We must leave home 4am for a 5am launch as we are only fishing till mid-day
Bob “Ann wants the car so can you pick me up somewhere out of your way” OK
Met at a servo not on the way and got him – okay only lost 15 minutes
I could not find the boat keys anywhere!
Back home and yep in a bucket in the garage another 15 minutes lost
Fill with fuel and off to Mooloolaba
2km from ramp and police lights everywhere
The road is closed until 7.30am for a marathon – so how are we supposed to get to ramp?
Go about on detour and they will let you cross somewhere
Whilst talking to officer a guy runs up to car and says the boat trailer is leaving heaps of sparks from wheel – okay thanks
Get around corner and look – the durahub is off the wheel and dry bearings have exploded.
Get to servo and buy grease and WD40.
Take 3 wrongs turns and get to road to cross marathon just as the 2000 runners arrive. Policeman says you guys are normally earlier than this – tell me about it
Sit there for an hour watching a zoo run past including a skeleton, a couple of fairies along with punk rockers and butterflies.
Finally launch 7.15am – only 2 and a half hours late
Went offshore and weather was good
Got a feed.
Was dropping pillies, mullet and squid and they were not particular about any – they all got fish. We were dropping 3 dropper rigs with a different bait on each.
The bigger pearlie I got was just over 60cm and 4kg.
A few nice snapper in the mix.
We had whales within 10m of boat at several times heading South and just being stickybeaks
Had friendly dolphin in for a feed too as usual.
Left at 12 noon.
Tim stayed with boat at ramp whilst I went to fix trailer
Went to Kawana Supercheap and got a big hammer and chisels – destroyed bearing was locked solid – got a bigger chisel and was really laying into it with 2lb hammer.
Got a heat torch and combined it with WD40 to no avail. Got a bigger heat torch and eventually the bearing remnants left the stub-axle – all up just over one hour and 5 trips into shop from carpark and $150 😊
I think we got off lightly.
Will make up an emergency replacement kit to keep in car which will include the big hammer/chisels/blowtorch and spare bearings.
Home by 5pm
All up 13 hours away from home for 2 hours boat travel and 3 hours fishing.
We got about 15 keepers
The trip was still better than the trip I did a week prior for 200km on the water for not one fish just 7 green eye sharks
Cheers