Heron Island / Bad Humminbird / Bad Suzuki

[Pimp A Shrimp]

Belated report. Been trying to get to 1770 since Feb this yr with no luck. Two trips were cancelled due to bad weather, but a small opportunity came up two weekends ago. So we drove up from Bris to 1770 on Wed night and launched first thing on Thurs morning with about half a dozen other boats. Reports suggested Thurs was going to be our best day, slowly getting worse through to Sunday. With less than a 1.0m swell and light Northerlies we flew out to Heron Island looking for a suitable anchorage for the planned Southerlies that were coming in late Thurs night.

A great cruise out with the boys taken the time to rig up our tackle shop worth of gear, in fact so smooth I rigged 5 rods from scratch.

Whales everywhere.

8:30am rolls by and we heading NE out from Sykes looking for some suitable country when the Sounder goes caput! Telling me we’re in 280m of water when in fact we were closer to 40m, and no clear image coming through at all even when completely stopped. F#@$’n thing stayed this way for the next 3 days! Usually the transom mount transducer pops up in rougher weather so this is always my first check…but no…it was locked down. So the only thing we could use was the contour lines built into the navionics card. Not a great help when there is no actual number written onto the contour line.

Sea anchor goes out in something around 50m and we slowly get a few keepers on board with one nice trout. Decision is made to head further north towards Broomfield looking for something….anything! F@#%^#@@ so annoying….no sounder. We now think we’re in 80m of water and one of the boys has loaded up on what we think might be a good size red, but too many head shakes, next thing a 75cm Snapper comes up the water column. I grab for the gaff and have an awful swipe at him bouncing of his head. Now I’ve got the line wrapped around the gaff with fish slapping around on the surface….f@#$….”grab the net”….”where’s the net?”….f@#!. We’ve come this far, even though it wasn’t red, I still wanted this sucker in boat. Eventually fish landed. Spent the next 3 hours heading east then west, then east then west trying to get some sort of a bag together.

Decky no. 2 slowly succumbs to lack of sleep and over indulgence of Kirin and takes a nap for 2 hours. This seems to work in the boats favour with a couple of nice Maori Cod & RTE hitting the deck. Call is made to head back to our anchorage before dark and get sorted for the night. An amazing sunset, some parrot burgers, couple of ales, and a constant supply of RTE’s hitting the deck – good fun in 5m of water.

As predicted the big southerly came through around midnight bringing some fresh temps. The reef knocked all the swell out so we were still in a good place. A small window of about three hours presented itself around midday. So we head NE of Sykes again but the swell has picked up and made things too difficult. We decided to go for a troll around Sykes and got a 100cm Spanish and three monster Shark Mackerel….dirty things! Still no sounder. Head back to anchorage to drift the shallows looking for some trout & RTE. No luck, so anchor down for the night, and get stuck into some Spanyid burgers, Kirin, and a steady supply of Spanglies to keep us entertained. Standout being 75cm. Very odd, nothing but RTE the night before, and now nothing but Spangled! Still good fun again in 8m of water. Freezing night.

Wake up Sat morning to howling winds and temp feels like 5 degrees. Get the boat sorted a little better with all the fuel drums going on the roof with the swags and rubbish. Decision made to head south to Fitzroy area, and see what the seas are like with maybe an early departure that afternoon if weather doesn’t pick up. Go to start starboard side engine and nothing….sh!t. Park that idea, and go to start port side engine and all good. Try starboard again….nothing, just a get a diagnostic sequence from the Suzuki gauges….4 beeps….4 flashes on the check engine gauge. Righto, pull out manual and nothing in manual that covers this code….f@#$. “What kind of a manual is this” I yell out to the Red gods. The only codes the manual will describe is generally around servicing. So well pull the engine cowl off and check all the important stuff around fuses and oil etc. Try starboard again and nothing. I’m now thinking about trolling 100km’s back to 1770 on one engine into a 20kn South Easter. Might get a good Spanyid!

