Whitey visits Faraway

When Helen and Jess left Faraway our old time friend Whitey from Peregian Beach came on board. He was very keen to do some fishing with us off Fraser Island. It was a territory he normally visited by 4 wheel drive so this was a new experience for him. Whitey brought enough cool boxes to keep us going for a week in beers and bait and Ian had to do 2 dinghy trips to get all the items on Faraway. We had to put a cool box behind the wheel and the photo shows Whitey making a nice seat out of it. We spent the first night on Faraway anchored in Tin Can Bay. Whitey got his largest fishing rod out in search of a big pelagic fish. After an hour of no action he suddenly got a big strike on his line. He played the fish but it swam under our boat and wrapped itself around our anchor chain and broke the line. We argued over the next few days whether it was a shark or stingray that got away but Whitey insisted he had a huge fish hooked! The next day we sailed up to 'The Bluff' and anchored there for the night. We fished on a sand spit but the boys didn't catch anything except for a couple of toad fish and a bird. Unfortunately Whitey hooked the bird while fishing. The photo shows Ian releasing the bird from the hook. Luckily it flew off unharmed and none the worse for its experience. I got sidetracked from all the fishing by a pod of Pacific Humpback Dolphins that cruised by us. I followed them all the way along the beach and at one stage managed to get waist deep in the water with them before Ian came zooming along in the dinghy worried that there would be sharks in the water. It was a truly memorable experience to be so close in the water to these rare sea creatures. On Saturday morning we sadly had to return Whitey to shore in preparation for our next guests on board Faraway.