Jonah

My friend Ken phoned me in the evening to ask if I’d like to join him and Alan for a fishing trip down south the next morning.  The primeval hunting instinct in me kicked in and I quickly agreed.  Then the planning instinct took over and I realised I’d need to be up at 5am to reach Ken by 6.30 and Alan by 7am. 

The excitement at the thought of catching something other than COVID-19 was enough to ensure I departed home on time.  We took Alan’s dual cab ute for the last leg of the journey as he knows the beach well and has his ‘secret’ fishing location several kilometres down the beach where he always catches fish.

It was a great day for fishing with a slight on-shore wind knocking down the waves with the cool breeze ensuring we didn’t overheat.  Alan had only cast his line three times when he lost his rig (float and hook).  Fortunately he had a spare.  Then Ken lost his rig and shortly after I lost mine.  With no replacement floats, Ken and I sat and watched Alan fish.  The tide was on the way out and Ken then noticed our “lost” floats had been washed up further down the beach.  We were back fishing!  After a couple of hours and no nibbles, Alan suggested we move and try the Dawesville Cut.  The ‘Cut’ was constructed in the early 1990’s and opens the Peel Inlet to the Indian Ocean.

Our luck didn’t improve here.  Perhaps because the three local dolphins were either eating all the fish or scaring them away.  No fish today…. A chinese take-away for dinner!  I did warn the other two I’m a Jonah when it comes to catching fish.

I continue to be confounded by the blogger photo issue.  Sometimes the photos are displayed and sometimes not!  However they are always displayed by Google Chrome.  I have cleaned the browser cache and it’s made no difference.  It’s a mystery!

The lead article on this morning’s international news was the UK government decision to go into lock-down.  In my opinion it is going to be an expensive failure.  It will definitely be expensive and it will fail because children and university students will be allowed to attend classes.  Children are “super spreaders”.  Statistically their health isn’t seriously affected when they are contagious and they can therefore be spreading the virus without showing symptoms.  University aged students generally think they are immortal and will heavily socialise.  All this mingling means the virus will continue to spread.  The UK government had better make sure they have those temporary Nightingale Hospitals fully resourced because I suspect the situation will get very bad.  I’d like to think I will be proven wrong but I’m of the opinion the UK government pandemic response has always been too little….  too late!  Our thoughts are with our UK based family, friends and blog readers.  Stay safe!