Trip to Cape York

December 22, 2022

Hello, here’s part two of mine and Eddy Bloomfield’s fishing trip up at Cape York.

With the camp set up, I started prepping the 5m tinnie to go fishing – unstrapping the two 1.5 tonne truck straps that hold it to the trailer.

This is where I reckon many people go wrong – they don’t use straps that are good enough to hold their boat to the trailer – relying on their winch post instead to not move forward.

Sure, that’s its job, but that is also how your winch post gets snapped off.

Most people have only one or two small straps on the back of the boat and, in my opinion, that’s not good enough.

My boat has been fully reinforced inside and around the seats – to handle being strapped down tight to the trailer.

In fact, I reckon if my winch post wasn’t there, the boat wouldn’t move much at all because it’s strapped down so well.

What helps is to have a combination of rollers and long skids, and a lot more than on a standard trailer, which helps get my boat anywhere in good shape.

After a few hours, the boat was ready, so we slipped up the river and got ourselves some bait with the cast and scoop net.

We had a nice mix of mullet, biddies and blue claw rock crabs then headed offshore for a fish.

Onboard was Ian Fry, Eddy and me. Ian and his wife Jill had camped with our friend Bob for a week or two, so I asked if he wanted to come out with us.

Together we headed up the coast towards Janie Creek and then along the coastline for a bit.

Next minute, the 60hp four-stroke Yamaha coughed and went into limp mode.

I thought it had picked up some weed or a plastic bag, so checked the intake on the outboard leg and saw that it was fine.

I started the motor, and it seemed fine, so away we went. Then it did it again.

I thought I knew what was wrong and the spanners came out – I removed the thermostat, which was seized shut.

It was only 12 months old and had worked fine when I gave the outboard a good run in a drum only a week previous.

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