Fishing and some etc...s

My ability to stay on task at the moment is, to put it frankly, pathetic. I should be writing so many blogs that you all should be screaming (via email, phone, carrier pigeon, whatever it takes) to tell me to desist. In any case, my point, is that I have enough free time that I should be talking your ear off.

Some of the things I should have mentioned:

• -       Todd showed up to the airport to pick me up in a dress shirt, nice slacks and formal shoes. I looked pretty nice myself but he really outdid himself (loved it) J.
• -      I LOVE my herb garden. It is quite small, and yes I know it is probably not good farming etiquette because the plants will probably grow into each other, but for now, for my purposes… perfection! 
• -       Todd took Al, Caitlin (Al’s gf) and myself to the dam last weekend to show the progress that has been made. It was so amazing to see and I am so incredibly proud of him that I promise I will write a detailed description in a blog to follow. I just want to fact check some things with him so it sounds as impressive as possible J
• -       While Al was in town we went to Montezuma’s, the only “Mexican” restaurant in town and I was once again blown away by the expensiveness and inauthenticity of the food. Sorta led me to think that I should open a restaurant here because most Australians need a serious education in good food.

Ok, now that the little things are covered, on to the main event: deep sea fishing! Todd had a cousin in town last weekend who loves to fish and as a result, Todd, Danny (the cousin), Roman, Pete, and I went deep sea fishing on Sunday. We rolled out of bed at 5:30am and headed to the docks passing Surfers where there were many a group stumbling home after a long night out. The captain of the boat is a one-man show. He is the owner/receptionist/captain/supervisor of the small fishing company and as Todd put it “a real fisherman.” He certainly wasn’t kidding as this gnarled toothed, wizened, wrinkled man was probably in his fifties but looked like he was pushing 70. Not that his age detracted from his fishing ability AT ALL. We went four miles off shore, stopped at several places, and each time, he would lower his bait and lure into the water and within 3 minutes, would pull out the largest fish that anyone was catching by far.

Pete and Danny

The group of us kept watching him closely and joked several times that he must be putting a large fish on the end of his line and then pulling it in for show, but in truth, he was just showing how experience really does matter.

I did fairly well myself managing to pull in four fish, of which two were keepers and quite tasty later on in the day when we had a big feed with Danny’s wife and kids. While Todd and Roman were quite bored with the sport after a few hours, I definitely enjoyed myself and found that this contemplative, yet communal, activity is definitely something that is in my blood (thanks Dad.) 

They look dinky but they sure were tasty :)