NSW State Titles 2009 - Ulladulla

Based around Ulladulla in 2009, the event is run over two days to decide the best spearfishermen for NSW. The format is a shore dive, meaning all fishing is done by leaving the shore and swimming to find fish – no boats allowed! Its a very challenging event, and removes boats and GPS from the equation. Similar to the National Titles, its normal to swim over 4 kilometres each day.

Saturday was held at Berara, close to Sussex Inlet. The day started well, and I had a few good fish in the first half of the allowed time, but I spent the last half looking for fish and only getting two more. I didn't leave much time to get back, and swam very hard pulling all my fish to the shore and scurrying up the beach and path to reach the finish.

My result for Saturday was 68.8% of the best score of the day, Garth Byron on 579 points.

Sunday stayed close, and was held at the Ulladulla boat ramp. I and a few other guys decided to run north over the headland, avoiding some of the swim from the boat ramp out to the main fishing grounds. My fish shot was into a cave to spear a Ling, but the spear bent and jammed! Thankfully the bend wasn't too severe and did not break. I think that managed to get all my bad luck out of the way early, and I speared my first ever Zebra Fish soon after that.

Sunday's result was 61.4%, with an Intermediate age group diver with the best score, Jack Lavender on 820 points.

That put me in 14th place overall, on 130.2%.

Even though I was diving well after South Africa, I was not feeling well from lack of sleep. There were at least a few species each day that I should have had in my catch. Another factor that certainly made things more difficult is having not previously dived in the area, let alone knowing any "spots" for the competition areas. At least in South Africa we had a chance to scout the area, and Graham had a few spots for us to target. There's always next year.

South Africa 2009 Part 3 – Shark diving with Blue Wilderness

After the success of the Aussie team in the 1 day International test, we scraped together a few of the guys and went for a night on the town.  Although we had planned on diving with Mark Addison on Sunday, Rick didn't finish his beauty sleep until midday :)  Instead, we went into town with Corry and Jackie for lunch, and had a recovery day while Graham and Tony ran off to Durban earlier in the morning.

Rick and I were well and truly ready to go, arriving at Blue Wilderness headquarters quite early. Mark had been anticipating a bit of spearfishing too, so we threw our spearguns & cameras in the boat and off we went. There were reports from yesterday's divers that clean water was on the Shoal, and we were hopeful it held steady overnight. On the run out, we crossed over the current line.... hazy blue, to purple! It really seemed promising.

Mark is the original shark man – dedicating around the last 20 years – freediving to study sharks and all facets of their behaviour. He actively helps other commercial shark tourism operators, dispensing friendly advice on how to best arrange the boats trying to locate the sharks for their customers. His confidence in his process showed through as his crew dropped the marker buoy, and he took us wide, up-current from Aliwal Shoal to drift for blue-water species.

On entering the water, I could see the bottom clearly. I asked Mark "How deep are we here?"  His response "29 metres".  Easily 100 feet of visibility. Within 2 minutes of hitting the water Rick spots a big shark... actually a small Whale Shark. It swam casually past him. We alerted Mark – still in the boat – and he passed us our cameras to capture the great fish on film.

For a few minutes we followed the Whale Shark around, but I stopped briefly on a pinnacle of the reef to film some other species in the gin-clear water.

[sequence of Natal Wrasse, Parrot]

After swimming with the Whale Shark a while longer, we moved back to the marker buoy to find many Black-tip Sharks had come in for a feed. Their attitude and swimming pattern make up for their smaller size, keeping us nervous as we swam with them looking for good photo opportunities.

The Black-tips circle making sharp turns and fast runs, investigating all things up and down the chum slick. They look well-fed, yet hungry for any morsel that they can chomp.

Before too long, Mark is keen to complete a video assignment with Raggie Sharks (A.K.A Grey Nurse Sharks) back across The Shoal. We bundle back in the boat, bring up the marker buoy and head for the Raggie Cave. Mark and his Videographer Dan grab the SCUBA tanks and decend to work, while Rick and I are dropped back on our original drift.

We've got garfish swimming all around, and the Wahoo soon arrive. I've seen the outside of the school, but Rick has been in the middle of close to 100 15+kg Wahoo! Both of us watch carefully as part of the school come closer to investigate us. I look over to watch Rick swim at one, placing a shot mid-body. He has borrowed my Rob Allen 1.2m speargun, and with his swimming had plenty of power get the flopper right through the fish. Unfortunately his belt reel jammed, putting too much pressure on the fighting fish forcing the spear to pull out.  I tracked another Wahoo, patiently watching it circle behind me and swim up current below me. I couldn't get in range as each time I made any movement it would react by moving further away from me. Yet another Wahoo stayed up shallow, close to the surface, and just as I though I was as close as I would get I swam at the fish. I took my shot, and it was all over! My spear hit it's spine, removing the Wahoos' ability to swim away. 

