04-07 Sep All Mike Fishing Tournament

While Nic was Frocktailing Scott and a mate Bill from Pohnpei flew to the Marshall Islands for the All Mike fishing tournament. With 13 teams from all over the place, including Hawaii, mainland USA, Australia and all the Micronesian Islands there was a great variety of personalities and fishing stories to share, even before the first boat left the dock. Friday night was registration with a huge meal and free beer. The tournament's major sponsor was Budweiser so there was enough beer to sink a ship. Friday finished about 0130 Saturday, this wasn't great when the tournament started at 0700. So after a hazy 0530 wake-up it was down to the dock and onboard the assigned boats, only to find that every boat received a complementary carton of beer both days of the tournament. Oh well, when in Rome.....

The sponsors banner. One of about 10 that were put up around town.

The boats all the left the dock at 0700. At 0745 one of the reels had line peeling off and by 0800 Scott had landed his first marlin ever. Worth the price of the ticket for sure. He is still smiling now. Scott and his fishing buddy Bill also caught a big barracuda that won them first place in that category. $500 that pretty much paid for the hotel room and hire car. You beauty.

The Marshall Islands also have a couple of Australian Navy people based there looking after a patrol boat. Scott's mate Todd (in the pink) is the Chief Electronics guy there and he skippered the boat for his assigned teams and came up with the goods on both days.

This is the deck of the boat Scott and Bill had on the second day. Pretty bloody flash. There aren't any boats that look like this in Pohnpei.

The winning team and their three marlin. The wooden cut-out symbolises the tag-and-released marlin that also counts for points.

04 Sep - The Frocktail Party

Last Saturday saw Nic get all dressed up for a Frocktail Party. The 2I/C of the Australian Embassy is heading off soon and the Australian Ambassador hosted a party at her residence. Everyone was meant to get a little dressed up but not go to any great expense doing it. Most people made the effort and had some fun along the way.

Nic looked glamorous in her newly purchased evening gown. Scott was a little worried about how much a fine dress like this cost in a place like Pohnpei. $7 is a bloody expensive dress.

Miss Dersey and her son Maynard came over to babysit. Dersey is one of the ladies that works at Jaxon's school and babysits for us quite often. The kids love her which makes leaving them behind a little less stressfull.

All smiles for the ladies. The local stores must have made a killing the week prior tp this. I'm tipping at least a couple of those dresses cost more than $7.

As blokes do in Pohnpei, getting dressed up doesn't happen, it just doesn't. There was a couple of close calls though. No time for getting dressed up when there are free cocktails to drink.

Our Australian Ambassador Susan Cox with Janet and Eddy. Janet and Eddy head off soon from Pohnpei straight to Fiji. DFAT doesn't sound like such a bad job after all.

25 Aug - Quick fishing session

Took the boat out for a very quick session this afternoon. Came up trumps with my best coral trout so far. On jig (no bait) so even better.

21 Aug - Ant Atoll Fish and Dive - Dive

Scott wanted to take Nic to a spot that he had dived at about a month ago but we just could find it. So over the side we went at a nice looking spot. Unless you've done it you can only imagine the daunting feeling of diving a cliff face. The bottom is at least a thousand metres down. A little scary but fun at the same time.

As soon as we left the surface we were joined by a little white-tipped reef shark. He, and a couple of his mates, stayed with us for the entire dive. Here he is sizing Nic up, seeing if she could provide a meal or two (only joking Peter and Chris).

Another fantastic dive with a massive variety of beautifully coloured fish.

Nemo. There was a Daddy (pictured), Mummy and a little baby. Very Cool.

A bit of a perspective of the cliff face. The edge just disappears and you have no chance of seeing the bottom.

Crystal clear water with over 50 metres of visability. Fantastic.

21 Aug - Ant Atoll Fish and Dive

Saturday saw Nic and Scott heading over to Ant Atoll for a dive and some fishing. As soon as we left the inner reef we saw a massive flock of birds working the surface so out went the lures and in came the fish. We caught eight skipjack tuna and one yellowfin tuna in about half an hour. Nic even got up and fought a couple of tuna to the boat. A great start to the morning.

Scott loaded up on a 16lb skipjack tuna.

Beru does the gaff work and onto the ice it goes.

We left the school biting and heading over to Ant Atoll for a dive. We trolled a couple of lures over some likely looking ground on the way to the dive site and hooked up start away to a dog-tooth tuna. Fantastic eating these ones.

Nic had made up some lunch and it was quickly devoured. Beru insisted on having some skipjack sashimi though. We didn't have a cutting board so we found the next best thing. The spare engine....

Just incase you wondered why they are called dog-tooth tuna.

20th Aug - Scott's B'day

Friday was Scott's Birthday and he didn't really want to make a fuss about it. Who would when you get as old as he is.

Jaxon and Indi loved the idea of making a cake for Dad. Scott was surprised that there was a cake after seeing this photo.

End of work on Friday and the compound staff, our house help and the family got together for cake and beer. As you do.

We all went up to the Village Restaurant for dinner. Another cracka sunset in Pohnpei.

Pohnpei Pepper Crab. Not a bad birthday dinner at all.

We had our friends Allios, Haley and their little girl Milla join us. It was a nice night but I'm not sure the rest of the people there agreed with three little kids running around the place like it was a playground. Too much cake.....

13 Aug - Fire Extinguisher Training

Friday the 13th. If you were ever going to give the women and staff at the Embassy and Navy compounds fire extinguisher training, Friday the 13th would be the perfect day wouldn't it. What on earth could possibly go wrong...... Luckily for us nothing did. Scott and Dean rounded up some out-of-date extinguishers, got everyone together and after a quick brief about what to do it was game on.

Leading from the front was our Australian Ambassador Susan Cox. No fire is safe now.

Nic made sure that any little incidents that may result from Jaxon's adventurous mind are quickly dealt with. Not that we've had any such incidents yet touch wood, wait don't touch wood it might burn, touch dirt or something else that won't ignite.

While we were doing the training up at the Embassy Compound the power went out and the stand-by generator kicked in. No big deal we thought; power outages are a common thing here. It was only as we drove back down the hill that we found the reason why.

A tree was down and there were sparks and flames jumping in every direction. Lucky we had just all done our fire fighting training.

And wouldn't you know it, when Scott and Dean got back to work the Maritime Wing guys were doing fire fighting exercises as well. Must have been the day for it. And no, we don't know what the two little kiddy pools are for either.