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#16
February 7th, 2006
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25/4/05
Decent shark encounter. Dive with John and Dave Swell 1m High tide 8am? Vis 15m Temp: 21C I awoke to see I had 15min to get ready "Lets do it" 20min later I called john to find out where he was-had another 20min to muck about. He came with Dave G and we where off to long reef. Yet on getting there we got a report that Vis was 5m in most parts and lots of bronzies, so we went further up the coast. It was now 9am or so and I just wanted to get my hide wet, we finally decided on where we would dive, an island surrounded by shallow water the fishoes walked through at low tide. We got in from the surf, I was the first one in, desperate to get some salt in my eye, we started swimming out. This is where I had the highlight of the dive. The Vis around the beach to 80m out was 5m and then drastically went to 15m in just 20m distance. As I was 30m from shore I look to my right "Holey moley that a monster fish, a kingfish" I get excited, its 4m away and I look at the tail to make sure it's a kingfish. "Bugger, only a shark," I couldn't make out what type of shark it was exactly but it was around 5-6ft and glided away into the gloom even though I tried chasing it. I think it may be a bronzey as I was told that spot is good for them but it was rather murky. All good, I keep swimming out and am happy the vis changes so fast, I tell my buddies about the shark when their out of the water. I was using a fin Dave lent me and ended up wearing away a chunk of a toe as the fin was to big and meant it slowly grated as I kicked. The thing that really gave me the sh!ts as some would say, would have been my snorkel, it's a good snorkel but it was letting in water big time and I couldn't figure out why. I took it off and looked at, the little cover/flap at the bottom snagged so it was letting in water from the bottom. I straightened it out-beauty. I was hopping to do some deep dives so I had taken 30m of rope and only 6lb for my 5mm top and 2mm pants, the deep dives where not to happen and it was a pain diving shallower than 10m or even going down. This resulted in scaring some of my fish away as I had to kick extra hard to get down the first 5m. The terrain was reef bottom I think, allot of caves, overhangs and ledges--broken ground. I decided I’d shoot a mowie for burly and one to eat as that Asian recipe I got from this site kicks ass. On shooting one of them, a cuttle fish attached it, I let it help kill the mowie for me and then went down to stab it, the knife stuck out of it while I pondered how I would kill it. As I did it stretched up and bit my knife, leaving quite an impression, I stabbed it some more and strung it up. After getting past the ink cloud I went in around the island finding the usual luderick and saw some sort of strange fish. I shot a small one of the species and guest correctly that it was a spine foot. Now just a note: feed me wirrah cod, feed me silver drummer but I’d rather die than eat a horrible spinefoot! I’d later learn about that. I went to the point of the island and burlied up some of the cuttle fish before running out of time. I also found a cave with 3 ok wirrahs hanging round a 5ft wobbie, I gave him a thorough prodding for good measure and once it was really pissed/distressed I continued. (didn't shoot wirrahs) Saw only 4 salmon going at light speed through the break zone at the point, in 0.3m of water. Also saw silvers and had a shot at some black drummer but aiming wasn't up to scratch. Didn't find any ling even though I tried looking in caves or any holed up black drummer. On the way back I saw a bastard trumper and sent my shaft flying down the side of his head and into his skull. Oddly enough, it didn't fully go through and he didn't die either but was stuck hard. I was late and tried getting out at the rocks around the pool there, no, no. Swam another 100m before getting out through allot of kelp and dragging my float out with a 3kilos of the stuff clinging to it. Ran to the car and found Dave and John waiting at the car. They where more upset about me taking what was left of the cuttle fish back than coming late but forgave me, with a warning to never take one again in his car. The Seal Dive 29/04/05 Samson fish Full moon Low tide 4pm Swell 0.3m Fishyness: rather fishy Vis 15m Dive at spot X I knew the conditions where perfect, it was Thursday and I was at Uni. The sun was out and the swell was tiny, spot X was calling. I couldn't get it out of my head, I had to go for a dive as only a few days a month does the swell drop down low enough so that I can hop into the water off the rocks at one of my favourite dive spots. The protest against VSU in our uni where on and though I wanted to join them, I couldn't resist the fact we could skip class that day, I had to get wet. I got to central station and waited to find out my bus was stuck due to the protest, caught another bus and ran home the extra distance, I didn't have time to "seal about". After getting a lift from my neighbour I climbed down the rocks, lubed and suited up. Time to rock and roll. I stood at the rock platform, ready, a wave came and with a big jump I flew into the water and experienced a rather painful belly flop that seemed to hurt my nuts more than my stomach. I gave off a distressed moan and swam to some deeper water. It was 3pm. I could tell as soon as I got in that it was fishy, there where mowies schooling and sweep and black drummer all round. I decided to swim round the drop-offs and see whats there. Saw a school of small surgeons and continued, went out to bottom my float rope-only 17m and see what where too. I breathed up and dived, descending down to a drop off that started at sand-3m bellow me! I waited and had 3 small snapper come to have a look. After making a note I should burley there in future I went back to just around the entry point to drill a black drummer. I was swimmin over a drop off from 4m to 8m and looked ahead. There was a school of samson fish having a look at me from a platform. The water was only 6m deep over the small platform a few meters from where I got in 20min before. They’re where perhaps 7 fish in the school most around a kilo with 2-3 standing out. I dived down angled towards them, they sused me out and did a U turn while I slowly followed. Crap, I stopped I knew chasing was useless so I stayed at 5m down and strummed my rubber, hopeful they would come back. 10 seconds passed and I was about to give up hope, then to my left one of the bigger amberjack came back for a look. Wham! "sh!t, I’m gonna loose it!" I thought as it burst to life like a rocket and started break dancing. I pulled it in as soon as I surfaced and bled it after stabbing its brain. It was over pretty quick. Sweet. I decide to continue as there was still 2hrs left of daylight, though I constantly would check my rig rope to make sure no shark had claimed it, it was still worth it. I shot a bream as it raced past I the shallows and swam north to explore. It was annoying diving there as drop off went right from 4m to 20 in some parts and I only had so little rig rope. The mowies where out in force, I’m only after a monster though and think I saw one with a hunch back looking around 2.5. Also saw a banded mowie, but can't believe I missed like 4 shots at some drummer and 2 shots at some big goatees. Lazy and unko I guess. A fisho was trying to land a grouper so I thought I would assist him, funny how there where like 3 groupers just a few meters away from the platform he was fishing off. Burlied 2 sea urchins and they skulled em down but would take the bait he was using, even when I dangled it in front of them-other fish weren’t so picky. Swam on-didn't find much in caves and headed back, the current helping me along. I swam past this bombie that silvers hanged around and had this totally stupid silver swim over. I hadn't shot any big silver drummer yet and wanted to see how my gun fared on a large fish, as it was medium sized silver. I just dived after it and gave it one in its guts. It was fun, towed me around a bit, with some direction away from the bombie and degutted itself a bit. Not too sure what happened but think the spear went through but then went out a bit and the flopper opened in its guts, so a trail of its ass contents came out. I couldn't find any wobbies to persecute so I bothered the bioluminescent organisms floating round as I got out around night fall-not as many as before. Silver probably 7kg samson around 3kg Bream 500grams All good The Seal.   
