Howdy folks! My name is Mark, and I am from Houston, Texas. My brother and I grew up offshore fishing the Texas coast for billfish and other pelagics, but recently have gotten addicted to spearfishing in the last 6 months diving in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas. Our work schedules have permitted us to have about 4 weeks free in June/July 2018, so we are wanting to make a trip to Australia/some of the Pacific Islands for the sole purpose of spearfishing. Neither of us have been and are doing our very best to make the most of a trip over there!
Like I mentioned, we are experienced when it comes to any kind of saltwater/offshore excursion, but we are relatively new to free diving. On our most recent trip, we were only comfortably diving 20-30 feet (~5-10 meters).
I am hoping to gather as much information as possible from the DB community regarding how to make the most of our trip! We are looking at this as essentially a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so no location is too remote. What areas in June/July do you think would be ideal for a trip like this?
Australia:
-Darwin: seems like a great place to look into. Any experience from the community here?
-Cairns: is most of the reef open to spearfish nowadays?
-Perth: thoughts?? active spearfish community here?
-Exmouth: same as above
-Any other places that will be warm enough/shallow enough for us to dive?
Pacific:
-Palau: any experience here? We have reached out to one of the highly recommended spearos there.
-Fiji, Samoa: recognize these might be overrun with tourists, but figured worth throwing out there.
-I know there are a thousand more islands...any recommendations?
Any other areas we should be considering??
Any advice whatsoever will be tremendously appreciated! Cheers!!!
-Mark
Pics below of some of our past catches (rod and reel):
Like I mentioned, we are experienced when it comes to any kind of saltwater/offshore excursion, but we are relatively new to free diving. On our most recent trip, we were only comfortably diving 20-30 feet (~5-10 meters).
I am hoping to gather as much information as possible from the DB community regarding how to make the most of our trip! We are looking at this as essentially a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so no location is too remote. What areas in June/July do you think would be ideal for a trip like this?
Australia:
-Darwin: seems like a great place to look into. Any experience from the community here?
-Cairns: is most of the reef open to spearfish nowadays?
-Perth: thoughts?? active spearfish community here?
-Exmouth: same as above
-Any other places that will be warm enough/shallow enough for us to dive?
Pacific:
-Palau: any experience here? We have reached out to one of the highly recommended spearos there.
-Fiji, Samoa: recognize these might be overrun with tourists, but figured worth throwing out there.
-I know there are a thousand more islands...any recommendations?
Any other areas we should be considering??
Any advice whatsoever will be tremendously appreciated! Cheers!!!
-Mark
Pics below of some of our past catches (rod and reel):