We have a loose rule on the island that we don’t work weekends… but when the weather is cracking, we don’t work weekdays either! Today is stunning, and we have a mission – to catch our first lobster!
First thing’s first though – it’s a Wednesday, which means workout day! Around 7:15 am, in our makeshift gym in the yard, we lift rocks three times per week. The beaches here have an abundance of smooth circular or oblong rocks, a selection of which we’ve weighed and set aside for our weight sessions. The post driver has also been a useful addition, as well as the backpack filled with paint tins.
8:30 am is coffee and breakfast outside in the sunshine, overlooking East Cove. At 9 am Apanie does the rounds (rainfall observations, solar power generation & use recording, and opening of the museum). I stay around the house, doing a little cleaning while I wait for our weekly ‘well-being check’ call from the Ranger In Charge.
By 10 am we’ve loaded the Polaris (our little ATV), rolled through the gate and are heading for PegLeg Cove. The ATV can only take us part way, so we walk the last ~800 m down the hill with our backpacks full of snorkel gear and stuff we hope will help when we do catch that lobster (e.g. a bucket!). It’s a moderately steep walk, initially through casuarina forest (which dominates the island), opening up a little for eucalypts further down.
Pegleg is my favourite ‘beach’ on the island. It’s all rounded rock (no sand) which you step directly onto from the forest. You can walk along the rocks out to the water and directly into kelp forests, which we snorkel on. There are a couple of boulders that sit out in the water, with enough surface above the water to sit on with a bucket… which is why we decided this would be a good place to catch lobster.
We purchased a cray ring in Launceston after deciding a pot would be too heavy for us to haul in without a boat, and that diving for them looked difficult. We found a video on YouTube of some teenagers using a cray ring and think we’ve worked it out enough to give us a chance. We’ve tried the ring twice prior to today (at different locations) but have since fine-tuned our approach and think that we know enough now to catch one.
By 12:30 pm we’re in our wetsuits and snorkel out to the rock with our gear. I tie the bait to the ring from the top of the rock and throw it down to Apanie who’s in the water. She guides it into position and then floats about waiting. After 5 minutes, I get the signal that a lobster has crawled into the ring, and I pull it in quickly from the rock while she eases it around the seaweed. We caught one!!! I untangle it and secure it in our bucket (with the makeshift net lid I made). There’s a bit of whooping and splashing around in celebration, then we lower the ring for another turn. This time a greedy fish manages to run off with our bait. I make a mental note to secure it differently next time. We both decide one is enough for now and gently snorkel back to shore with our bucket of lobster.
A quick picnic snack gives us the energy we need to traipse back up the hill with all our gear. It’s cheese (some of the 15 kg we brought to the island) and sauerkraut (made from surplus garden cabbage) on crackers. The walk up the hill feels like a scene belonging to a Tim Winton novel. An exhausting hike through untouched forest… wallabies scattering from the path as we happily (and exhaustedly) carry our wetsuits, cray ring and lobster up. The kind of adventure that will make the meat tonight taste even sweeter.
By 2 pm we’re back in the ATV, including the lobster who’s riding in the front with us – mostly out of sheer joy (ours) as opposed to any concern about it sitting in the tray. We head back to the house and put her (we’re fairly confident it’s female) in the freezer to subdue while we clean up and eat a proper lunch.
Sufficiently chilled, we retrieve our lobster and mentally prepare ourselves for our first murder. The shell is spiky, and I have to hold it firmly with a towel while we both push the knife through, but it’s done quickly. Despite this, the muscles still twitch while I’m gutting it and prepping for dinner later.
It’s only 4:30 pm, and we have a few hours to fill before dinner, so we catch up on a few chores – mostly tending to the garden and checking in on the museum.
We sit down to a meal of barbequed lobster and salad at 7:30 pm, overlooking East Cove. The lobster is sweet and smells distinctly of saffron to me. We eat it simply with a bit of butter and dill. It’s been a lovely day and seems appropriate to celebrate with a G&T from our ‘unallocated’ supplies.
Our ‘regular’ routine resumes at 8:30 pm with a yoga session, followed by a cup of tea and some reading, then off to bed. What a day.
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