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#17
February 7th, 2006
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Dive 30/04/5
“Turkey shoot” Dived with Emanuel at little bay Vis 20 Temp 19 Fishyness medium Swell: 0.5 After negotiating with Emanuel many times before we finally settled on a Date to get wet on. He was keen to do some practice diving for the next day-long reef comp and had his eyes on going to little bay, I wanted to go to spot X but he wouldn’t budge so I let in. He picked me up in the morning around 8:30am and we rolled off to our destination. I knew Emanuel was a great diver so I took my 30m of rig rope, “maybe this time I’ll bottom it,” was what i hoped for. Once again I used 6lb of weights with a 5mm top and 2mm pants, taking my one normal free diving fin and a baby snorkeling one as I lost the other one-remember? After a good nights sleep I woke to munch on a custard apple-a fav of mine instead of a sugary breakfast. We got to the car park and got lubed and suited up, some other spearo’s where also going in about 5min ahead of us. Strangely as soon as we got some water on our toes an urge came over Emanuel to break off a few logs. “I’ll be 3min” he exclaimed “whatever, just warn me if it floats!” I looked away while he did his thing.. “ok, all good, lets go,” looking back I see some dark floating objects slowly going towards my float. “nuts, I told you to warn me about that!!” I pull it in, just in time and race away from Emanuel and the scene of the crime. He catches up and we swim through the schools of big garfish parading there. He swims ahead while I struggle with the crapy fin, I’m swimming just out from the entrance of little bay and go past a big school of bait fish. I notice something ahead of me just to my left. “What do we have hear?” I think as I see something in mid water. “maybe those other spearo’s shot a mowie and it broke off, no marks on it but” I swim a bit closer to the dark shape angle slightly towards the bottom. Only 1m from the surface and the water was 4m deep over there, I consider poking it as I get closer but notice some fin strokes coming from the fish. “That a big bream, could be asleep of something, I’ll wake it up!” Pow It bursts into life and struggled but the spear had gone through its gill plates and it was stuck. I strung it up and had a good look at it, nothing wrong with it? Yet it wasn’t a normal bream, it was a dark bronze colour and its tail was black as night. “A black bream?!” Happy, I swim over and tell Emanuel to have a look at it, he comments it’s a good size and we continue. Did a few dives and he shot a goatee around 900g while I dived and was happy with my breath hold. We swim to the point and start diving, I tell him “lets go further out,” we go out 50m and he ask if it’s enough “no! further!” he ask again “no, not yet!” finally we have been swimming without sight of the bottom for a while. He goes for a dive while I wait, getting ready to go myself. “so, how deep is it?” I ask since he has a D3 dive watch “9m” “what, ur kiddin!” I think. I brush it off and have a quick breath up, it’s only 9m. I start descending and descending, into the thermo cline and reach the bottom, lying down looking ahead. “Dam, I suck, my bottom time is only 15sec, time to go up already?” I look above me and see my float right above me, the rope is almost totally straight except for 2m of slack rope at the surface. I swim back up and tell Emanuel “You’re watch is f*cke# dam it!!” his like ”yeah I know.” We go back to normal depths and he goes down to a cave “is that for burley?” I asked about the cutle he brought up “no, food!” He decides to use some of it for burly and clean the guts out. We stay there for 10min waiting and then go. After 20m distance I look to my right and see a Kingy 8kg about 6m away crusing ahead, I dive and try strumming my rubber but it doesn’t work and the fish get to live another day. We head back, the other spearo’s pass by with a black drummer and I meet Emanuel back in the bay. We examined the bream and he concluded it’s a black bream, around 1.1kg and 43cm. Got home around 1pm to the surprise of my family and put the bream away in the freezer with all the other fish I have there, still yet to eat. The Seal   Turned out to be a Tarwhine with black colouration?! edit The BLACK BREAM STORY continues now that "black bream" story continues... our club had no record 4 it so i decided to claime it... Simon was Sus about it,(he is about everythin,) so i went to the fish museum next to hyde park. "WOW," they got excited, first they thought it was indeed a black bream, then a new species.. a cross between a snapper and a tarwhine lol, i was chuckling to myself. just too good. "maybe a snapper or Tarwhine got desparete" Then they did a ray count, scale count, looked at pics etc and concluded... would have never guessed this, everone who saw it agreed it was a black bream but Tom, the fish bio, yeah shadow there are those who know more than you... said it was a Tarwhine just a normal Tarwhine...."colour darker than usual," never guessed it, weighed bit over a kilo. Ow well, i've developed my own theory... you see Emanuel bova had taken a sh!t in the water-aqua bog- just before we swam off you see and maybe it mistook the brown looking material as food.. or perhaps Emanuel had wiped himself like too well and the fish had perhaps got a wiff of the polluted water slowly flowing from between his legs. then again maybe the tarwhine had a skin condition similar but opposite to micheil jackson, we will never know.
