The Fishing Trip

Saturday I headed down to Geelong and went fishing with my father.
It's always a good time to spend some quality 'bonding' time together and something we both don't do enough of.

I'm no fisherman, and have as much fishing skill and the hunchback has sex appeal!
However, my Dad is an awesome fisherman!  I always learn something when I go out with him.

So I got down to Geelong around 11am and we headed out shortly afterwards.  Dad took me down to St. Leonards and we fished off the pier.

It was quite a non-descript day, with a gentle breeze most of the day, not cold and not warm, and reasonably overcast most of the day with the clouds rolling in from the west most of the day, whilst the sun occasionally broke through just to keep us all warm and hopeful for more.

A bunch of kids were spear-fishing near the pier and made the experience even more difficult.  Whether they were scaring the fish away, making enough noise to wake the dead, or just a nuisance always not far of getting tangled in your line.  Those fishing on the pier tolerated them, though could be seen cursing them under their breath.

We ate our sandwiches on the pier, swigged a cold drink and some coffee and had a perfect vantage point to watch the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) enter the heads of Port Phillip Bay and head towards Melbourne.

The fish came and went, with a few nibbles here, and a few there.  Though no-one caught anything of note most of the day.   I caught a 29cm whiting that we ended up bringing home.  (Pauline cooked it up for lunch on Sunday!)

By 4:30pm we'd had our fill and decided to call it a day.   I looked a little read, but nothing too bad.
I stayed at my folks until about 7:00pm and then headed back home.  It was a fun day.

By that evening... the sunburn had come out.    I started to look like a living tomato and had been burnt on my legs, neck, ears, face, fore-arms and hands.   As Pauline so delicately put it "Who get's burnt on the back of their hands?!"    Apparently I do!

Sunday has seen me in pain from the experience.   I'm not sure if this will blister, though it's likely to peel.  I should have slipped, slopped, slapped....  though I did have a shirt, hat and sunnies on and I imagine would have suffered a lot more without them.  In hindsight a good dose of sun-cream might have been an even better idea! 

Ahhh well...  a little bit of pain and discomfort for a few days.... still doesn't take away from the great time I had with my dad.