11 Dec 2010 - The 'Return'

I'm hitting the SG waters again after 'MIA' for more than 2 months.










And this is possible after all the hard work put in by our skippers and seamen - Dave, Chee Wai and Boon San who have done a fantastic job in:
1) Repairing the anchor windlass
2) Cleaning up the bilage pump area
3) Stunning paint job on the window sills
4) ....the list goes on and on...
I would also like to acknowledge the good efforts from Preston and Francis who have contributed to the 'Spa' job for North Star.

Captain - 2LT Dave Ang
Crew: Francis, Edwin, Preston & Denise, James
Area of Ops - Ubin and Tekong
Weather - Fair, sunny and windy

We also tested our 'new open air toilet' on North Star and tester Preston was very very pleased...










We were all zero-fighters at the first spot...hence Francis decided to reveal his secret spots and make our way there...
He said many many at low tide and he was the first to get a silver fin Ah Seng - CnR.

Edwin followed with a 2nd - a yellow fin Ah Seng and we decided to keep that for our reliable maintenance staff at MCC.












The secret spot was full of booby traps and we lost heavily - prawns, weights and leaders...And the anchor was almost a casualty too!!!

Edwin ended up as the overall winner with a good Jack.










There were many misses too, esp. so for Francis.
Although the catch is poor, but nice company and catch up with friends on North Star.
Another fun day!

18 Sep 2010 - Broke Back Boating

This was my best trip on North Star V to date.

CR:
Robin (aka fat Uncle Oh) - 2 grunters & 2 ah sengs
Ben - grunter & 2 ah sengs
Desmond (aka Captain) - ACK and Gao
James (aka fatter Uncle) - ang kway, Gao and Cuttlefish
Misses: 4-5





LOTS of learning points/funny from this back-breaking, muscle aching but rewarding trip:

1. Cut waves at 45degress and not perpendicular.
2. Reading echo sounder graphs for productive fishing spots
3. Parking the boat at the correct spot, taking into consideration of current flow and wind direction.
4. Tying apollo hooks
5. Wear gloves if you are going to pull anchor manually for the day
6. Kids really like to ask WHY...Princess WHY got her nick because she never stop asking WHY the whole day...amazing! I have problem keeping up with answers to her WHYs...

We have Captain Desmond's daughter Princess 'WHY' (Y for short) to entertain us today and she is sure a hyper active girl...Ben and I were busying baby-sitting her for the entire day. Fun!
Princess Y was very busy snapping pictures the whole day with my camera...she really likes photography..

Ben started the day with a nice table-sized grunter.

My turn was next with a nice size fighter - Ang Kway. About 1kg plus accordingly to the 'accurate' vision-to-speech 'ROBIN' brand weighing tool...

Robin was the only Zero fighter till 4pm and finally he was rewarded with a huge grunter. Happy man at last but still lost out to my Ang Kway...

To view more pictures, pls visit my facebook group Fun@Kayak & Boat Fishing:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/photo_search.php?oid=134581443235184&view=all

22nd Aug 2010: 'Lobsters Porridge' and a very bad day at sea...

This was probably the worst trip on North Star V so far...

Summary:
1. 4 miserable small fishes: 2 x youthful ACKs, 1 x baby unknown fish and 1 x flathead
2. Plentiful of 'sunk-kooks'
3. Badly burnt like lobsters
4. Super hot and tired (sure kenna heat stroke if not for the endless beer parade with Sapporo and Henniken...)
5. Finally get to fish along side with David and thanks to him for some tips at the 'G-spot' and that's where we landed the 2 x ACKs.
6. Got to known the famous Ah Bee boatman while cleaning North Star side by side with him...

The heat really hit me today and hence, a very poorly written blog here...



















Captain Lee with the 1st catch of the day - a baby unknown fish
























Edric with beginner's luck
























Dave is the man today with his 2nd - a flathead and it was released.



















Boat owners = cleaning workers too...

North Star V in action 1 Aug 2010

Finally, all 5 shareholders of North Star V were in action today!


















Again, it was a rainy sunday but our spirits were not dampen...started out at 2pm plus with the help of the friendly MCC staff...

Today's biggest challenge was parking North Star to buy prawns! the current were quite strong and we tried parking North Star along side with the kelong for about 4 times and finally made it.

Then we refuelled North Star and started out at the first 'spot'. Shortly, Nichole got a huge bend on her rod and Bham! Up came Ah Seng.
























We thought that was a bad sign of no other fishes and Boon San suggested for us to hit back at our 'lucky spot'...
Luck came immediately with Boon San getting his second fish in his second consecutive trip in North Star!!! A nice size Gao He and he is darn lucky.
























We believed there's more to come and true enough, I've got a nice ACK too.

























Others were not so lucky:
Robin - foul hooked a small grunter by its eye and released.
Dave - baby ah seng, released.
CPT Lee - baby star grazer, released.



















With the 3 fishes caught, we flew down to Kranji for the grand feast...all three fishes were steamed in teochew style and tasted super fresh...
But the star of the night was the 'Hong Shao' Crocodile leg - full of collagen and tasted darn good, like pork knuckle with a lot less fats... Not cheap too at $100...

North Star's maiden trip with CPT Lee CW_25 July 2010

Sorry for the grammar mistakes this report was written under intense alcohol intoxication resulted from non-stop beer intake from 3pm to 8pm...

Supposed to meet Leonard and hit the waters again and alas! he was down with fever and needed the rest. The 6 of us decided to 'break the rules' and started the engine.

CPT Lee CW accepted the challenge and the rest was history. We knew the biggest challenge was getting North Star out and back into the marina. Our plan: I took the bow and dave took the stern.
To our pleasant surprise, the friendly red shirts knew how 'good' we were and came to help us.
North Star eased out to Punggol effortlessly...with Cpt Lee's steady control.

The next challenge was to along side North Star with the prawn farm...and we did it candidly with the help of the prawn vendor...pulling the rope, all of us crowd to the starboard side to ensured North Star did not bump onto the kelong...and Cpt Lee has to issue a 'warning' to get some of our asses to the port side to balance North Star....

With the v happy prawns in the bait well, we started our short fishing trip. No luck near the pasir ris side and we tried one last final stop near Punggol. Just when beer and morale were running low, Liang Feng's rod suddenly made a huge bent. BAM! it was a beautiful ACK...about 700-800g.



































This was the only fish in the trip, but it definitely is a good start of North Star's adventures...