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#18
February 7th, 2006
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Gear troubles
last few dives have been just a nightmare for me, gear troubles and failure one after another. The long reef comp- we know conditions where good etc anyway. i had a feeling things wouldn't go very well for myself and i was right. problems- due to not sanding and grinding down the shaft notches on my gun and some crappy unloading technique i had cut through about 1/2 of the dynema or more so loading the rubbers meant carefully putting the bridle off centre and rubbers not aligned. My float rope consisted of 4mm orange rope (13m) which is pretty good and 14m of washing line type plastic tubing with line inside of it, i thought this would good, need to get slapped/sat on by scuba for being so dumb. The washing line cord tangled on itself, the fish, the other rope and the rocks, as i was diving mostly shallow. when it tangled on the rocks, i pulled it off and it just snapped like 20lb mono but was so tangled i didn't have to re-tie it to my float. Also caused allot of troubles when i dived deep to around 18m since there wasn't enough slack rope! I think i fixed the problem, i bought 2*15m of blue 6mm rope (washing line rope is for the washing line) and since, though that tangled due to it's natural coiling-from when it was packed, i connected it to a tree branched and a full garbage bin stretching it out over 2 days, it now has no tendency to curl up. Hopefully no more float rope troubles. I got a grinding disk and put it onto the bolts from my drill sanding thing, with some artistic grinding the notches are well angled and smoothed them out with grinding paste by dipping a rope into the stuff then working the notches. Trippe gave me this advice-but would say you can only slightly smooth things out with the grinding paste, or maybe I’m just too weak? Also had another shaft-a toress not so tuff for riffe mech i smoothed out a bit. As for the shaft, though the notches are smoothed out it is a bit bent and unlike spring steel is made from stainless i believe...and is hard to bend back without bending it in another place. Simply put, i need to buy a new gun?! and not a crappy sea hornet or good for a few dives undersea, time for some thing like a carbon barrel last a few years- i recon, we will see. i used a 5mm top and 2mm pants which kept me relatively warm. But since i was mostly diving around 2-8m the 11lb lead was not enough. I had some scary moments in a ledge/cave in 3m of water where my shaft kept on getting stuck and when i went in to get it, a set came in and the current raced one way, then the other like a vortex. lucky i held on for my life and saved a grating and possibly loosing some more gear......did that about 3 times before i had enough. Missed 3 sargo's, 2 wirahs and had a few shots a luderic and they tore off or missed, i'm so bad . also a pike but hunting mode just isn’t kicking in. just going into "selective hunter BS mode," and letting everything go... or at least saying to myself "I’ll find somethin bigger." Maybe do better in the next comp...i hope. Still i lived through that and some people prob had it worse off than me. I got back into the boat with trippe and we went to some more barren area's he wasn't too happy with, then too the weigh in. I got 148pnts, yeah i weighed in this time....a 700g bream, 1.5 kilo mowie and a 500g black reef. If i shot/got those other fish perhaps a score around 400 but we can all talk about doing better, it's doing it that counts. Simon trippe came 2nd, shooting about 15species i think and 700+ pnts, if we stayed at that area prob would have done better. Interesting fish taken where- in general a 6kilo jew shot in a cave.... a remora or sucker fish clinging onto a big sting ray that got a hell of fright when the thing was blasted off! mullet Simons 1.4kilo bream  rainbow runner on a ski trip good sized kings and some others. Pucko the destroyer killed it beating even trippe with 22 species and 1200+pnts.. Anyone know what fish he speared. Another dive some more troubles- week after comp went diving on a Sunday with some hell spearo's from the dolphins-(there all hell spearo's besides me.) Still hadn't fixed my dynema bridle and it only got worse, the guys really helped by tying the undamaged bits together, left me with a 4cm bridle...lots of fun! I could still load the 20mm band sized for a 90cm gun on my 1.1 but i doubt it's accuracy and loading wasn't allot of fun so i didn't fire at anything that much. On suiting up i didn't put enough lube into the wettie/plus it's an old wettie but when muscle man john gave it a pull down a massive tear opened up on the back, very good for aeration or diving in cairns. I froze. Swam for 30min, before the shakes came over me, wasn't diving too good either. I swam round shot and berllied some fish, a few b&s drummer where keen on getting shot around the pnt and close to the pool, i had lots of fish in the freezer. Tried to be a man but even my ukrainian vodka filed blood didn't help and after shaking like north shore does when they see the dolphins turn up for a comp i climbed out from around the pool. A weekend of bad weather came and went, then off diving again, with Dukas from our club, one of the mighty greek gods in the ranks of the dolphins. I thought i had things figured out, i put the torres tuff spear on the undersea and it seemingly worked well, too well. ! The old spear is 8mm and this one was 7mm made from spring steel, rusts but more flexible. i think. so i jumped in, i had also gone to a shop in bondi-dive centre- and they fixed alllll my rubbers-20mm and 2*16mm. i decide to use a 16mm and have the 20mm just in case. loading on the shark fins is so much better, from that little experience anyway. Anyway, hoped in, loaded the gun and saw a mowie .....went down and thought "dam this is just to easy!" the sad irony...with the fish looking at me side on i pulled the trigger... "ahm...fire dam it! bugger" the trigger went allll the way back and stayed there, the spear didn't fire... I got my finger to push the trigger into the mech and then it fires..when i'm at the surface. To make things worse, the bungee string undoes and the spear just flies to the bottom I tie it back on and it does it again until i do a proper knot. still it's just bloody hard to fire the spear. it only fire once i think without me shoving my finger in. I tested accuracy on a cuttle fish which was good, used it for burley, thinks aren't looking too good. Our plan's are a miss, i tinker with the gun and Dukas swims off-he gets himself 2 salmon and a cutle fish. I found my first red rockie via burly, only a baby around 300g-disapointing. Some really big sargo's attacked my flashers, they looked 2kg or more. nothing much came from burly though or flashers. Some highlights where seeing an eastern blue devil fish at the start, it swam right next to the cuttle i shot. looked cool, i can understand why their protected as the trigger happy NS young guns seem to enjoy shooting small fish that are non-comp related. And be proud of it too. Not to mention, i also saw a weedy sea dragon around 30cm long in 3m of water. Looked mad and very timid. The worst part was swimming on a plaform 3m deep and seeing a 10kg king fish swim by 3m away just after i had a shot and missed a mowie... prob investigating the noise....still don't know if i would have got it the way the gun was and will never know. Somewhat bored, agitated and pissed i decide i would feel better if i bottomed the new 6mm blue float rope i got (30m) but after swimming a few hundred meters i could only find something around 29m. Funny how i sank like a stone after 18m. I had 11lb 7mm long john pants and 3mm top. Wasn't diving too well that day though, i had a bad nights sleep and allot of meat in the mornin, but the new flipper i got from adreno to replace the lost one helped. decided I should stop since Dukas was far away. We bumped into each other again and got out. Met 2 greek dudes keen on spearin when we got in, maybe soon they’ll be a greek-mboat in comps and perhaps the sport isn't dying either. Now the gun.... See night b4 it was firing. yes out of the water with no glitch, it did bruise my arm from the recoil though. Talked to Trippe the spearin Einstein and he told me too soon that what was wrong was that my line release was too tight, he was right, i hade recently made it tighter. i loosened it a bit and was confided things would go better the next day.
