Retaining Walls and Catching Fish

It's not summer in Sydney unless I am concreting at Castle Burke. The mythical retaining wall is now a much closer reality, following the concrete pour on Friday morning. Obviously, it's important that it's done in at least 36 degrees. 

possibly an aeroplane?

 Waiting for the cement truck

Ethan correctly guessed the colour of the cement truck 

That is actually me pouring concrete.

Having done the concreting, it was time for the 'reel' fun to begin - a fishing trip (without the five year old, this time). We drove up the freeway to Brooklyn, 45kms north of Sydney, and launched the boat under storm clouds at about 4.30pm - which was pretty much low tide. We drove east towards the ocean and after a brief attempt to fish at West Head (abandoned due to one of the sailors being seasick), we powered in to Pittwater and found a suitably sheltered cove, henceforth known as Bream Bay (see map at the bottom of this post).

 Three men in a boat

 Catching my first 'keeper' bream

 Pete with a slightly smaller version

As the light diminshed, so too did the swell; by sunset at around 8pm the water was like glass, with an waning orange moon rising over the ocean beyond Palm Beach to the west.

We made our way back to Brooklyn under lights, after a slight detour - finding your way along the Hawkesbury is hard enough in the daytime as everywhere around is bushland with few landmarks (and we didn't have the GPS); so it's harder still at night. We fished near the marina and finally made landfall at 1.30am, about an hour after the high tide.

Wayne guts the bream

Of the dozen or so bream we caught, we kept only two as the others were under size. In addition, we either caught and released, or hooked but didn't bring in to the boat:

1 large octopus 

about half a dozen squid

2 eels

about half a dozen catfish

Bait-wise, we were on Hawkesbury prawns (which proved successful for the bream) and the odd bit of whiting caught on one of our trips up to The Entrance.

I finally got home and collapsed in to bed at about 4.30am on Saturday.

Below is an interactive map of our trip.