Byron Bay
is lovely. It is a surf town full of surf shops, surf food places, surf cafes,
and more surf-y stuff. Everything is horribly over-priced, but that’s what you
get in a touristy town with tons of character.
It was the small towns and people we met outside of Byron
Bay that make this area of the
coast a place to remember though.
Ballina is a medium-sized town about half an hour south of Byron
Bay. It has a modest tourist draw
(being on the ocean and all), but pales in comparison to Byron
Bay’s size and magnetism. This is a
good thing for Ballina, if you want to get away from the surf shops and start
to talk to some locals.
Dugald was the first local to make Ballina and the
surrounding area very
special for us. He runs a fishing charter enterprise
called Ballina and Beyond, and lays proud claim to being one of the only
fishing charters from north of Byron to south of Grafton – a large stretch of
real estate by anybody’s map.
So he’s a busy guy.
But Dugald wasn’t too busy to take us out on his beautiful
boat for a morning of deep sea fishing – a first for me.
“I got everything you need; just bring your netski,” said
Dugald the day prior.
“My what?” I asked over the crackling cell phone.
“Netski. You know. To take your catch home in.”
After clarifying a few more times and facing increasing
frustration on both our parts, I chucked it up to being yet another Australian
term I don’t quite understand. A little investigative work over the afternoon
would reveal that it wasn’t a “netski” he was asking for; rather an “esky” – or
“cooler” for simple people like me. Kelly on the other hand, knew what an
“esky” was. A sure sign that he’ll be a better fisher than I for sure.
Waking up in time to be at the boat ramp for 6am was painful. And because the days are so
short at this time of year, the sun wasn’t even thinking about getting up for a
while yet itself. Nevertheless, it was nice to get up and at ‘em nice and early
to make the day a spectacular one. And spectacular it was.
Now I must pause in the story to share some small fears and
phobias of mine: those fears being centered around The Ocean. I have documented
my attempt to conquer my fear of swimming in the ocean,
but something you may not know is that almost every time I get on a boat, my
lunch gets off. I am a stout victim of seasickness, even on the calmest of
days.
So with white knuckles and a ton of anti-nausea medication
in my system, I braced myself for the next six hours on a boat in the middle of
the ocean. Going over the break didn’t instill confidence.
“Going over the break” isn’t a euphemism for anything. It
entails doing just that – going over the breaking waves as you travel from an
ocean inlet past the surf and into the great blue beyond. The waves that faced
us did not look friendly in the gray sky either.
I must say that Dugald took them like he was on a Sunday
drive, and later he admitted that these waves were nothing. All I saw was a
huge wave about twice as tall as the boat was long that was about to break
right on top of us. We motored over the top before it broke, then charged down
the other side, all of us being picked up off our feet and floating weightless
for a second.
Cue in nervous laughter from Nora.
Beyond the break, we were cruising for about 20 minutes to
an indistinguishable place in the middle of the water that only GPS revealed
was the place to go for fishing.
“Really calm day today,” Dugald said as he scanned the
horizon. “Calmest I’ve seen in months,” he said, as we pitched and rolled over
the waves. About 10 seconds later I was thrown out of my seat going over a calm
wave, a mere ripple by seamen’s standards. The vast sea of knobs and valleys of
water, waves coming from any direction with no distinguishable pattern was
making me nauseous with nothing more than a mere glance. Good thing I was
pumped full of anti-nausea meds. I prayed for them to work.
Shortly after we stopped, I was tossed a rod that Kelly
& I were to
share, and three lines went in the water. Less than two minutes
later, two fish were caught – a large red snapper, and a smaller pearl perch. I
was not one of the lucky people to reel in the catch. But at what was promising
to be a frenzied pace of fish jumping into the boat judging by the first two
minutes, I braced myself for my imminent bite.
And waited.
And braced some more.
A fish or two here and there continued to be reeled in over
the morning, as we dropped lines, waited, reeled them in and drifted to another
fishing spot. I was dropping a lot of lines, and getting not much more than
nibbles. I surmised that the fish can smell my fear of the ocean and are
probably laughing at me and my silly attempt to be a seafarer.
Alas, this was no bother to us. We were out on the water,
enjoying the nice weather, beautiful sunrise, and good company. We got a chance
to get to know Dugald and his business a little better. Ballina and Beyond
Fishing Charters has been around for about four years, and was built
upon a lifetime of fishing passions and stories. When asked what he likes to do
on his days off, fishing is his first response.
And it shows; he had a permanent smile on his face from the
moment he turned the ignition on and put his hands on the throttle until we
pulled the boat out of the water at the end.
Between conversation, dropping lines and reeling them in
(all 80 meters of line I might add), I managed to reel in a red snapper, and
some strange-looking bottom feeder that was donated to Dugald for bait. It was
too bloody ugly to eat.
On the way back in we transformed from a fishing charter
into a whale watching enterprise with front row seats. Between May and
September, whales migrate up the coast, and whale and dolphin spotting is not
uncommon. I’ve not had much luck with whale watching from boats (another
experience in seasickness), and have seen them from shore in Hawaii from a distance.
But to be literally 10 metres from a fully breaching whale
was an
unbelievable experience. We saw pods upon pods of whales, swimming,
playing, fishing, and breaching. Our boat easily maneuvered through the whales,
and we got to play with them for about half an hour.
But all things must come to an end, as our sun-kissed faces
and cooler (sorry – esky) full of fish were evidence to. Dugald promised us
that going back in over the break was going to be much rougher than our trip
out, and I was ready for the worst. I hadn’t been sick or had any
phobia-induced panic attacks yet, but there was still time.
Dugald took the break like a champion. We rode in on the
back of another wave, carefully missed the rocks on the side, and were on our
merry way in minutes. Wow.
Once on shore, we surveyed our catches. Dugald was
embarrassed at how little fish there was to be had today, but between three
fishers, we caught 10 fish. Pretty good haul if you ask me.
We cleaned and filleted them (a task at which Dugald was predictably
a master), and were on our way with four meals of red snapper and perch ready
to go.
So now I can add this deep-sea fishing and whale watching experience
to the list of ocean-faring adventures that didn’t result in puking or
panicking. Thank you to Dugald and Ballina and Beyond for making this
happen for us!
