Eden - 3 Way State Championships

The Mosman Whalers Skindiving Club had more than our normal contingent of divers make the journey to Eden for this years 3 Way Championship.

We collected Mussels and Abalone to complement our fish, making a big seafood cook up. Gerry made some great pasta with crayfish from Narooma and mussels and fish from Eden. I made some fish cocktails with rice flour beer batter, and Jen made the abalone fritters.

Saturday is the eve of the Championships, and serves as scouting day. We search out the locations where the hard-to-find fish are aggregating. Three species were our targets – Nannygai, Sea Sweep and Boarfish. We travelled an hour south of Eden to launch the boats in Wonboyn Lake, but had to walk next to the boats to float them out to the ocean in a few inches of water! Luckily the tide was running out when we launched, and was running back in just before dark. All three species were found, and locked into the chartplotter as GPS marks.

Sunday is an early start as we all needed to register for the Championships, as well as launch the boat and organise all the gear. With over 40 boats registered, the boat ramp was busy. 130 competitors took to the water at 8am, returning at 2pm.

The race to the first fishing spot is a solid 25 minutes flat-out! Thankfully no other boats wanted to fish this particular spot first, and we managed to get the species we were looking for. Moving on to the other spots, and spearing the other species, the time passes quickly. Unfortunately the spot where I saw a Boarfish on Saturday was already being fished by another crew. As luck would have it — at the last spot — right before we needed to go back, I found a Boarfish to add to my bag of fish :)

Such a big event takes quite some time to process all the divers' fish, and tabulate all the scores. To add to the delays, the scorekeeper's computer had a few failures taking several more hours to overcome. So while we all waited for scores, we had a few drinks and caught up with other competitors. It was great to catch up with Rick, after returning from our South African trip a few weeks earlier.

My point score was 722, putting me in 18th place overall.

Waiting on photos from friends....

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 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.

Narooma

Travelled to Narooma for the Far South Coast Championships, my first time diving in the Narooma area.

On the trip down, the conditions were rough and a planned dive with Wilso around Bass Point was canned.

Gerry & I were diving with PC out of his boat, and Gerry bringing a boatie!



Unfortunately the comp was not held... but we still went spearing at Montague Island on both days.

Saturday was too rough to cross the Narooma bar, so we travelled to Bermagui and had a quick run up to Mystery Bay, and then out to Montague. Drifting the boulders on the Western edge, I shot a ~2kg Snapper. Between the three of us we had a few of the normal species, but no Boaries or Blue-Throats were seen.

Missed out on the two-up, and met up with Huffy and Dutchie at the pub.

Sunday was too windy! The bar was completely flat, but there was a wind warning and the organisers can't risk safety of the competitors by holding the comp... so we headed out and came back early before the big wind gusts (~40 knots) fired up after midday. Vis was down, but still good in places. Gerry and PC grabbed a couple of Abalone and Crays each, and I wandered off and found a lone Long-snout Boarfish.

Although I took all my camera gear, I lacked the motivation to drag it out on the water.... so only some phone-photos from the friday evening.