[Wahoo photo]

After calling over the boat and hauling the fish aboard, we had drifted back onto The Shoal, near the Raggie Cave where Mark and Dan had finished their video assignment. A large Tiger Shark was circling cautiously wide around the bait drum, but it was a good sign. Mark called over the boat and had the baits reset and once another two Tigers appeared, pulled the anchor on the marker buoy.

We drifted for over an hour with these magnificent fish. I can remember – as if it only happened yesterday – the first close encounter with a Tiger Shark. I'm around 5m below the surface and it was swimming toward me, as they all had at one stage or another. But instead of veering away it continued, holding course for a direct collision.  The thing about these Tiger Sharks is that they were moving gracefully. Slow and steady compared to the frantic pace of the Black-Tips. Slowly the Tiger closed the gap, every moment of the way I thought "What do I do now? When do I reach out to try and force it away?" Just as I thought "Now!", it turned sharply, to make another arc and circle around the group. I surfaced, taking a deep breath and feeling the rush of adrenaline starting to fade away.

Toward the end of our Tiger Shark drift a Zambezi Shark (AKA Bull Shark) joined in with the tempo and grace of the Tigers. And not long after that, the Whale Shark made an encore appearance. At this stage we had Black-Tips, Tigers, a Zambezi and a Whale Shark – all within a 30m radius of the marker buoy. An incredible experience in beautifully clear water – a dive of a lifetime!

South Africa 2009 Part 2 – 1 Day International between South Africa and Australia

Strong winds had been forecast and after an early briefing, during which the teams decided on a 4 hour competition, we launched at Rocky Bay. We had plans to dive some distant locations, but due to to shorter format and rough conditions, decided to dive a similar location to the one where Graham had sighted the Great White 2 days earlier.  This proved to be a good decision as the South African A team wasted time getting to a distant location and did not give themselves enough time to spear enough fish to win in the shorter duration competition.  The SAUFF team were not fairing much better.  They had elected to dive the deep Scottborough area closer inshore where we had been in the Interprovincial competition 2 days earlier.

We dived 4 spots without moving too far and spent a lot of time in the water, bringing in quality high point scoring fish at a steady rate most of the day, but did not land much during the last hour of the competition.  Rick left a reel gun in a cave after his spear was stuck and his reel jammed.  In hindsight we should have visited a 5th spot an hour before the end - instead we stayed on the fish we had at our 4th spot.

We had about 23 fish in the bag for the day and were not at all confident of our fortunes when we beached.  however it soon became apparent that the other teams had not done particularly well either.  A large Black Muscle Cracker speared by SA captain, James Lawson-Smith - the most prized fish and envy of all the spearos who had attended  the 4 days of competition diving!  A great fish worthy of recognition and for a moment I had a feeling of being done yet again.  Upon collecting my thoughts i noticed 3 crates of fish and recognised ours as the middle one - also the fish looked heavier and more numerous in that crate.  A moment later I looked up and the story in the expressions was told - we had won the day by an incredible stroke of fortune and some lucky decisions which went our way. 

James' fish stole the show on the final day, but we were happy to take the honours for our combined efforts, which included quality fish, amongst which were a Red Flush Cod, 2  large Rubberlip, Santer Englishman and Green Jobfish. Afterwards we attended a great prize giving dinner at the Shelly Beach Ski-boat Club.

While we all had our attention focussed on the weigh in, a thief walked off with Graham's dive bag - a gentle reminder that we need vigilance when travelling abroad.

We can't say enough to thank our hosts, the Hibiscus Underwater Club, their Chairman who also chairs the SAUFF, Brent Addison, his son Mark and the use of his facilities at Blue Wilderness in Rocky Bay, the Shelly Beach Ski-boat Club for the use of their facilities, Gyula Plaganyi for the use of his double cab ute, Ryan Hanson for the use of his boat, and so many others.

On behalf of the AUF and my fellow team members, Graham, Rick and Rob, I would like to extend our sincere thanks for a great time in South Africa.  We hope, that in the not too distant future, we can host a South African team on our shores

South Africa 2009 Part 1 – South African National Titles

The competition area, Southern KwaZulu/Natal, from Hibberdene to Port Edward, had also been proposed as the venue for the 28th CMAS World Titles in 2012.

This would be an opportunity for Australia to scout and acquire valuable information in the lead period to the 2012 World Titles.

Buoyed by the success of our friends at the Inter Pacific, Tony Heugh, Rick de Vries, Graham Carlisle and Rob Wills arrived in Durban, South Africa, early on 2 May.