Qatar fun

[mishu1984]

went out today with Getawayfk. the vis was great by Dubai standards, but for qatari standards is was so-so.
the wind in the beginning of the dive was ok as we were swimming out in the direction with the wind to our back blowing us out. on the way in however, we were fighting currents and waves so it took us 45 minutes to swim the 700meters back to shore.
as we were parking we saw what was either a kingfish or a queenfish going after some baitfish less than 20m from shore. we geared up and hit the water in 10 minutes. as soon as we got in, is was like swimming through a mine-field with all the jellyfish.. i got stung on the neck and legs which really :martial pissed me off but other than that it was an amazing dive.

i also got to try my Freedivers 130. Getawayfk loaded it for me, as i couldnt
get the wishbone all the way to the notch. he tried the gun and really liked it. the first two fish taken with it were groupers so it seems like its off to a great start.
i saw a very decent sized faskar go into a hole and pulled off on it. the spear went in the mouth and came out its arse :blackeye
my first shot with the Freedivers gun was on a school of queenfish. i was trying to get two fish at the same time but i was more focused on the fish closer to me so i didnt shoot at the right moment. the spear went through cleanly, but they werent swimming close enough to get complete penetration on the second one. the tip of the shaft went in upto the flopper, but the flopper didnt go in, so it screeched away with a trail of blood.

on a side not, Podge man you have single handedly killed my aspetto today. i would go down and wait for a nice fish to come in view and more often than not, i would remember what you wrote:
Originally Posted by podge
I’m a spray and pray man.
By the time I’ve seen most fish it’s to late to take the sniper shot and it’s all down to the old-
“shit there’s a fish quick let him have it”

and i would just giggle like crazy rofl rofl

also, always deflate your tires when going on dunes... :t

heres the pics. its funny how when you have low expectations for a certain day, you almost always have a great day that surpases any expectations...

Getawayfk with his lovely grouper

 

[getawayFK]

Hey Mishu thanks for the great posts and pictures.

On another note, we had to wait for around one and half hour in the burning 45C sun between two sand dunes as (unfortunately) I got the car stuck in the sand.... I didn't deflate the tires on the way in (and it barely worked) and on the way back (thanks God at least!) we got stuck, but luckily enough we had a GPS with us and called some friends and gave them our coordinate and had them help us out

As for dive conditions; visibility was on the average of 7-8m vertically and around 12-14m horizontally, we started the dive at 6:40am and finished at 10:55am, water temperature was around 31-32C, there was a north-east wind blowing at a maximum speed of 17knots, waves were 3-4feet high, and current was at least 8km/hr (yes it was pretty strong today as the lowest tide was 0.35m and the highest tide was 2.95m with a difference timing interval of only 6hours in between !). Depth was 5m to 20m along the way, with a depth of 7-12m in the reefs were we were shooting our fish...Maximum distance we swam from shore was 890m (we didn't venture further in as it would get extremely difficult to swim back but the further you got, the better and bigger fish you find!). Indeed all those factors have to be carefully studied here before diving in this area, as currents can get extremely strong.

Finally, in brief it was a great dive, and I just wanted to share more details here...

Regards all !