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#19
February 7th, 2006
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Near Death experience 2
There was a little comp on between John some of his friends etc, called Dave Greg and he had plans on crashing their little party, well my gear was ready right? He picked me up the next day and we met at Malabar 7:30am, only john and another guy where there so i decided to hop in and test the spear out. I loaded it up and found a fish, aimed pulled the trigger, all good! another little fish and fired nicely only when i pushed the spear a bit to hard into the mech did it jammed up again. i went down and decided to burley some sea urchins and get something to come to me. dropped the gun to let it sink and swam away a bit as i was still sus with how it was working. I'm down on the bottom burling "hey that’s not meant to be next to me?" the spear drifts down next to my head, about a meter away. I go up and realise the gun misfired.... Reload it and just wait, after 30 seconds it misfired again . By now i see guys entering the water, comps started, i get out to grab my float, rope and spare spear just encase. I messed around with the gun for 30 more min before deciding "it's not worth it," put the other spear on, and messed about a ling cave for 30min practicing scuba pete's ling technique. "fire, reload, fire, reload, fire, reload. there’s a ling in there somewhere" haha, didn't work, caves too deep, or my technique isn't that good, decided i'll rather try loosing my shaft on a big fish. Saw another ling being followed by a cuttle fish. Saw that mowie again, with a spear tare in it, still keen on getting shot. Also saw a penguin close to white water, looked all plump and cuddly, reminds me of scuba. Saw a 3kilo kingy after shooting something. berlied alot but nothing came, only person to see a king, none shot. practiced on garfish and still aiming isn't good for some reason...? Also when i unclipped my flashers i prob didn't clip the float back on properly and realised this 30min later, spent an hour looking before getting onto the rocks and finding it floating where i prob had left it. That was my best catch of the day. The gun did fire normally with the old spear. Didn't take any fish back, only notable thing taken was a 2.7kilo giant boarfish sitting next to a red mowie in 4m of water...next to the car park where i had gotten in before...twice... I guess my luck ran out when i the spear just missed me. Dave called me from the rocks to get out?? He wanted to walk back, like 500m, rather swim but i decided not to question it. "Is, this what you usually do?" "No, first time going back this way," wish i swam, nearly stacked it hoppin around and mask + snorkel fell off somewhere there, couldn't find it later Has anyone noticed how many faces are in this story? The Seal There have been many reports of a diver in our club cough scubapete cough cough who devours fish while under water even in comps, here is one that got away. 
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#20
February 7th, 2006
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MY Shafted experience,
12-15 june 2005 After many weeks of anticipation and somewhat less of preparation it was time to make a pilgrimage to Eden that is recommended by many competition spearo’s. Somehow I felt I had already been there long ago but the memory was to vague and had no spearing in it to be of significance(something to do with a dumb blond chick called Eve.). I started the preparation by talking to other spearo’s in my club that had boats and where set on going. Unfortunately there was a fair amount of confusion to weather each would be able to go but each eventually told me they had other things to do. Finally I called up Mr Murphy and was told that he was 90% confident he was going 2 weeks in advance, things where panning out well and I kicked back and relaxed. It was the 5th June and I was at the gunammatta bay competition, after a disappointing day of diving for myself I engaged in chit chat with other fellow spearo’s. One thing that stood out was a friends comment if I had found a ride to eden “yeah, I got a boat ride and lift, with Murphy.” I said “what Dr. Murphy, your better off not going,” he replies to my surprise. “why?” I ask “he’s going to ruin your trip!” he yells to me as he walks of to put his wet gear away. I shrug and don’t take it too seriously. I wish I had. A few days later I called Murphy up for confirmation that we where going, he was confident he would buy a new van and we would use it to tow his boat. It was Tuesday. Thursday came before I knew it and I called to find out he still hadn’t bought the van but would borrow a Ute from his friend with a tow bar. The next day after university I arranged a lift for myself to his place and got there around 4pm, the time he asked me to arrive there. Taking all the possible items I may need I unloaded it and put inside the boat, except some lunch I swatted to take on the road. Murphy was outside and working on something. My friend asked “will you be ok?” which was a little strange “yeah, no worries!” I say in surprise He goes and I talk with Murphy, he says he has a few things to do and we’ll go around 7pm. 7pm what are we gonna do for the next 3 hours?? To name a few things, fix the break lights of the trailer and give the car and boat a general service. Murphy also pop’s off for 30min to buy some junk food in the supermarket while I wait minding his boat. He comes back and puts the food in the car, I’m getting hungry so I eat all my food while he goes to do something in his backyard. A few minutes later he has a lot of chains and carries them to the Ute. He explains his boat is 2000kg but the toe bar is rated 1000kg so we need to string chains around it to other parts of the car to lower the stress on it. 40min later a funny spider web design decorates the back of the ute. I wonder what else is left to do while Murphy goes to get all his gear ready for the trip. Daven calls me up asking if I still need a lift to eden and I ponder the possibility of just running of with him. Then Murphy comes back and starts working on the break lights again. After turning daven down I help shine the torch for Murphy in the cold quiet darkness. I look at myself, then Murphy and realise why I’ve always seen Murphy greasy and in battered close, his always been working away like a little gremlin under his un-road worthy vehicles and boat trailers. He emerges and looks like a grease monkey. It’s some time around 10pm and after a snack in his mum’s place finally we connect the car to the trailer and head off to get petrol. We fill up and add some air to the trailer wheels, the little tubes thing leaks air but we fill up some air with the help of the attendant. Then we go, only stopping twice to pull over and work on something at the back of the trailer. All good.?? Now we are on the open road, it may be close to 12am but we are moving!! We hit the highway after inspecting the tow bar, all good. Our plan was to go along the coast instead of through Canberra. Very simple, we are on our way to Wollongong, just stopping once when there was a little bump. “let’s check it out,” I say, Murphy pulls over. I hop out of the car and notice something spinning in the middle of the road. “Why the f*ck is there a wheel in the middle of the road!?” I wonder as I car smashes into it, another stops and avoids it, it’s lights highlighting the spinning wheel in the dark night. “some kids up to no good? Sealman to the rescue?” Then I look at the boat and something is wrong, I check the tow bar, it’s still there, I look at the boat and think, “that’s not right,” it’s leaning over to one side somewhat? I inspect the trailer and then realise what just happened. “I’m alive, yes, I’m still alive!!” I say to myself as I look at the metal axel of the trailer while Murphy rolls the wheel back. “Sh*t, f*cking sh*t man, look what happened, fn hell…..” Murphy who spits when he’s nervous or angry is spitting like a camel in between swear words. I’m rather ecstatic as I recalled an article about a car rolling when the boat trailer wheel fell off on the free way, yet we are still in one piece, well almost. I notice a sign up ahead and go inspect it to see if it’s an emergency phone and while briefing a friend on his way to Eden of our luck, he is in the car with some other spearo’s and a has his phone set of speaker, a roar of laughter comes across to me and I’m told that “damaging the road is no laughing matter!” I head back since the sign has no phone, we are stuck at 12am between Sydney and Wollongong on a stretch of free way boarded by a gully and a sign warning of sever fog. Murphy admits he had changed the wheel that broke off a few days before but didn’t tighten the nuts enough so the bolts just sheered off. A car towing a boat pulls over 50m ahead so I go see who it is. “hey Ahab!” with some other keen spearo’s meet me, they go inspect our situation, have a laugh, give me a beer and go. Not much they could do. Murphy had spoken to the NRMA but was not insured fully for these types of moments so he decided we would sleep in the car or boat and go buy new nuts in the morning. I was worried, how would we sleep in the car/boat while cars wiz by and the sign warning of extreme fog had me worried about the passing trucks that intermittently go by. The suggestion to take our gear and leave the boat, going to a hotel for the night was not followed. I was starting to get angry, but then it was time to sleep so I popped into the ute and Murphy set up inside his boat. Did I mention the car reeked like some hairy monkey sweated all over it? I slept like a viking before sprawling out and setting my alarm so to turn the hazard lights on if thick fog came in. intermittently I slept with semi wake moments like a twilight zone, cars and trucks came zipped by shaking the car and boat, lighting up the dark forest around us. Eventually all the discomfort went away as sleep took over, I was woken a few times by my phone alarm to turn the hazard lights on in the morning fog. Murphy woke me around 7am while a vehicle raced by, I look at the seat and notice that I was sleeping on someone’s underwear, where my face was. “are these yours?” “no, don’t know who’s they are” he replies I lost any sense of humor I had at that moment, only a grudgingly melancholy anger come over me as I recalled what a mate had said “don’t go with Murphy, he’ll ruin it for you.” Crap.
