of the net to pull it in to shore piece by piece forcing the fish into a funnel of netting in the center. Once they have them mainly in the funnel they can section off pieces of the full net, hook the car up to a section and drag the net up onto the beach absolutely laden with fish. They had about 5 huge sections of net that they continued to pull up one after another all massive and full of fish. I found it pretty distressing and an unfair way of fishing, dragging masses from the ocean at once and just leaving them gasping, capture on the beach. Not sure how they got them off the beach from here as I couldn’t watch these poor fish any longer and had to leave.

Not sure how often they get a catch like that but I noticed they were on the beach every day waiting.

The Harbour here is quite fascinating and a feat of engineering. It was built in the early 1900s and they actually filled in between an island and the foreshore on each side to create it, then built a large curved breakwater out to almost complete a circular Harbour. We have enjoyed walking along both breakwaters as does most of Coffs Harbour it seems as there are always people out on them even on very stormy days.

We are a bit frustrated just waiting on the weather so we have decided to explore a bit further a field. We are hiring a car from the airport and the lovely Anne Atkinson on “Serengeti” a Salina 48 catamaran on our dock has offered to give us a lift to pick it up. We have booked a little cabin in Dorrigo which is the center of waterfall country so looking forward to checking it out. We will head out on Wednesday for 3 days.

It’s amazing the people you meet and what a small world this is. Also on our dock we met David and Lisa on Elektra an all electric powered sail boat. It turns out after talking to them that in fact Lisa was an Ergonomist from WA who knows David Caple very well and was also on the ergonomics committee at the same time as Rick back in the 90s!!! How amazing is that.

Dangar Falls

Big Banana