Vessel Name: | Bay Dolphin |
Vessel Make/Model: | Seawind 1000 |
Hailing Port: | Brisbane |
Crew: | Darren, Leanne, James , Zoe |
About: | Australian family exploring the coral coast |
Hinchinbrook Island - Scraggy Point fish traps
Off shore from Scraggy Point there are some indigenous fish traps made by the Bandjin people, named the traps 'Ngaragubbi'. Sraggy Point is part of the Hinchinbrook Island which is located of the coast of Cardwell which is a town in between Townsville and Cairns. Since the construction of the fish traps the water level has risen so you can't see all of the originally built traps (there is white marker by GRMPA out further). The traps are built to the right of a fresh water stream (looking east from Cardwell). Oysters glue the rocks together. The traps extend over an area of two hectares. We think that the stream is significant to the success of the traps. We observed oysters gluing the rocks together and they must have done there job well to be standing today (including the category 5 cyclone Yasi that hit in 2011). How the traps work is as the tide covers up the traps the fish move with the tide and as the tide goes out the fish get caught up with the 40cm high walls. The walls need to have small holes in them or the water would gush over the walls and the fish would follow. The traps consist of many other connecting walls to make a network of traps.
There once was a dinghy on the back of a boat
Darren has used his not recently celebrated macramé skills to repurposed a whisky bottle into our backup fuel container for the dinghy. Carrick knots all round. We have now doubled our capacity!
We have left Townsville with some new gear, a spear gun for dad and a hand spear for me. I am looking forward to have a go with my new spear ever since I set eyes on it. We are at great palm island and I are going to try out my new spear today. Dad and Zoe are going line fishing so I get my 5ml wet suit [...]
When we anchored at Great Palm Island we thought that we would not stay long but we ended up staying 2 nights. It was paradise it had lots of coconut trees, a two kilometre long beach, a fresh water stream, a water fall, great fishing/spearfishing and some coral. The first thing that we did was we went [...]