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#21
February 7th, 2006
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Anyway, he leaves with the car after new bolts from the shop up the road. An hour later he comes back, we put a new wheel on and fix the mud guard-damaged by the tire coming off. I inspect the huge trail the axel of the trailer carved into the asphalt.
Back on the road, we decide to stop at ulladula for a rock hop, some hours later we arrive, in one piece(we stopped once more to let the radiator cool down as the car found it hard to take the boat up the hills in wollongong). Murphy curses, he realises he forgot to take his float. After all that happened getting the water was so bloody good! I get in first and swim along shallow rocks, looking at the weed move I see something exclaiming to myself Ulladula dive “ABS!!” I see my first abalone from the surface as some weed sways with the small swell. I recalled what I was told about getting them and very soon have10 legal abs. I tell Murphy about it and he drops his gun and dives down to collect some while his gun gently sways with swell….pointing at his head from 1ft away. I sigh and swim of, the open ocean holds more safety, the more time in the water the more relief I have from the previous. The fish are generally larger but nothing special, I swim just to beginning of a long bombe and get distracted by about 3 pigs and 3 very, very dumb big goatees. Each time the current dragged me back, I see my first zebra fish but the luderick technique I tried didn’t work, just swam off. Noticed some large bream in the wash, a ling, silvers and lots of pigs. I finally decide to swim back as the sun starts to set. I swim by a lone rock poking out of the water, suddenly a school of big silvers starts circling the rock and me. I haven’t shot anything of “fun,” size so I decide to take a shot to teach the silvers a lesson. “b@stards!” I shoot and miss so they stay around me laughing- “they must pay,” I reload to double rubbers dive and look for a larger one, they are all about the same size so I shot one as it passes my gun, gut shot! I pull it in and get it closer, the fish has a bit of power to it. I grab the fish and try stabbing it in the head as it struggles, my cheapo knife is too blunt! The fish continues to struggle and I get a few cuts on my hands as I’m wearing no gloves. I then try string the live fish up and as I put the spike through it’s mouth the sea scum munching b@stard bites my finger! Ahhh! I string it through the hole in its guts then pin it on the bottom of the ocean and violently stab the fish while it jerks around. Somewhat subdued (me and the fish) I swim back to the exit point, already dark I get out around 5:30pm. Murphy is angry and rude telling me I’m an idiot for taking so long as he got out 30min before and couldn’t see me, thinking I was dead. I can understand that, as waiting up at the car park it would be hard to see anything. He helps me carry my fish before dropping some on the sand for me to carry. I’m angry again, he’s rude at me for coming late and I didn’t say a word to him for all the sh*t I had to take on our way there. He shot a Mowie…. We continue to eden, fish in my tub, a few hours later we are nearing batemens bay and running out of fuel. We skid to a stop next to a petrol station “are you sure we have enough fuel to make it to batemens?” I ask worried “yeah we’ll make it.” He said confidently Finally we arrive at batemens bay, stopping at subway. “I’ll shout,” I say, then quickly get some close and my wallet before running into subway. Still semi undressed and wet from the recent dive I put on a shirt and shoes chatting to the sexy girls working there and placing an order. Just after putting my shirt on I hear Murphy yelling outside. “come on help, the cars run out of petrol,” he yells while trying to push the car to the side of the road. I run outside bare foot and help then run back as I left my wallet with the girls. Away from Murphy I finish getting dressed and get the subway ready. Nervous I wonder if I will have to wake up to random underware again. I take the subway to Murphy and he tells me to go quietly take some petrol from the next petrol station up the road and gives me a smelly sports bottle to put it in. I ask “why not just ask nicely?” to which he was puzzled. I started walking up the hill to the station bottle in one hand, subway in the other while it rained gently. 20min and I was asking the guy “nicely,” if I could borrow a drum for petrol after explaining our sitch. A $15 deposit, $5 petrol and another 20min I was back at the car. Murphy had managed to siphon out some fuel from the boat and pour it into the car through a subway straw, a couple teaspoons. With the borrowed funnel and drum we poured the fuel in, spilling a lot since the straw was stuck. Finally got the straw out and poured the rest of the fuel in. I go to the pub to wash my hands and face then I come out to see Murphy looking in a garbage bin. “ow no, he’s thrown something important into the bin,” predictable, his car keys. After tipping the nearly empty bin over and having some local spearo’s joke about us looking for food we find the keys and finally go, it’s impossible to stay clean! We get to the station, I get back my money and give the drum back, off again. Ok, on the road again, 8pm or so we’re on our way to Eden, nothing can stop us, except the thickest fog I have ever seen. Murphy’s falling asleep so we stop for 10min in the fog to rest. Huge moths are getting attracted to the car lights so I grab some and chuck them in the car to see him freak out as they flew into his face. We continue driving with occasional suicidal moths flying under the wheels, it takes 4 hours to reach eden. One note of this trip was the amazing clarity of the nights sky, it was so beautiful. Arrived at our hotel at 12:30am Sunday morning.
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#23
February 7th, 2006
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you can see the damage....done to the road!
For once i hated the sunrise, just the feeling of being bitter and cold was there. hmmm this forum seems to have crashed hope it's not my fault 
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#24
February 7th, 2006
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Everyone had gone to bed, luckily my friend answered the phone and gave us directions as Murphy had forgotten his way around the area, though he was there before. We parked our little danger toys on the side of the street, Murphy put a torch on his head like a gremlin and we got out gear out and took it inside. I wanted to clean the fish then and there but he thought I was crazy and told me to do it in the morning. I sighed knowing that wouldn’t happen.
