SWINGERS...

 G'day All,
                  We are parked high and dry on Swingers Reef!
In fact this is our second grounding in 24 hours
Once again there waz not enuf water  for us to leave yesterday morning and we found ourselves aground in the centre of Endeavour River until the tide returned.
Mick managed to nail the first phish of the trip with this monster barracuda. with ruff conditions for our afternoon crossing we were lucky to get any surface activity.
However 2day we parked on the sand island as the morning tide dropped giving us until about 8pm tonight ashore.
Honey thort it was a gift from heaven as this tiny patch of sand turned into about 2 km square of exposed sand and reef.
This is probably one of the last places that itz practical to clean the hulls B4 we venture toward Lockhart River and itz associ8ed "lizzardz" (crocodiles).
Mick joined Duncan. Gus and Myself for the run out to "The Ribbons".
Mick is another "crazy"!, bicycling his way up the Eastcoast.
While Duncan found Gus at some random park bench in Cooktown.
It turnz out we were grounded at the same place as Captain Cook in the Endeavour River. The river is a gr8 anchorage except you can watch the weed grow on the hulls.
Plus we catch these big arse catfish while the Barramundi lines go untouched.
I'm not sure Mick's got the hang of fishing for food though, with both his offerings getting the thumbz down as far as acceptable dinner!
Update Thyme!
So we now find ourselves parked just inside the top of  Ribbon No7.
We have 6 meters of water below and 30 metres just behind the Yot.
We'll put in a solid effort here to catch a feed for dinner but pizza's will be our back up option.
No back up kneeded with the action slow at first turned on for a short period of mayhem with 5 or 6 Emporers  and a Jobfish coming aboard.
I kept a couple of the bigger emporer and the jobfish as re-supply for our fish stox.
A truly middle eastern lunch was created with Lebanese fish spice and lime grilled fish wingz, cous cous, tatziki, hummos and a fresh coleslaw.
This followz a "brekkie" salad with your standard  mixed grill served with warm tomato, cucumber, mushroom and mixed garden greenz.
As usual the catering department is up to speed!
While the guyz in charge of the scenery have exceled again with the front lawn an amazing array of corals and colour.
The nose of the Yot is rite along side the coral wall of a huge bommie The surface coralz drop down to 10 meters then off into 55 meters.
The spring tides mean the whole top of the Bommie is around half a meter out of water at the low. Unfortun8ly this also meanz strong currents either side of the change over.
We used Google Earth to survey the Reef and pick these Bommies out. Here's hoping they'll shelter the yot from the 10 knot winds and calm conditions.
But we may have to move to a more sheltered location!
With the water temp hovering just under 27 degrees we have truly found "Tropical" waters.
The water clarity is the best I've eva scene with crystal down to 25 metrez. This makes moving the Yot interesting with bommies looking like they'll strike the hull actually 10 metres deep.
With the calm conditions came the opportunity to run a spread of lurez on the outside of No7 ribbon reef.
The trolling activity was a big zero until we came back inside the reef where we hooked our first solid fish. Big Mac!
The mack was lost just neer the end of the fight.
I decided trolling was just using fuel 4 no result, so we set up some bottom linez and spent the afternoon bottom bouncing for different fishes.
This produced straight away with 6 nice coral trout coming from the afternoonz efforts.
We then decided to move to Marx Reef in search of a nite thyme anchorage, not 5 minutes into the move and we had our first Spanish Mack aboard followed closely by 2 shark macks.
The conditions are "so" calm there is no breeze to cool you down, so a dip in the water is the perfect solution.
It iz truly a strange sensation (wkoa) to be surrounded by this "paradise" yet still feel incredibly empty.
Even letting Honey into my life has sparked nothing. I'm not shore this will ever change!
The demon seems to be ever present these dayz with a recent change in meds having no positive effect.
I am sure, that itz a land based problem and at least I gain some clarity while I'm on the ocean.
Enuf heavy crap!
With a good supply of fresh fish on board and a spinnaker waiting for me, we have left a glass calm reef and pointed the Yot once more towards Cooktown.
This is my final re-supply and fuel up B4 Cape York and Bamaga.
I'll be heading North towards Princess Charlotte Bay then into Lockhart River to catch up with Gary. Hopefully I'll spend a week or 2 at Lockhart, then itz just a short hop to Cape York.
The day thyme temps are touching 30 degrees now and with very little wind to speak of the North is beginning to show signz of the seasonal change with the mango treez nearly ready to drop thousands of mango's on our lap.
We are planning to collect then pulp 20 litres of mango, then ferment and distill the  resulting brew.
The new spinnaker has arrived and after laying it out on the grass we fitted the "release sock" and packed it away ready to do a trial run in the next few dayz.
Once again Galleycat is in a "hurry up and wait" mode.
Every sign is now pointing 2 us setting off on Sunday now, this whole slowdown has bought my anxiety levelz back 2 maximum.
Brother Andrew is out chasing Billfish this weekend and we were due in Groote in just a fortnitez thyme.
 With 2 major stopz planned B4 we reach Cape York I'm falling further and further behind on my thymeline
and risking the seasonal tradewind change.
Still the journey continuez and we are in a situation (wkoa) most people only ever dream of.
Thingz could always be worse.

Captain Felix