[the seal]

“Why I hate sea urchins”
And they must all DIE!
Happened around 30th January 2004
10m vis
water 21 degrees
fishyness: low
It was my first time spearfishing in maybe a year, I was newbie to the max. A friend of mine that I had introduced to snorkeling in clovely had bought a hand spear and started spearing alone. He had started going to a local out of the way spot called Murrivery Pass which is around the Golf course at north bondi. The reason I had not been going Spearfishing was due to the previous times being an anticlimax. Some of the blame goes to the 75cm sea hornet aka Sh!t hornet I paid $115 for. Basically he convinced me to go and I ran over to his place in Bondi from Randwick on that fine sunny day. We caught the bus to the golf course, avoided the golf balls hurtling past us and started climbing down the cliffs. It was my first time there and was rather hesitant since I had no idea how we would get down with all the gear. Yet my motto was, “if my friend can do it, so can I!” so we both skidded down the cliff like mountain goats, climbed down the rusty ladder there that pre dates aboriginals, one by one and looked around where to get in from. I choose a platform that was closer but one had to get in before a set came, my friend chose a platform further away but had no white water during the sets. They where both flat rocks covered by sea weed. We originally wanted to buy a rope to get in and out from the cliff but it cost too much. So I went off to hide my bag and then get in, my gear consisted of the Sh!t hornet, board shorts, mask, snorkel and me, myself and I. Yep I was a newbie. I got in and swam for my life to the deeper water so I wouldn’t get sucked into a channel next to the platform. I started looking for my friend, “where is he?”
So I looked and looked, then I got back out from where I came in and found he had jumped of the 4m cliff over there instead of the platform and though amused and delighted, rather angry. He swam to the middle where I joined him.
For those that have never been to Murrivery pass, it’s a rock hop down a steep cliff and a trusty, owe sorry I mean rusty ladder. There are three rock islands which you can clamber onto from the ocean and have caves under them; they make a triangle facing land and each about the size of a medium pool. And have lots of bird crap on them.
So back to the spearing, I was in the middle, above a sand bottom, I dived down and found a small sting ray.
“Have yet to catch something so why not?”
I dive down aim for its head and boom! The spear runs out of line right before its head. Bugger I think, so I dive after 3min reloading, the thing just stayed there…
I got closer and this time, boom! In between the eyes..
“Hang on it’s still moving, B@stard!?” the spear just pushed him down and made a dent in his head. I called my friend over to come and see it, I reloaded and found him again and dived closer, placing a shot a few cm from the last. Cr@p!
It didn’t go through him, again? It really swam off this time; I looked and then see my friend with his hand spear dive down and shoot it in the side, then pull it up?
“I thought guns were better than hand spears, stupid sh!t hornet!” I go after my friend who has flippers on, we climb onto the island closest to land and I ask where the sting ray was. He explains it was “yucky,” so he let it go, it may have survived and be prowling that area looking for revenge, aka revenge of Scare face. Kept on swimming, saw a 7kg cuttle fish but began to think of finding something more of a challenge to shoot, I gave It a poke with the gun and continued. I went back to my friend and saw him dive down and shoot a rock cale. Though I was very new, I still didn’t think highly of his catch and asked if he was really gonna eat it, which he said “yes, they taste good!”
Though doubtful, I went down and found a rock cale which I decide to shoot, aimed and slam! The shaft hit it side on, avoiding the rock, hitting it at the gills which made it fly back 20cm, with a white dent in it and didn’t penetrate its 10cm thick body from 1.3m away.
“What a nuts gun!” all I could think. Swam away and died somewhere (the rock cale).
“This gun is only good for denting fish” is all I could think.
Anyway after some time warming up on the island etc we decided to get out, as a note I saw a grouper but left it alone, I wasn’t a hard core newbie!
I thought, “nuts!” I’ll get out with my friend, I swam over with him to the rock platform and decided to get out first, being more daring and help him out. Quickly clambered on, wanted to put my gun aside and come back to give him a hand. So kind of leaped forward while there was white wash to put my gun on a drier rock and put my weight on my right foot to feel it go on firm ground…
No, wait, it plunges down and down, scraping against the rough rock and a shiver goes over me, I feel being pricked with a deep adrenaline shock going through me as I sense something going into my heel.
I sit on my @ss but it’s too late, I take my leg out of the knee deep hole and see blood rushing out of a hole, spines stick out of other parts. My friend climbs on and I’m like
“nuts, nuts I stood on a bloody urchin!” I rip out some spines sticking out and limp to a safe rock. He’s a bit bedazzled by the blood and is quiet, I wanted him to try cutting it out but he was afraid to my frustration, I now have an extra long trek back to my stuff and getting back up. I try walking and it hurts like hell plus I feel one of the spines break in half..
I rush/ limp back, my toes are also cut. I get back and try cutting a spine out but it’s too deep. I put my shoes on and manage to climb up, can’t say safely and get home. With my grandma who’s a former doc (Ukraine) I take out all the spines at home by cutting the skin off with a shaver and using needles (sowing needles) for the deeper spines. I still feel something is wrong and argue with her that there is one still in my foot but it can’t be seen, I just feel the bloody thing there. She kinda tells me not to b!tch about it, but I tell her I will “I’ll see the doc,” in a week “if pain persists,”…as they say. Naturally a week went by where I limped to school and back, feeling smth in my heel. Sometimes I’d stand in exactly the right spot to cause excruciating pain in my heel. I called the doctor and said I think this calls for ultrasound being a physics student.
5th February. So it was organized and a week later I went to randwick X-ray to get it done, they turned up/in an object 10mm or so from the skin, 3mm wide in my heel. I went to my local GP the next day, 20th February, showed him the images of my pregnant heel and he anaesthetized me/ the heel, I lay on the bed and he began his dissection. I could still feel pain but told him it was fine and to just get it out. He injected more anesthetic and journeyed deeper.
He said he was done, so I looked at my heel and the bloody bed while he explained he wasn’t sure he got it all, report in a week. Gave me 3 stitches and I limped of, with a sore and numb heel. I used a cream he prescribed and limped on, a week later it still hurt so my grandmother and I looked at it. Two of my toes were swollen, so I put my foot in cold water and then took out the sowing needles and shaver. My second biggest toe had a small spec in it, while the other had lots (middle toe) of pus in it. I saw a small splinter and tried levering it out with the needle but couldn’t find the bottom; I finally scraped a 7mm spine from the side of my toe to my grandmothers surprise. “Ahh better”

Another week limping and I was told to go to emergency and get it taken out, so I did. My dad wanted me to go in school clothes so I would go directly to school afterwards, “no bludging!” I knew better.
Still I went, 9am, 12 noon dad calls,
Dad “all done?”
Me “you have no idea”
Yet even I didn’t know the way things would go, at around 5pm I asked when my turn would come and was told to go home.
27th February, another week had passed, about a month total, I went with my grandmother on Friday morning, to have the same thing happen to me. Even worse this b!tch doctor who came to examine my heel at 7pm told me
“You have no right to be treated here on Friday night, why did you waste our time?”
Basically “get lost,” I could add a paragraph of what I would’ve liked to tell… her I mean the b!tch/very *friendly* person Kunt but decided to remain a nice guy and go home with steam coming out from my ears. A week later after my dad talked with the hospital about it, I went again with a family friend.