Great Barrier Island (Day 2)

Woke up to a nice sunrise this morning. Once everyone got up and had a good eggs and chips & salsa breakfast, we headed in to town as there was some sort of pumpkin festival or something going on. Now, the whole island only has about 800 people living on it, so I could almost hear the banjos playing the Deliverance tune as we pulled up (Ding da Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding Diiing). The festival ended up being a nice little relaxing thing with a bunch of good food and some not-so-good arts and sculptures. We discovered the best donuts with homemade cream ever this morning as well (more to come on those later). One of the local hillbilly townsfolk even hit on Michelle and Chi telling them that he makes good babies...(with his sister maybe).

Pulling in for the Pumpkin Festival

Leslie modeling her newest favorite fruit, the feijoa.

Steve, James, and Nate admiring some of the interesting sculptures on display. Note that mine is a construction cone - no idea if this was really art or not.

Group photo in front of the toilet / counsel house / community center (not sure exactly, but it looked kind of cool). From left: Michelle, Paula, Leslie, Nate, James, Steve, Chi, Deon

After a thrilling morning at the Pumpkin Festival, Steve had arranged for us to charter a boat for a trip out with Captain Barry to try to go catch some Snapper. The sea was pretty choppy at first and we had trouble standing, let alone catching any fish. We decided to play balancing games while the boat was moving to see who could stand on one foot the longest (I had the solo record by the way with 8 seconds).

After several attempts in some of Barry's favorite spots without so much as a bite, we decided we would try one last spot, and if we didn't catch anything there, we would come back out the next morning. Well, as luck would have it, the last spot proved to be the best one. Almost immediately we hooked three fish (we only had three rods out at a time and simultaneously snagged all three). I caught some sort of a sea trout while two others caught red snapper. We started getting fish like crazy out there. Every other catch was a red snapper with several that were pretty big. It was great fun, and Barry had his hands full helping all of us out, putting up with the multiple tangled reels we caused, and disposing of our fish with his ice pick that he put through their heads before throwing them in the holding bin for us. We all had a great time....well, most of us. Unfortunately, Deon was a bit sea sick but she was a great sport taking all of the pictures for us. Without her we wouldn't have chronicled our expedition as we were too busy catching dinner. Speaking of which, once we returned in to dock, Barry filleted our fish for us and we proceeded to cook them up on the barbecue with some garlic, oil, and fresh herbs back at the bache for a delicious dinner supplemented by veggies, pasta, and a few green lipped mussels (more to come on these later).

Playing the balancing game when the fishing was slow

Steve and Capt. Barry chatting it up

Patiently waiting for the fish to bite

Me working to untangle my reel

James and Me still waiting...

Leslie being a good sport

Finally the fish arrive, and James celebrates by kissing his first victim

Captain Barry helping to haul in the red snapper


Michelle with the biggest catch of the day

Mmm...Dinner

Steve and me grilling up our freshly caught fish

The much anticipated meal

Group dinner