Must start with acknowledging Slugger for endless assistance here.

Been planning a Montes trip with my 2 boys for a few months now.

Wanted to get there before the school holidays kicked off so Sunday the 6th we hit the road at 0400 from Gero.

Carnarvon juiced up again, 24.5L per 100 was pretty good for the old F250. Boat was full of fuel and gear, about 4.3tonnes.

Got to Fortescue Roadhouse at 4, incidentally despite being shut, Citic still maintain the toilets for public and there is a hose to take water also.

We belted on intending to camp just off the highway but instead ended up at the river being savaged by midgies.

Launched at 8.30 after loading dinghy onto the roof and legged it for the montes with a stop for the boys to hook some trevalli at the 1st monopod.

Home lagoon was empty, grabbed that and set up camp.

Boys were itching so took off for a quick spear for a couple trout for dinner.

I brought over a mooring setup, and also had made up a set of "Kimberley legs", which worked a fkn treat especially as the tides got bigger.

From there we speared, fished and explored for 8 days.

Among the interesting events were;

• I saw some boats parked at Mansion bay just over from home and nipped in to say hello, and 1st bloke that walked down said "that you Rob?" Massive eye rolling from my boys. Tug skipper Dave who I've worked with off and on for decades plus about 8 other tug crew.
• Hammerhead cruised into home lagoon and was swimming into calf deep water for a feed, no fear, no aggression close enough to touch his fin.
• Generator gave me trouble to run the chest freezer, mostly ran it off my boat inverter with boat dried out and ran the generator partially dismantled.
• The guys above a few days later said "have you seen the drone?" We didn't but 2 nights in a row it hovered over them and then us after dark.
• Went to visit the bomb shelter, boys didn't want to get wet so they took the phones, jumped onto the rocks and I backed off and anchored up, swam in. Same on return then we took off for a spear. I anchored and they went spearing looked for my phone, could only see theirs. Yelled out,  and Mr M took mmy phone out his pocket and held it up "still works dad!"  losing most of my early pics.
• last few days the tides got to springs, 3 meters which made for interesting spearing in the eddies of 5 knot currents.
• Memorable fish-the 2 boys spearing in the strong tide and they called me over, they seemed to be struggling together, I get over and Cam has speared a 75cm Jack which has gone mental, catching the spear in Mac's wetsuit and Cams finger stuck in its mouth, ripping both wetty and finger. That esky is 120litre.
• Had a rather irritating encounter with Parks and Wildlife. They were anchored in the channel on the way down to Hock bay. I didn't see their dive flag until a few 100 meters away, and swung wide over the shallows and slowed down. We stopped for a spear a couple of miles further and I saw them coming towards us. We had no flag as I'd forgotten it but they came straight to us, a girl on the bow "where's ya dive flag mate" said I'd forgotten it and then she said "yeah well you ignored ours and bored right up to us". I was a bit stunned but responded "what? we were at least 150 200 meters away and went around the shallows to avoid you, besides your dive flag shouldnt block a navigable channel anyway?" They had a heap of maybe uni students aboard, she shrugged and they sped off. She was100% right we should have had one but it's not a legal requirement.
• Motored back in 20 knots and went past Cape Preston to visit my tug crew briefly.
• Total 2160km, 249 nautical miles, 549L petrol
• The boys would take the Spindrift out for a spear to get out of my hair in the late arvo, and Fisheries caught up to them one day. They had 2 trout and were near the sanctuary, they asked them if they knew where the line was and they did lol. They were pretty good, and said "ok boys take the big rig home now". A few days later they caught up to us and checked us over, very professional, informative and not at all overbearing, a quite pleasant encounter and chat. Tides were perfect for drying the boat out, floating by 8am

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