The rain came down all evening and
as today was caravan park day we were off nice and early. After being in small
towns, most only having a population of 800 – 1500 for the last two weeks, it
was a bit weird driving into Port Lincoln which is a pretty big regional town
in SA. The rain had eased off a bit so we headed into town and kicked De out to
have a couple of hours of quite time in a town with more than 10 shops! The
boys and I then did the rounds of the tackle shops and picked up some supplies
including me lashing out on a new $2.50 pair of boardies and three $6 t-shirts
as well as a $10 pair of thongs.
We checked out the marina which is HUGE and home a the biggest fleet of trawlers I have ever seen. The photo below is only one line up, there are another 3 or 4 and that doesn't include all of the boats used for the fish farms!
The boys and I had a bit of fun with De as Port Lincoln is the home of the cage dive with great white sharks and all kinds of other creatures. As we drove around the marina I intentionally chose not to look at the shark dive signs and while she says she new I wouldn't do it, after making her jump out of a plane for mothers day, there was always the chance I could feed her to the sharks for Valentine's day! Aside from making De's sweat cold we managed to run into the local seal at the boat ramp who was more than happy to pose for a picture of two, and managed to save us a few hundred bucks on paying for a tour!
We spent the afternoon on the
caravan park jetty trying in vain to catch a squid, however we at least saw a
couple trailing our lures so I was feeling pretty hopeful for this evening as
they are supposed to be a lot easier to catch at dusk, which is around 8pm in
this part of the world!
The park had a full oven in it so
De cooked up an awesome dinner of lamb shanks and roast vegies and early
valentine’s day meal! As soon as the boys were in bed I headed for the jetty
determined to get a squid. There were a few others there already but nothing to
show for it. I set myself up and cast and cast and cast but with no result. A
local bloke fishing at the end called me as a couple of squid had followed his lure
in so we jigged our lures in front of them. I am guessing they must have liked
his colour more as two ended up taking his while mine remained an unloved
prawn looking thing. He managed to get another small one and when he was
leaving offered them to me as well as showing me how to clean the small one.
They are a comical creature squirting out these massive blobs of ink when they
are caught and as they lay on the jetty they change colour from translucent to
a dark woody brown.
I squided on for another half an
hour but called it a night and proceeded to clean my other two. When I was
shown previously there was no ink at all and apart from being really slimy it
was fairly easy to do. The first step is to pull its head off and as I did my
first one I ruptured this guys ink sack which he must have thought to keep
relatively full. My hands and him were now completely covered in something that
resembles ink from a black ball point pen. 5 minutes later I had three calamari
tubes that looked like they had been dipped in a tub of tar! Back at camp I
managed to wash all of the ink off, stored the bits for bait and packed away
some tubes to show the boys in the morning. I wanted to tell them that I caught
them but new I would be found out in the end.
The rain started again just as we
were going to bed and it was awesome to have the sound of rain tinking on top
of the van as we drifted off to sleep.
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