Someone had left their car lights on and Murphy went into each room in our cabin shining the torch on his head into everyone while they yelled “F-off!,” the guy was sleeping in the cabin next door… He decides it’s a bad idea and we get into our sleeping bags, the night is bloody cold, I hardly get any sleep, once again. I wake in the morning, more like get up from a semi wake state. Munch on some food and have a shot of some alcohol to get me going again. The comp starts at 8am we have about an hour, I get dressed and ready, everyone says hi ect we chat and I go out to sort my gear out I look at the fish we left in my tub and ewww, something ate the top of one of the goatee’s during the night, yuck! The other fish are untouched but dam it looks bad, why do I listen to Murphy? Ok time to head to the boat ramp right, where is the boat ramp eh Murphy? I get direction and order Murphy around until we get there. Unfortunately some stupidity had indeed rubbed off on me and I had forgotten to go take $40 (to enter the comp) out to of the ATM at the petrol station but all was good, I was given a loan from a friend. In the rush I had also forgotten to get some wet suit shorts of one of the guys to put on top my wettie so I was like a very big underwater vibrater. Brrr! Funny enough, a good and impressively keen spearo called sea bass who I had met and given some contact details, 2 weeks prior had decided to come down to Eden. He was so keen he’d get into Murphy’s boat to see what it’s like during for the comp(never been in a boat, hope it didn't make an impression). Darn that’s keen, we had more room left but others would rather rock hop that risk going with us! I wish I didn’t risk going with us also! Anyway, in the cold we suited up for the comp, before signing on, registering the boat ect. went to talk to some other spearo’s, one from our club pulled me over and told me to look after the other two guys in the boat. “Don’t let that boat go past the heads incase you have to swim back and make sure Murphy stays out of trouble!” easy for him to say. We get onto the start line around 8:14 AND WE’RE OFF! Eden Dive Not. The flags waved and all the boats with their 2*150hp engines zoom off while our engine releases copious amounts of smoke and Murphy swears to himself. I’m quiet and melancholy, Seabass is rather enthusiastic…. still and Murphy works on the engine. “Who cares!” he says and we go 2min after everyone else, leaving a smoke screen behind us. I’m thinking if I’m gonna have to rescue everyone by towing the boat back when the engine cuts out, thankfully it never did. We get to the first spot, Murphy asks me to tie the anchor off as he didn’t know how. I get in and vis is 3m or so, I try and dive but one of my ears refuses to equalize so I veer off the shallows, as soon as I get there it starts to work normally again, typical! It was hard to dive with a 1.1m gun as the fish appear really close to me and are scared when I move my gun. I still managed some fish such as my first banded mowie, first blue throat wrasse and I think a purple wrasse? Also got a red and blue mowie, missed some nice fish but found it hard to dive being really cold with my 5mm top and 2mm long johns, hey I’m a skinny b@stard. Murphy and Sea bass also got some fish, Sea Bass got a nice blue and purple wrasse. We dived a few spots, Murphy’s boat reportedly drifted and he chased it, but that’s what happens when you’ve got a cr@ppy little anchor. Murphy managed to fix the engine between dives before we went back. In one piece, yes! We signed off and took the fish to be weighed. Some good fish we’re taken like boarfish, nayanggi and big blue mowies. Ahab had a nice catch and so did some others but due to conditions only a max of 18-19 species was taken. While in some Sydney comps 20+ species are taken at least usually by one diver anyway. We spent a long time cleaning the fish, I cleaned some for myself and gave the big silver away thankfully. Also taking some whole fish for friends, Murphy the greed bastard snapped up all the leather jackets he could get a hold of and wanted me to clean them when I was done with my fish! grrr “Murphy that’s it your not taking any more fish!” I told him in the hope he’d stop accepting fish from other divers. I grab my tub of fillets and fish and run off to the boat, then go and help Murphy take his tub, we put the fish into his large eski and inside the boat. We go get some ice and arrive back at the cabin. Everyone is nearly ready to head of to the award presentation, we muck around with our gear and manage to get ready. Finally I get to have a firkin shower! My first shower since Thursday, darn it felt good! I dry off and try find some clean clothes, nothing stays clean for long when you hang around a monkey wrench. I go help Murphy with some stuff outside, while trippe tells me to put a shirts on. Anyway the problem what ever it was I’ve lost track now was solved and he went to get ready. Everyone had left when he was ready and we went to separate the from the trailer.. “nuts man where did I leave my trailer wheel, nuts where did I leave my car keys,” it had become a part of life to have him looking for his keys, I lost track of how many times he’d say “nuts, where are my keys!” I would sometimes take them off him so he wouldn’t loose them, dam it! I found the wheel, right where he had just looked, we undid the trailer and the front end lifted up and the boats propeller carved a chunk out of the grass at the back!! The presentation night came and went, we couldn’t find the rest of our crew until later, I was in a lousy mood the entire time. I think Ahab came 8th, scuba won rock hoppers and gunther someone came first? We went back early, missing out on a fight to the death between deano and wade, ok it was just a scuffle. We got back and with the help of roso broke into the lodge, Murphy screwed around for sometime before letting us in but all was good. We all went to sleep later on after watching some films and teasing Murphy about his misfortune if that’s what you call it. The next day we got up and left around 9am back up the coast, we decided to once again stop at ulladula as conditions there were so much better than in eden. We stopped at a scuba/spear shop in ulladula where he bought a 12inch 3 barb pranger/ slip tip before and asked me for what everth time if he should return it, I refused to answer. Got to the car park there without any “incident/s” and got ready.. Once again I hear swear words coming from Murphy- “aw FK I found my float!” lol (he used someone else’s float during the comp) Ulladula dive Vis=20m After helping Murphy get his gear down I set forth into the ocean full steam!! I first swam of in one direction out and then turned to the bombie, the current was pushing me back but I battled it and didn’t get distracted by to many fish. Finally I reached the end or there abouts of it. The bombie at ulladula in front of the lighthouse is like a long tooth pick facing the ocean rising up and down as its wall faces the ocean. It was blocked of a bit where i was and the swell was big sometimes breaking over the 1.5m deep wall of the bombie there. I relaxed and went for it, diving down I grabbed onto some weed when the waves came over me and went forward when they pulled me in, after 30m and 1min 15sec I got out into the open ocean on the other side of the bombie. Wow! I had been wondering where all the fish went and here they were! I pulled my float away from danger and looked around while I drifted back along the face of the bomby which dropped down to 15m instantly. Though the size of the fish was not so great the fish life was amazing. Like the b drummers where between 1-2kg and silver 4-7kg like Sydney BUT I had like 20 black drummer, 10 silver schooling around me. Bream around 700g bellow and 1kg bastard trumper, medium salmon, lots of bait fish, goat fish and a 300g amberjack constantly swimming within poking range of my gun. I drifted and just looked around enjoying the life only taking one bream before heading back, late again but it was worth it. Murphy was not happy but I didn’t care, he spent his time getting abs. We head back home, it’s around 4pm or so, stop once more to let the radiator cool down at wollongong. Thankfully the tow bar with our magic spider web of chains survived the ordeal. It’s around 7pm when we get to Murphy’s place and I help him out, he does something with his boat engine again and it releases a massive smoke cloud engulfing the boat, ute, a tree and me, lucky I can hold my breath. ( = I finally call a friend up to give me a lift back as Murphy doesn’t want to give me a lift home, I guess in some respects he was doing me a favor. Anyway I get home and give out some fish, clean my gear, myself and my clothes then drop dead in bed, a very tired animal. Looking back I can only describe the events as great ups and downs, in between a great diving experience I had a terrible time-the rest of the time, all because of an Imbecile! The Seal, alive and kicking!
