[the seal]

dive 4/3/05
Luminescence
first blue mowie.
spot x1

Tide= high 9:45pm
Moon=last quarter
Visibility=15m
Water=22c
Swell=0.3
Fishyness=medium

It’s 6:45, I get in the water, with me the gun and hand spear, the rest of gear and a gut filled with 2 bananas a pizza and some donuts. I get in while a lightning storm is going off around me and thinking “this better be worth it!.” This is a complex thing but anyway, I get some tangles on my gun but within 6min my gun’s loaded. Wasn’t very hydrated and didn’t put enough spit in the mask to make it stick, so took some readjusting and spitting in it, getting my wettie out of the way. Jumped in and only saw small school of trevally type fish, then swam to the right, all the school were heading south, in a bit of a rush to get to bed or their hotel? The storm was to the south of me and the fish were flocking towards it, kinda. I decided to swim north anyway, against my gut feeling but I still wanted to explore! I started swimming and went for my second dive, to maybe 13-15m where the cliff dropped off 50cm to a sand bottom the size of a sand pit. I wanted to use the hand spear and practice with it but it was getting dark and I was at the end of a breath hold I saw a blue mowie, my first and told myself
“I’ll get it for sure!” aimed and fired with my gun after tracking for 7 seconds and thwack, “darn,” I thought, not a stoner rather high. As usual I was dying for air and went up letting go off my gun, went back and dragged my first blue up, put it on my lap and ripped its gills out. It took a while to string it up because I tried putting the hand spear on the shark clip and had to hold onto it etc while I strung it up and stuff, this took maybe close to 10min, rather happy I continued further. Dived a few times and didn’t bother looking into caves as it was already really dark. Contined saw school of flighty silver drummer, maybe 7-10kg some were really big! Did get close to one, exhaled and sunk but shot to soon and spear stopped in front of this fishes eye. Anyway all the fish were racing south to bed, even the dozen salmon that swam under me, in quite a rush. Saw 500g goatee, swimming with red mowie, put the hand spear on my line and instead just got close to the mowies but let them live.
Eventually decide to go after it got so dark I almost shot a puffer fish, forgot to prod it.
Coolest thing was how when I was swimming back, I was looking at my gloves and saw something like pieces coming off them and was angry, thinking the gloves are falling apart.
“must be light from the sun making them shiny and silvery?” after 3min I looked at my spear tip and noticed it was there too, that theory’s out the window!
“I know it bioluminescence,” sorry for the long word. It was around 7:45 when I started to notice them and later realized what they where every where as this disruptive kunt swam through the water. They would light up when disturbed and not mentally, these little bacteria and critters looked like stars in the water, so amazing swimming in a sea of stars, that’s how I’d describe it!
Well the banana’s didn’t screw me too badly, think junk food was worse, only held my breath for 1:10 max and dived 16-17m max, so not too happy.
Got out in one piece while the storm was going nuts at sea, I bolt per second!
I remember a few times when under water there was lightning flashes probably close by and it sounded like a light bulb bursting or popping on…
Didn't weigh it but was 40cm long


Cat fish killer strikes again
Dive 7/3/05

I wanted to dive after university and was looking for a buddy, after a lot of sms messages cat fish killer replied to my delight he was looking for a dive buddy to go and “kill some fish,” guessing he meant cat fish?
I arranged a lift and as soon as this happened he messaged me to say something came up and won’t be able to go. I respected the decision but have to note in order to catch fish our memory must serve us well. I considered spearing by myself, then after 5min in bed I considered sleeping, still very tired from the weekend. After some rest I got some gear and went for a swim at Clovelly, to look for crays and breath hold with the trusty swimmers and mask etc. It’s 6:15 very cold winter weather so I put the small amount of gear I have on and jump in looking for relief from the cold. Water is colder at 19C, bugger, with lots of muck, I jump in swim to the deep area underwater away from the junk.
I’m swimming underwater and Lo and behold catfish killer has struck, some how from somewhere… a limp dead body of a 50cm long catfish sways with the swell on the bottom. “Ur out of control catfish killer,” I think, any way not sure what killed it, it had no marks. I heard they tasted great but doubted it’s freshness though it looked only a few hours dead. I burllied it up with the help of my hands, the grouper was too posh to eat it, only sea urchins and turbine snails, but an eel tried swallowing a huge chunk up before I grabbed it. Didn’t find and lobsters and left after getting mildly hypothermic.
Catfish how do you do it?