Time Out on 'The Gem' with Ken

Friday 20th March - 2020

Due to this wretched Coronavirus, many of us over 70's age group have to make changes and look after ourselves much better.

The change came about this week for me when my son Nathaniel came around to my place for dinner on Tuesday evening for a traditional roast leg of lamb with baked veggies, which is my speciality.

During a chat over a leisurely home-baked dinner with all the trimmings, my son said to me that he was very happy that I cancelled my pending 3-months vacation in the UK (actually it was cancelled for me by the Australian Government) this year.

'The Gem' tied up at the pontoon in Burraneer Bay
on the afternoon of our successful day on the high seas

I also had to deal with the postponement of my pride and joy this week. The powers that be informed me on Monday morning that our Pre-WWII Vintage Car Show could not go ahead as planned on Sunday 5th April, 2020. After many months of planning we were all set to go in just over 3-weeks then bang!!! - unfortunately that's how the cookie crumbles.

So now I find myself with a postponed Vintage Car Show, along with a cancelled vacation in the Northern Hemisphere due to regulations that are completely out of my hands.

What's more my son mentioned over dinner that I was in the most vulnerable age group (over 70) to contract this wretched virus, of which I was not impressed with his comments, however he was speaking the truth.

Besides, I still have my Superannuation to spend and I don't cherish the fact of clocking off from life just yet. I have these terrible thoughts of my son Nathaniel perched up in a 1st Class aircraft seat, eating caviar & lobster on board the latest Qantas jet heading off on holidays to wherever in the world without me.

Here's our Esky with our catch of Bonito. (No fake news here).

Back to the story about our day on the high seas yesterday in our 18' Half Cabin clinker launch called 'The Gem'.

During the conversation over dinner Nathaniel mentioned that he went to Woolworths & Coles Supermarkets on Monday to purchase some supplies and when he went to the meat departments the shelves were empty, he didn't even make it to the 'dunny rolls' section!!!

So being totally pissed off he said "Dad, we're going fishing" we don't need to put up with these greedy bastards that have purchased bulk of everything at the supermarkets, we will catch our own 'tucker'.

Yours truly checking that the yellow tail is
a legitimate size off the coast of Cronulla.

At 0600 yesterday (it was still pitch dark) when Nathaniel met me down the front of my property, I had prepared 'The Gem' on Thursday afternoon, filled her up with fuel, checked all of the safety equipment so that we could hit the seas running, Nathaniel's job was to have all the bait & fishing gear all organised.

High tide was at 0700 and I had strict instructions that we needed to be at our favourite fishing grounds a couple of miles off the coast of the Royal National Park at the top of the high tide.

As you can see by the photos above, we had a very productive morning's fishing. We caught a decent feed of Bonito and later on in the morning we caught nice plate-sized Flathead. So needless to say we were very proud of ourselves. 

Cheers for now,
Warbo

'Adventure before Dementia'