Start Loc: Green Island (16o 45.31'S, 145o 57.97'E)
Narrative: We dropped the mooring buoy at 9:16am and set off from Green Island. With ESE winds at 10-15kts we sailed NE on a close reach under full head sail at 5-6kts through the water and 6-7kts over ground. We didn't have far to go and at 9:55am we anchored off the south wall of Arlington Reef to do some fishing. We caught a dozen odd fish all up and released several, including a small spangled emperor and a couple of stripeys, but ended up keeping six of the biggest fusiliers. The red emperors, nannygais and coral trout we want managed to evade us though. One of the stripeys we released had fully swallowed the hook and was not doing too well when we released him. He would try to swim down every now and again, but stayed on the surface. We were only in 10m of water so I don't think it was a swim bladder issue. Anyway, after about ten minutes we spotted a shark that was getting inquisitive, and watched as the black tipped reef shark easily got itself a feed.
Having caught a couple of feeds, we raised the anchor at 11:55am and sailed west along the face of the reef trolling two lures behind us. The wind was still ESE at 10-15kts, so we sailed under full head sail on a training run at 4.2 and 5kts. I bought a deep swimming (4m+) saltwater palaegic lure in Townsville, and another in Cairns. The Townsville one had been hit three times but only bore the teeth mark battle scars and had somehow not resulted in a hook up. That changed when it got hit and the line just kept running. We couldn't reduce sail to slow down and we were already running, so all I could do was increase the drag on the reel. As I came close to running out of line I stopped the reel running and soon after the 40lb line snapped, so I lost the fish and the lure.
We dropped sail and weaved our way through the coral between Arlington and Upolu Reefs, with Heather at the bow as lookout. Upolu Reef is suppose to have an exposed sand cay but we couldn't see it, so we decided to head east on the north side of Arlington Reef to our night anchorage. We were into wind so we had to motor the 5nm or so to the south east corner of the reef. This time we towed just the one lure. It too got hit but didn't result in a hook up; just the teeth marks. That meant it was definitely fusilier for dinner. If we had caught a better eating fish the fusilier would have become bait.
We anchored ay 3:05pm inside the protection of Arlington Reef. We could see the breakers rolling over the reef a few hundred metres away, but where we were was calm enough. We anchored in sand amongst the coral in 6m of water. I filleted the fish but put the carcasses into a plastic bag in the fridge until after we had snorkeled. The kids and I snorkeled the reef just off the side of the boat. One of the many things we saw was a lure tangled around some coral. After a few dives I got the lure and all the line. When we got back to the boat I untangled all the line from the lure and cleaned it up. It had been in the water for a while, but we found one to replace the one we lost.
We then had a rather comical period where I ended up in the water three times; once to get one of Haydee's flippers that went overboard, and once to get Haydee's rod as it sank when it somehow went overboard. The third time was when we caught a fish on my boat rod. Cameron was passing it to me from the side, around the bimini poles to the back deck. As I rushed onto the back deck, I slipped and went straight over board. The fish ended up snapping off my 12lb line and got away. Heather did catch a shark on my heavy rod though.
All in all, a good day. The plan for tomorrow is to have a look at Vlassoff Cay before anchoring at Michaelmas Cay for the night.
End Loc: Arlington Reef (16o 41.25'S, 146o 05.32'E)
Distance run: 18nm (cumulative: 1637nm)
Engine hours: 2 hr, 46 min (cumulative: 3 hr, 44 min)