Black Things takes a rest

It's not very often we break down, but when we do we make sure the whole town knows about it.

Leaving Tandibidi on an amazing calm Saturday morning.

We learnt a few things in the weekend, like the importance of Logging On with Sea Rescue, and telling friends where you will be fishing.

After our  first year anniversary in Exmouth we realised we had been West Side in Black Thing only ONCE that whole year!  Finally the weather was perfect so we decided to do it....the weather was also perfect for fly fishing down the bay, but sometimes Johnno has to put his Permit dream on hold to work on my Billfish goal!

We arrived at Tandibidi boat ramp as the sun was coming over the ranger, excited at the perfect weather forecast and our more than usual tackle preparation.  Johnno's recent purchase of a new Marlin reel, perfectly prepared with a very sexy looking Gulf caught Binito, we were confident this was the day for my dream big fish!

New rod and reel ready to catch Marlin!

Three hours later after zig-zagging what we thought was the right spot, our beans started falling out. Not a sign of fish life anywhere!  No bait balls, no birds working, but even more of a give away: no other boats any where to be seen.  Realising we had guesstimated the wrong spot (guessing where to go since it was our 2nd time ever West Side, first time chasing Marlin), we decided to head towards the reef, to fish a little bit more in our own knowledge area.  Chucking big poppers at the reef for Big GT's was the new plan.  Being a sucker for GT's, I was just as excited about this as Billfishing.

We stopped short of the reef to rig Popper tackle.  Full of excitement I shouted 'Too The Reef', but no, it wasn't to be.  Black Thing made all the right sounds, but wasn't moving forward.  It didn't take Johnno long to work out what had happened.  With a slipped Hub stopping the propeller from doing it's job (moving the boat forward), we were in for a very long slow trip back to the boat ramp.  We started off confident we could make it on our own.  I called friends to tell them where we were just in case.

Trolling under 2kph just doesn't cut it!
Watching birds working that we couldn't get too!
Johnno said I wasn't aloud to hook a big fish anyway because it would pull us off course.

We limped along at 2kph, thankful for the lack of wind and swell so we could stay on a straight course.  But when the wind started gusting, blowing us towards the reef, we know it was time to radio in for help.  Johnno got on the radio asking if there were any boats in the area that would be able to help us with a tow back to the boat ramp.   We got offers straight away, boats offering to pack in their days fishing to help us.  It was a very humbling feeling, such wonderful thoughtful, helpful people, willing to stop everything to help us.
In the end the luckiest fisher man of the day came to the rescue of the unluckiest!  Ben had caught FIVE Blue Marlin on his own already that morning.  WOW!!!!!!  Yes I said FIVE Blue Marlin ON HIS OWN!!!  Well almost, he had to get help when he had a double hook up!!  We got a few little pointers of what we were doing wrong that morning.  Everything happens for a reason ;) Now we have met the man who caught FIVE Blue Marlin ON HIS OWN, (hahaha I'm still taking that in days later) and learnt a few very important tips from him.  Well we had already worked out where NOT to fish for Marlin hahaha.

Although Black Thing was out of action for the rest of the best weather weekend we have had in ages, we got straight back on the horse/boat, and took Little Thing down the bay on Sunday....that's my next blog, it was awesome!!