Marlborough Sounds (20th March) Day 11

We left Hikoekoea Bay for D’urville Island after a quiet night on the mooring.  The wind was getting up a little but nothing too bad.  Robin was on the helm and he took us to Chetwode Islands for a fishing stop - we were low on food stocks, so low we had to have breakfast as last nights dinner (bacon & eggs on toast) so we were overdue for another fish dinner.  We caught a Gurnard and a couple of sharks, a spotty and a sand shark, both small.  We decided to move on to find a better spot.  

On leaving the Chetwode Islands, the sea was standing up about 1M and was very short ( waves close together), at 12 knots we were not quite running the tops so adding 3 knots meant we rode the tops like we were in flat water.  This is a good thing about Horizon III she is very long and relatively narrow.  we continued in about 25 - 28 knots of wind and decided on the way across,to stay east side of D’urville for best conditions so we headed for Catherine Cove again stopping short at Stewart Island (Te Kuru Kuru) for a fish.  On the way over I picked up enough signal to receive a message from Nelson Marina who had a marina come free that we could use for a couple of nights so arranged to come in Thursday afternoon to restock at the supermarket, refill our LPG bottles and do a bit of shopping for a wetsuit to swim in, water temperatures are beginning to drop down here and I have no fat on my bones!

We dropped our lines hoping for better fishing, again no luck, so we abandoned this spot after just 15 minutes!  Pulling up the anchor wasn’t so easy as we had already hooked up hard with the loads on the anchor. In 25 - 30 knot gusts.  We pulled up all the chain until we were directly over the anchor and them drove carefully over which plucked the anchor easily and we were off to the calm waters of Catherine Cove, again stopping short near some rocks to try our luck there, we were still in about 30M of water.  I dropped my line and promptly pulled up two snapper, so they went straight in the bin. The wind shift had already spun us around by then and so Jo and Robin made a dash to fish from the bow to get in closer,  they began getting bites too.  Robin spotted a small colony of seals on the rocks some were just wallowing in the water with one flipper held high, probably keeping a weary eye out for sharks?? 

I decided to join them up on the bow so cast as far as I could with my 3 hook rig towards the rocks and within seconds of reaching the bottom was getting big bites and hooked up almost immediately.  On pulling up my line I discovered to my delight 3 Blue Cod of good size so in the live bait tank they went.  I decided to bait just one hook and cast again, this time I came up with 2 Blue Cod, fishing was going to be easy today!

Jo came up with a nice size Cod that was very feisty and as usual I got to unhook him, just as I got him off the hook he made a bid for freedom and next thing I knew I had a size 5 hook buried in my thumb.  I managed to keep the Cod on board with my foot while getting the rod safe to keep my finger unloaded.  Robin brought some side cutters so I could snip off the eye and push the hook through.  He asked Jo to go fetch his rod from the top deck and she promptly pulled up a fish, what would have been the first in this spot for Robin.  It was a very confusing scene two cod flapping around on the boarding platform, one on the line to be unhooked and me waiting to be set free, what a laugh!  I thought I would just do what I do when removing the hook from a fish and pushed it away from the barb as I drew it slowly out.  Once the barb was out I was able to follow the curve of the hook until I was free, it was actually pretty painless to be honest.  We gave the puncture a dousing in antiseptic and stuck a plaster over it so I could get straight back into fishing this worthy spot.  We joked that if it was Jo hooked up we would have had to call for the rescue helicopter as there was no way anyone would be allowed anywhere near the hook to extract it!  We continued pulling up Gurnard and Cod and very soon fishing was all over as we had our limit of cod for tea tonight plus snapper and gurnard to give us another two meals to follow.

Robin volunteered to fillet the fish having a sneaky fish while he did that.  He got more gurnard and Blue Cod so some of the healthy but smaller Cod were released, much to their delight. Our live bait tank keeps fish in great condition.  The next fish Robin hooked came screaming up to the surface leaping into the air to reveal itself as a 2M Bronze whaler shark, very close to the boat, before taking off out of the bay.  Robin predicted the outcome but enjoyed the challenge of the fight.  The shark leaped once more nodding its head to snap the trace maybe catching a sharp tooth in the process?? Fun was over for the day.  Amazing that a large shark was interested in a tiny plastic bait?

We made our way in as close as we could to the beach and anchored up for the night first enjoying a delightful Hawkes Bay Merlot pre-dinner then our beautiful fresh cod as fish bites in beer batter, shallow fried.  We had a lazy evening after another great day in the Sounds.  Tomorrow we would be heading back to Nelson.