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#25
February 7th, 2006
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Dive 22/7/05
Top class dive in XXX. Vis 12m Swell 1m It was early in the morning when my alarm woke me up at 7:05am I turned it off and lay there semi wake. I disputed the pro’s and con’s of getting out of bed and going for a dive. The cons were I would have to get out of bed, I probably wouldn’t get any crays and it would be a hassle getting there. The pro's were- I would become a better diver from more time in the water, it would toughen me up, it’s better than being a lazy bum and sleeping in. Looking back I missed out on a lot of the pro's. After 15min of discussion I was sighked up and sprung out of bed, ate my weight bix and put my wet suit on in the shower before grabbing my gear and heading off to catch the bus. Looking very different to say the least I got out of the bus and went to the entry point, finally I climbed in the water and had that rush of cold water going into my wet suit I told myself I was insane before continuing. I wondered if this would be another farce of a Cray hunt like others. I did a few dives continued and did another and another, I stay at the bottom looking round when “hola!” there are two feelers poking out from a little cave 30cm in front of my face. I smile and surface getting a look at the cray. It doesn’t really notice me but takes a few steps back while I stare the decent sized cray out. I go down and thrust my hand at the crays body, it retreats and I struggle with the thingyroach before wrenching it out. I smile and continue on, I have my first ever self caught cray. I look around for a while and notice 3 octapus, there must be crays here! Still unsucesseful I noticed a 15cm abalone, left alone, then a little latter, “yes, sweet,” I find a very good snorkel and ok mask stuck in between two rocks, that in the bag I continue. I’m swimming just a minute after finding the mask and snorkel I look at one rock and notice feelers “holy muma there’s like 14 feelers!” I look closesly at the rock and see a congrigation of about 6-7 lobsters but when I get closer I see they are just baby’s around 4cm carpace length, still there are 2 big crays I try and get at under the rock but am unsuccessful. I continue on and look to my right I’m like “YES, YES!” I was like having an orgasm a big cray to my right. “gotcha!” “No you don’t!” the cray slips out and swims closer to shore, I chase it and grab it when it lands on a rock, I grab it as a wave crashes over me while seeing another big cray to my left while waves hit me. I struggle to get it in my bag while it goes nuts and try get the other cray to return one of my smaller ones, that one manages to escape. I decide to swim to the somehwere else.., as I swim along something moves from under me, I am not sure what it is, then it moves again. “OW MY GOD! IT”S HUDGE!” a very big dusky flat head spooks from under me, it’s close to a meter long and looks big enough to eat a small grouper or one of the luderic swimming by in one go. I didn’t have my gun so I just followed it round and enjoyed it’s bueaty, but what a beast! I arrived at the other spot and look around when I just nuts myself. I see two crays muking about close to a legde when I swim over there and start touching my nipple from the exitement. “Holy mother f*cker of god!!!” there are crays on top of crays, fellers every where, this is their secret layer! Most are legal and there are 3 lobster between 1-1.2kg all under the ledge. I tried grabbing the biggest but only got the fellers. There where around 10 crays there, i decided i had 2 legal crays so i raced back as it was 10:30am and i was going shopping at 11am, though i got back pretty late my dad wasn't too pissed since he likes the idea of being bribbed with crays. so not a bad day, got crays, saw alot-like 20 crays, saw a flatty and got myself a very good snorkel. Sweet as day the Seal. ps anyone that knows this spot shhhhh!  2 days later-was swimming along and thinking if friday was just my lucky day then after 20min i see 2 feelers behind a rock, whala. go and swoop down on the rock and grab the thing with both hands, ended up pulling out 2 in one go.    Know the Law! Dive around december 2003 Back in the day when I was still too young to buy alcohol, I had just gotten a hand spear and my friend and I had arranged to go for a swim at north coogee. I called him up in the morning, 11am “hey Steve you wake yet, still up for a swim?” Steve was a big guy, 7ft tall around 110kg, a heavy smoker and worked for the navy as a deckhand. Also had blue eyes and women always liked him. “I’m awake now, come over in 30min,” I had also just woken up and got my little snorkeling fins, boardies and mask ready. After grabbing my hand spear and a spare mask and snorkel I walked over to his place about 15min away. He got up had a ciggy and we left down clovelly road to the dive shop down the road. There we got a hand spear and chatted to the “bubble heads,” one of the comments that I remember really well was the manager saying, “there should be lots of fish out today,” it was kinda strange so I asked “why do you say that?” intrigued “it rained last night so the fish should be out feeding.” It made sense but I didn’t think he would be right. From there we walked to north coogee and trying not to be really sus we set our hand spears up and quickly walked through the pool to the entry point. It was a beautiful summers day, 30C, water was 22C, swell around 0.5m and not a cloud in the sky. The entry point was a clearing of rock at the end of the pool, I slowly made my way to the ledge through the white wash. Steve followed but then was intimidated, I also felt unsure of getting in from there, as it was my first time but overcame my fears “it’s now or never!” and jumped in heading to the safety of deeper water. As soon as the bubbles cleared I realized my situation “Steve, steve! Get the fk in there are fish everywhere!” I yelled to him, still messing about on the rocks. A pretty big school of mullet where circling me from 1m away! The luderic and bream seamed to have let their guard down completely, the vis was around 5m and looking back there probably would have been kingies around the mullet. I loaded the hand spear and fired! Yes! I hit a mullet right in the middle and knocked it out. I held it out of the water to show steve and others my prize. He still hadn’t gotten in so I took the mullet of the spear and tried to reload my hand spear and get another! I tried loading while holding the other mullet in my hand as it struggled. Finaly I gave up, deciding to take it to shore then go get more. I yell to steve to get his arse in, a wave hits me from behind and my fin gets stuck in the rocks, I swim backwards but it comes off and I cant find it! ahhh! I decide to get out and in from the beach only 30m away, swimming like a man possessed I get out where I’m confronted by these 2 fat middle eastern blokes they come up to me and ask if they could take my pic!! So after that I start walking back to the pool when this hot blondy comes up to me and I think she’s also going to complement me. “How could you hurt that fish, don’t you think fish have feelings too?” I was really set back like WTF? All my 16yr old mind could think of doing was miming the mullets mouth “ow, no I want to be eaten, you must eat me! I don’t mind being shot!” she was like “your so smth smth,” anyway I get back to Steve at the pool, looking disappointed, the chick kinda follows me and I talk to Steve about why he didn’t get in? he explains a wave scraped him along the rocks and he lost my snorkel, darn. So I tell him the sitch about the fish when this hippy women looking in her 70s, skinny, gray hair and her skin wrinkled and shriveled came over. “hey you idiot’s I’m calling the police you can’t spear hear, your in trouble you should go,” she came over and started to be realy rude, a real shrew and only thing she didn’t do was become violent. I got taken back, I checked the internet nsw fisheries a month ago and it said I could spear this area. Still the Russian way of though is that others know better but we still argued and argued. Steve interrupted her and said “dude the revolution is over!” she got even more mad and after 10min the life guards came over and seemed really confused if you could spear there or not. They had a pamphlet but didn’t know much about the law with spearing. Still they where pretty cool about it, turns out they also go spearfishing and asked us if we could go so the “public wouldn’t get upset,” –not to make a scene. Steve agreed so I just followed him, while we walked away we watched mullet jump out of the water from the distance. ( feedin or being chased?) the mullet was yum, but after that day I made sure I wouldn’t have to walk away from “fish jumping out of the water!” I checked all the laws on nsw fisheries. Never met anyone like that again but anyone asking I told them with confidence “I know better!” some links http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries http://www.fisheries.nsw.gov.au/mari...atic_reserves/ ar_bronte_coogee.htm http://www.fisheries.nsw.gov.au/recr...twater_fishing http://www.fisheries.nsw.gov.au/mari...uatic_reserves http://www.mpa.nsw.gov.au/
