Cray Fishing in Western Australia

Cray Fishing
Lancelin began as a small cray fishing town, and it is still the primary industry here. Tourism is the second. After being here for a collective 3 months or so, I decided it was time to get out on a boat. Fortunately, my friend Scott is a fisherman, one of the biggest and best boats in the bay, so I went to see what is was all about.
3am: wake up- reluctantly
4am: Meet the skipper and the other deckhands down at the jetty
We jump in the dingy, launch into the water and head out to the big boat, and turn on the lights.
The Skipper has plenty of gear to help him find his already dropped pots and the best places to re set them. Some GPS, some bottom scanning and what not. The pots are made of wood, with steel bottoms and weights, and two compartments near the top for the bait (Mackerel at this time of year).
The Skipper pulls up next to the buoys that are marked with his boat name and number, one guy snatches it with a hook on a rope and attaches it to the winch. Then then the pot speeds out of the water onto at bench at the side of the boat. Then the next guy takes out the bait and throws it into the water, this is when the dolphins start following us. Then he pulls out the crays ( or Western Australian Rock Lobsters), and measures them. If they're too small, they go back. If they are pregnant females, they go back.

Sometimes, more than just crayfish appear in the pots. All different kinds of fish can get trapped, as well as eels and octopi. Important fact: the octopi like to eat crays and are therefore the mortal enemy of the cray fisherman. At one point, we pulled up a pot with an octopus. The Skipper ran down the ladder, picked up the occy (as the aussies call them) and bit it's head off! I am told this is a stunt, just to entertain and frighten the observing tourist, but still, ew! Once the head is off, and they stop sucking and sticking to everything, they use them for bait when they go wetlining. Wet lining, is just like cray fishing, but they set down a line with several hooks on it, to catch large fish, like Dhu Fish. They collect them much faster since their catch insn't protected by a pot, and they stay out for days on end until they have enough fish to sell.

6am: As the sun rises over land, the dolphins are looking for breakfast, and know exactly where to find it. They race along the side of the boat as we travel from pot to pot and wait for the bait to be thrown. They'll jump and do tricks if you hold the fish out. Later on, we had a whole family of them following us!


10am: This process takes many many hours. Just as we were pulling up our last pot though, I spotted a shark! You see, dolphins fins swim up and down, but this one was moving laterally. And sure enough, there it was, a bronze whaler. I haven't been swimming much lately.

The day I went out was a short one, since we didn't have to re-bait the pots and re set them. Normally, the boys don't get back until about 3pm. The Government is placing all sorts of new regulations on the industry, fewer boats, fewer pots, shorter season, and they need to take 10 day breaks 3 times during the season (November to June), all in the name of sustainability (which is not a popular topic around here). Since this particular day was the last one before a break, we were hauling all 148 pots on board and then storing them in the shed.
I say 'we' but I didn't do anything but entertain the dolphins and ask far too many questions.

You should be able to follow the picture story by clicking on the photo link to the right, or here

Lindy Hop in Lancelin

I made it back to Lancelin safe and sound. Work at the Tavern is the same, casual and fun.
The sand is still white, the sea, still crystal blue and I feel at home (well, as much as I can this far away from Canada).

Lindy in Lancelin
Photo by Trevor Hutchinson

So I was thinking to myself one day, "Gee, it's too bad there is no lindy in lancelin, there is a perfectly good community hall right there". And then it hit me like a sack of potatoes ; why not bring lindy hop to Lancelin? So I did.

For the Perth swing dancers, it was a weekend getaway from the city, filled with sun, sand, beers at the tav, a dip in the pool (at the backpackers hostel where they all stayed), good friends and great dancing.
The hall is fairly small, but it was just perfect for us. Car loads of dancers flowed into the small town throughout saturday afternoon, some hit the beach, some went off roading at the dunes, but we all congregated at the hall for dinner together. There was a feast, there was laughter, and then of course, there was dancing.
I did advertise the event to the town, and even promised a beginner lesson! Unfortunately, not one local showed up. Later on that night a few trickled in to see what was going on, but it was not well supported by the townsfolk.
Fortunately, it was very well supported by the Perth swing scene! There were 25 of us dancing the night away, some from as far as Sweden and Canada!

Around midnight, I looked around the room to see my dancing friends, having a ball, feeling totally relaxed to be away from home and I knew it was a success. But then, out of nowhere, a band began to play! Jessie G and her two Phat Cats they called themselves, and they played one heck of a saucy latenight blues set, with no mics, and absolutely no preparation. It was marvelous.

It sounds like Lindy Hop in Lancelin will be a repeat event, with or without the Canadian organizer, and I couldn't be happier.

Feeling Spontaneous

Melbourne part 2

Things that are great about Melbourne
-Market-

-Bicycles-> everyone has one, everyone rides them everywhere. I had one, it was called the 'intimidator' It got me to work at back, and for that, it was loved. To really fit it, you need a crumpler as well, but I wasn't quite that dedicated to the Melbourne image.

-Live Music-> There is great music to be found all over the city, I focused my energy on one particular variety of course. One of my favorites being Virus, who play weekly at a glamorous hole-in-the-wall called Alchemy ( their water glasses are beakers and there are medieval chemistry books lying around on Victorian couches). But there were other great musics events, like Swing in the Park and of course

-Lindy Hop-> The hep cats in this scene really know how to swing it. I think I learned more in 2 months of light social dancing than I have in 2 years of intense workshopping. They are super fun and super awesome.

-Food-> I'm not all that adventurous an eater , and I'm fairly inexperienced when it comes to ethnic foods, but Melbourne is an excellent place to change all of that. My buddies Kieran and Loz definitely got me into the spirit of good asian food and introduced me to a whole new world of dishes to try. mmmmm....

-The Australian Open-> have you ever sat down to watch a game of world class tennis in the scorching summer sun? I highly recommend it, but wear a hat! I put sunscreen on 4 times that day and still got burnt. But it was worth it to watch the Williams sisters play doubles against (and by that I mean demolish) 2 lesser known Australian girls, the crowd went nuts! We also had seats to the epically long and well matched match between James Blake and Juan Del Potro. Again, a very lively crowd and we were sooo close you could practically feel the sweat. I have a whole new appreciation for tennis.

After all this fun, I started to get the itch to get back on the open road, change locations and what not, but I still needed work. Then, through a strange string of events; speaking with my roomate back in Lancelin, finding out they needed barmaids, wanting to attend a big swing event in perth and generally loving Western Australia, I decided to go back. I left my job Friday night, had goodbye drinks with friends saturday night, and booked a flight and flew out sunday.
Have you ever booked a flight and flown in the same day? Again, this is something I highly recommend. AND, on the flight, I saw some lighting but from a whole new perspective!

This all happened at the end of January. I was having so much fun basking in the joy of my spontaneous act, I didn't feel the need to tell anyone, or write about it. Most of the Perth swing dancers didn't even find out I was back until I showed up to a dance one thursday night in February.
That's one other reason I came back, I just felt right at home in Lancelin but especially in the Perth lindy scene. Which is probably why I decided to host a Swing event here, but more on that later.