Fleet Bay and Murray's Island

After a quick lunch on Ardwell Island, I headed off the seaward side of Murray Island for a spot of serious mackerel fishing. I attached a trace of three feathers to a lump of lead, dropped it overboard and let line out till it hit the bottom, wound it in a couple of feet and settled down for an afternoon snooze. The bobbling of the boat kept the feathers moving as the motion put me to sleep.

Suddenly, like an alarm clock going off in the morning, a tugging of my line brought me back to reality, as I drifted peacefully between my sleep and the islands. I had just hooked my first mackerel of the year. In fact, when I wound the line in, I was delighted to see I had caught two with my first cast :-D

I continued fishing for another five minutes and when I had five fish for the table, I decided it was too much like hard work so went to have a closer look at the islands.

Murray Island is now a bird sanctuary and as there were a lot of young gulls and gannets around I didn't land on this one

I also knew from a previous landing, many years ago, that the island is over run with rats. I kept my distance so as not to disturb the nesting birds as the rats will eat the very young or the eggs if the parents leave the nest ungarded.

The ruins of an old cottage show it was inhabited at one time but human life left many years ago.

I drifted quietly past the gulls and gannets and enjoyed watching their antics as they too tried to catch their fish dinners

Then I headed back to my mothers caravan for BBQ mackerel. I thoroughly enjoyed my second outing of the year, even though it was just a short, lazy and uneventful kind of day.