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#26
February 7th, 2006
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ulladula weekend comp
21-22n/8/05 vis 13m water 13c swell 0.5m looking back it is rather insane of us to go south during winter when the water is cold and go spearing in even more frikin cold water, but that's life i guess. well it turned out to be a non-eventful weekend of diving, with snapper, the aim of the trip not turning up. I did learn something though, diving with a hang over is something i will avoid in future and in general i think i'll stay sober. there where about a dozen people staying over at dave's place in dolphin point and we all got along well. Saturday some dived the reef, while catfish, David and myself slept in until snoop came over after launching his boat, ducking under the extremely low bridge and navigating the lagoon mouth which is supposedly unnavigable we went out to 2 bombie's out in the ocean. saw lots of life but nothing "special." others didn't get anything special. next day we had a club comp. when we all got back to the dave's house, everyone asked "where's scuba?" when we asked the guy who dived with him why scuba didn't get out with him, he explained he got out early. Trippe "how's he getting back?" spearo "i have no idea" everyone "  " 30min later an unhappy scuba, with somewhat dried out fish was found and ended up having the last laugh when he weighed in allot more fish than anyone else, scored 2x as much as the nearest person the bastard, too bad he was disqualified for coming late. only one snapper was weighed in, around a kilo, Dave shot a hudge king wrasse around 1.6kg, scuba had some good fish but still seems agitated, recon that diet is getting to him. i think i'll be going into hibernation The Seal 4/12/05 The Thieving sea hawks— Funny thin happened today, diving down I shot a Tarwhine through the tail but the smart ass swam up and flopper didn’t engage. Continued spearing for 20min before going to the boat, where we chatted for a minute or two until A Lewis noticed a fish floating in the water 20m from the boat, I had a look and in amazement it was my tarwhine! How sweet is that! I didn’t loose it after all or need to string it ect. Then another of the crew members looks and says “check out that massive bird!” I look in aw, it had a wingspan of 1.3m or so, twice that of any crow or thingyatoo. “Albatross,” I think to myself, reminding myself how privileged I am to be a spearo and get to see things like that. As it fly’s closer you can see it’s beautiful white and brown camo. Then I realise it’s not an Albatross but a hawk, sea hawk probably! Darn wish I had the camera I thought as it glided down closer to our boat. “It must be after a fish!” I thought, this will be cool, then I realise it’s path is directly going for my Tarwhine! Dirty B@stard! I don’t know what to feel, it’s a cool experience but at the SOB swoops down and takes my fish and heads for the cliffs! LoL! Being a comp every fish counts! Then again if the sea hawks feel that they need to steal fish to score an extra 50points so be it! North shore is behind this! The Seal 21/1/06 wen't swiming around eastern suburbs. 9-13m vis, 1m swell NNE direction, 23C water but colder in some parts. saw some kingfish, school of snapper and large trev's. was kool how in some parts the cold water was forced up and you had that opaq effect in the water. lot's of sponges around 20m and deeper, along with blue mowies. was looking at ling in a cave when something moved and there was a wobbie 20cm away from head(big wobbie). A big blue groper was near by, so i tried bereyling urchins close to the cave but i think it knew what i was up to. A smaller female went in and shot straight out. scavenged some shiny lures from the rocks and tried to convince a cuttle to eat it from my hand, it just looked at me funny. Nothing 2 exciting, good to get wet! Alex
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#27
February 7th, 2006
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a friend told me an awsome story i'd like to share,
he was diving at lurline i believe when a sunfish swam up to him, so he dropped his gun and latched onto it like a remora and let it take him 4 a ride. then later a whale and calf came up to him, he tried to swim up to it but the whale "blew" him back as he was swimming from behind and as it stroked it's tail the wake or exhaust? sent him backwards in the water. seal been diving at a spot where i think i saw an elegant wrasse or something and had an intresting thing happen. i got in on a windy day and started to set up my gear but a plastic bottle i had got loose and was getting blown away real fast i begain persuit but a dive bag also got loose and was sinking. i decided i'd look for it later and get my float/bottle. after 10min of persuit and 200m or so i got it and swam back but couldn't find my dive bag (culepra cup bag). saddened anyway i continued on with the dive then went home. went over there again and had a look for the bag but no. last saturday i went in again with the camera and saw a small cuttle fish so decided it would be a good specimen to shoot. i dived down as it struck up its idea of an intimidating pose as i took pictures. wen't back up and watched it try and camo up to catch some fish that where barating it, think it could use a spear gun. then it slowly swam off so i followed it to where it stopped infront of a crack. i dived down but it had it's back turned to me, i waited but no shot oportunity presented itself. then i figured it's looking at something, another cuttle perhaps? i look into the narrow crack and there's my dive bag!!! hmm now maybe it could show me where all the other gear i've lost is? The seal hey check this out! http://www.spearboard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24968 waters bloody cold think the NE winds 2 blame? Vis is good about 15m. Went in to take some pics of a swim through and thought a dead body was there, turned out to be a 20kilo wobby sleeping there. Got a guy to duck dive next to it, after he asked me if "there arn't any wobbies there?" "haven't noticed any" wobby was fast asleep and he didn't notice it though he was 1m away from it. good camo. thought i'd drag it out to show to his friend but thought twice. This was in gordons bay Alex
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#28
February 7th, 2006
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okay! that's all my adventures i'm aware of i've writen down!!! should leave some people here with very tired sore eyes! mwhaha
I'll write some more down as the come along.... Catch ya! Alex the seal
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#29
February 8th, 2006
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Great stories (but i confess i didn't read it all).
your fingers most be sored... or at list some pain in the back or arms  Fernando
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