House boat Pt. 1

The Easter houseboat? Oh, it was okay. No, really, it was pretty cool.
Who am I kidding? It was FUCKIN' AWESOME! In a really mellow and relaxed way. :)

We drove to the Bay on friday and apart from getting stuck for an hour behind a white minibus that felt a 100Km/h speed limit meant you had to travel between 60 and 80 km/h, the trip wasnae too bad. We all stopped at Braidwood and had fresh pies from the bakery (mine was curry... mmm...) and then headed straight to the Bay.

Arrived at the place and loaded the five cases of beer, two cases of wine and, um, some food and stuff, onto the boat and then got the rundown from Rob, the owner of Clyde River Houseboats. All the info was as you would expect; this is really easy to drive, try not to go on the land, don't drop cigarettes into the fuel tank. I can tell you that the boat weighs about 15 tonnes (that was worth mention quite a few times, apparently) and it's best not to get your fingers between the mooring line and the mooring point (as the 15 tonnes of boat would squish it).

The boat itself has 10 berths (two double cabins, two cabins with bunks and a fold-out double bed), gas cooking and fridge, a BBQ on deck and a running shower. We also hired fishing tackle and I strongly recommend you do so as well. Of course, despite all our fishing and catching only two legal fishies were caught (by Sean and Nick), but given that we even threw those back, the aim I guess was mainly to dangle a line and sit around, rather than obtain food. I do not having nearly enough patience to fish effectively (I only caught one fishy, and that a tiddler - the kind of fish minnows and tadpoles would bully), but I am quite the hook-remover, though, dealing with fish that had been caught through jaws, gills, the middle of their heads and in one instance their left eyeball.

The food was simple and cooked mostly by us, with one exception that'll have to wait until the next post. Sean proved the ace bacon-maker in the morning, and I managed to add a smokey flavour to the chili made on Saturday night by the simple expedient of burning some of it to the bottom of the pot. I do have to say that the kitchen was much better decked-out than I thought, though I would recommend that if you have a decent set of chef's knives you bring them with you.

And that's the end of part one, now if you'll excuse me I have to go reduce a 5000 word article to 3000 words and at the same time insert two major concepts and some examples of my creative writing into it. Yay, me.

Now if I can just get the ground to stop bobbing up and down...

Four things I have learned recently,

1. I have it in me to be a salty sea dog.


2. Sometimes I need to keep my gastronomic opinions to myself.


3. A dipped toe does not a suitable water temperature gauge make.


4. Fishing is both incredibly boring and addictive.A dichotomy that led to my staying up until 2am on Sunday morning.

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"I'm wearing a small, yellow, foil pirate hat on my ear and I'm being the sensible one."
- Me, following an attempt to take out the dinghy in pitch-black water by two very drunk crewmates.