Surf...and more SURF:)

One of the many beautiful sunsets we have seen on our travels by yacht:)

Wow! It is always ominious to see a ripple of huge swells in the distance and even the odd foamy so far out to sea! I checked the charts and there is a 10metre pinnacle so far out! This is volcanic area and it is frightening to think that the massive tsunami 6 or so years ago actually started here in the Simoleu area where we are... I guess those tectonic plates that run all along the Indonesian islands must be overlapping somewhere underneath us:(( Umm-ohoh! The seasick tablet is kicking in and I am starting to feel soooo tired!

Caden and I in earlier days in the safe haven of a marina-stress free:)

Okay here I am hanging onto Brent-what can I say I am a "hangeroner.":)


Hanging onto my beautiful daughter:)

We are following our friends on their monohull Barbara Ann and another mono called Barra.

Barro

Barbara Ann

 They are both faster than our catamaran but when it comes to the rolling of the ocean, we do not feel it as much:) We went over to Barbara Ann last night for sundowners and they were rolling in the chop. I felt instantly sick:( While I am writing this- I am still on helm and I am noticing the depth mvong from 35m to 13...12 metres rapidly! This plotter shows the terrain below us and it is dropping again thank goodness-we are clear of that pinnacle. But where are those fish???

Austin from Barbara Ann doing a brave and late takeoff-lets hope for a good ending:)

Not so lucky this time:) But for a beginner he did so well surfing large Indo surf!

The reason why I have a twitching eye:)

I cannot complain. We have 2 bags of minced octopus. Brent traded his clothes for those octopi:) They did not want his speedos though- I cannot understand why?:)

 He also traded for crayfish but got ripped off. Never make the mistake of parting with your loot until their loot is in your hand:)! Before Brent could get the large crayfish- the 'traders' had zooted off with Brent's clothes and he was left with a teeny crayfish...



Look at the Spanish Mackeral we caught!



As I  was saying about waves breaking in the middle of the sea :( I am looking to my starboard side and can see an upheaval of ocean! There is a plateu of 10m rock in the deep and it is causing havoc with the sea as rocks on that rock protrude up to 3m below the surface! I would not like to be sailing at night and find myself on a yacht perched on those rocks!!!

There is a local fishing boat near us and its movements are a little unpredictable. I actually start to get nervous when these boats start to move in our direction. It appears that firstly they are trying to cut across our bow as it is their opportunity to cast their bad luck onto us and then inevitably they cannot catch us up enought to cross in front of us- so to get US back- they nip behind us! The problem is we have fishing lines out behind us and some of them are quite far out. I have to furiously reel in so that they do not cut across our lines and hook our lures (which I believe they want...) In Thailand we were motoring or sailing along when in the distance I saw a stream of high speed boats heading in our direction! I already anticipated that they were coming right past us and I started to reel in a line as fast as I could. No-one else was around to help me and I could see that I was not going to get the other line in on time... I was beside myself, standing on the sugarscoop in a bikini,cranking in a line while madly waving my rod at the boats. All the boats cut in front of us except the smallest one...and it went past us at top speed -right over my line!!! All I heard was the line going beserk and as the speed boat went past- the rod bent sideways until all the line and lure snapped off!! I was soooo angry!!! And as I waved and yelled and wound the other line in, the guests on board that boat waved happily to me ! I hope that my lure jammed up their propellor as they broke my reel! ooo- there must be a crack in the seabed below us now as the depth drops from 50m to 130m in one breath!!


Take a look at what the future holds:)



Did I mention the excellent surf today?? As usual though I am frustrated because I did not get too many good photos of Brent and Cody surfing:(

It is not easy from the duckie to take perfect pics as it is just Caden and myself steering the duck. I am petrified a wave will break on us so we spend our time burning up fuel as we  try and keep a safe distance...

These particular waves were humungus!!! Cody come baaack!

Cally is out there too and today she lost her surfboard in a big set! It got washed onto sharp reef and after she tried to climb onto the sharp rocks to retrieve it, Jack picked her up in his duck and took her around to a beach so that she could walk around to collect her board.

Cody was so anxious to surf that he dived overboard -with his leash unknowingly wrapped around Cadens ankle..so we had "snot en trane:)" as Caden nearly got yanked overboard...

Do you have ANY idea how big this wave is???I feared for Cody's life!

What a family! The surf is over and we are moving on again. I have been on a shift at the helm for 3 hours now and all the males aboard are asleep from surf exhaustion

Look what WE caught!!