Coral Sea Kaleidoscope

How does one fully experience the richness this planet has to offer? Those afflicted by angling fever have a ready platform for immersion in wild environments to match wits with some of the fastest, most colorful and spectacular animals in existence. Travel possibilities offer sojourns that produce an afterglow that can last for months and years.

Amidst myriad options, we sometimes encounter a circumstance that stands head and shoulders above the rest, something so compelling and mind-boggling that we’re never really the same thereafter.

Maybe that sounds like pure hype, but I just returned from a journey that literally captures the very essence of what we seek in high adventure and transcends any fishing I ever dared dream. After years of working as a fishing guide, I equipped a 41-foot sloop for every kind of sport fishing that can be encountered and sailed from home base in the Florida Keys to the remote corners of the world’s oceans. I figured I’d do so until either broke or dead, whichever came first. That lasted nine years. With a young son and ailing wife, it was time to tie up at a land base for a while to sort it all out and safeguard our future. We ultimately washed up in eastern Australia, and that’s why I ended up stepping off a plane in Cairns and taxiing to a boatyard for my new job with Nomad Sportfishing.

I knew the young Brisbane-based operator of the company, Captain Damon Olsen, and I’d spent some time previously fishing the southern Great Barrier Reef with the fledgling version of the same outfit. That didn’t prepare me for the sight of the enormous, ultra-modern 80-foot mothership Odyssey. Even though perched on blocks in the yard and days away from inaugural splash-down, a full charter schedule had already been booked to the remote sunken atolls and reefs of the Coral Sea. Damon, the man blazing this trail, turned out to be a 28-year-old ex-civil engineer who felt unwilling to let a few challenging logistical details interfere with his wonderous dream.

Damon impressed me with his guts and vision. The customers would be ferried back and forth on a weekly schedule, he said, up to 300 miles offshore by seaplane. We’d cater to every kind of fishing interest, from high-tech spinning specialists seeking giant trevally and dogtooth tuna, fly fishing for anything and everything and even seeking 1,000-pound-plus black marlin on heavy tackle. Four custom skiffs and two fully rigged game boats would accompany Odyssey.

The operation would remain offshore for up to six weeks at a time, providing unparalleled access to areas seldom or never fished along the entire length of the Great Barrier Reef and out to the tiniest, most remote reefs and pinnacles in the Coral Sea. Accordingly, Damon made sure that the Odyssey contained state-of-the-art satellite telephone communications and HF radio, with all fishing locations and trips recorded on a pre-trip plan with Australian officials so air rescue would always be accessible if needed.