No, let’s keep plugging away and see if we can fix this. About an hr passes, I feel like I now know the boat better than ever, and our relationship is flourishing. Same can’t be said for the two $h!tbox Humminbird Sounders that have got a free trip to the Bunker Group. Light bulb goes off in decky no. 2’s head. He jumps up to the helm grabs the throttle and levers it in and out of gear…try starboard engine…nothing…just the stupid diagnostic sequence that the manual doesn’t reference. Trys again, but this time the throttle lever is pushed as far forward as possible, and then as far into reverse as possible, try engine….as she fires…yee f@#$ing ha! The Red gods do exist! After talking to Suzuki (post trip) the likely scenario is that cabling may have stretched a little, and connection to engine may have a buildup of grease, so engine doesn’t know when it’s in gear. Makes sense. Full throttle forward and back must have reset the sensor.

Righto with the wind still howling we decide to troll as far south as we can towards Fitzroy as the seas really didn’t allow up to get up over 20km/hr. 2 hours later we get to Fitzroy, gather our thoughts, have some lunch and ponder do we leave now or at first light on Sunday. Sunday’s weather was predicted to get worse, so we make a call to tackle the 60km’s. Took all of 2.5hrs with our speeds slowly increasing from 15km/hr to 40km/hr. as the urgency to get back to 1770 before dark was upon us. Get in right on sunset. Spent the night under anchor again and had a great debrief on our last 3 days on the water.

Approx 300km’s for 550L of fuel. Enough fish for the 3 of us to take home a good bag.

[lethal]

Good trip anyway by the sounds of it.

I used to have issues with my hummingbird. The problem always related to power. cleaning the terminals and replacing power cables always fixed the problem.

better luck next time

[Crunchy]

That was a good read

[Bremic]

That is a good result in tough conditions with no sounder.

I think you are under rating the eating qualities of the shark mackerel, I would rate them above spaniards.

[Spaniard_King]

What was the verdict on the issue?

[FINICKY]

Sounds like a bit of fun was had by all. Better luck next time with electronics. What sort of/size boat do you have? 300k to 550L, I'm guessing it's a big one.

[Gr0wler]

New Furuno sounder on the cards

[gofishin]

... 300k to 550L, I'm guessing it's a big one.

I was thinking same (what you complaining about Keith ??? ). Doesn't look as big as Giddyup though.

Looks like a Sailfish (?), with maybe 175's (??).... Maybe?

Anyway, good report Pimp, and although I can see/hear the frustration about the sounder, sounds like trip turned out OK in the end considering.
Cheers
Brendon

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[feral cat]

That's what memory's are made of mate. Top read i must say.

[Pimp A Shrimp]

The one that was playing up is a 997c. I have had it for a long time. When you say power cables to what extent do you mean? Just purely battery to head unit?

ta

[Pimp A Shrimp]

Gary - haven't had a chance to have a good look at it. What would be your opinion? The diagnostic sequence of 4 beeps and 4 flashes isn't recognised on the chart. It might be a 1 and 3, or 2 and 2. But I didn't notice any breaks or pauses during the sequence.

[Pimp A Shrimp]

Finicky - its a 7m Jaycat by Offshore Marine Master. Real measurements are closer to 8.5m. 10.0m on trailer. Its all plate alloy. Twin 175 Zuk's.

[Moonlighter]

Ofcasionally you hear of an engine where the neutral position switch in the binnacle plays up, so the engine thinks it is in gear, so you get zip when you try to start it, like you did.

Might be worth checking that switch, it does involve pulling the throttle binnacle apart, of course.

[Pimp A Shrimp]

Ofcasionally you hear of an engine where the neutral position switch in the binnacle plays up, so the engine thinks it is in gear, so you get zip when you try to start it, like you did.

Might be worth checking that switch, it does involve pulling the throttle binnacle apart, of course.

Moonlighter - thanks. Have the weekend to try and sort this out!