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H
by Tim McDonald
ere I lay on my bed under the mozzie net, looking at the tatty silver insulation paper that is called the ceiling. I’m watching 5 gecko’s using the last couple of minutes before the generator shuts off to catch the moths that are attracted to the light. Two of the gecko’s in particular stand out to me. One, obviously an old and fat gecko that sits quietly and snatches the unwary moths and a smaller one that spends more time chirping and scampering across the ceiling chasing moths than he does eating, and at this moment it occurs to me that:
“IT IS EASIER TO CATCH A FISH THAN TEACH A MAN TO FISH”.
Earlier that day I had three local Solomon Islanders out in our boat and was trying to help them to spear a fish. Amazingly, they had forgotten everything I had tried to teach them over the last couple of days and were really struggling. Now as I lay there watching what unfolded I felt like that fat gecko.
This story doesn’t start here but one year earlier with my return from my last trip to the Solomon Islands. Upon my return I was really keen to do all I could for the beautiful people over there. When I arrived home I boxed up a heap of my old gear and sent it over with some bibles and other things I had organised but I wanted to do more. The opportunity came with a phone call I received from Michael McCullum of Pelaj. He in short loved what I did over there and said he wanted to be a part of helping out any way he could. A couple of months went by and an invitation to return sparked again my memory of Michael’s offer of assistance. Around the same time John Featherstone had done an amazing job printing my article on the first trip in issue 22. This is when I received another call from Michael saying he had read and loved my article, and again asked what he could do to help. I gave him a quick list of things I wanted to bring and give away, and he did the rest! A couple of weeks later John See from Aquanaut called and told me Michael had spoken to him and he wanted to help as well so he was going to send some gear. It was all falling into place. I like so many other’s, love to help other people wherever possible. It strikes at a core part of our humanity to do this. I am lucky that in my job as a pastor I get to be a part of doing this most of the time, as our church Citipointe has a foundation that is setup to help out people all over the world with things like our “she rescue home” in Cambodia (set up for young girls that are at risk of being trafficked in the sex trade), Building widow’s houses in Sri Lanka for survivors of the 2006 Tsunami and even orphanages for intellectually disabled in inland China. But to be able to mix my hobby/lifestyle of Spearfishing that I love so much with helping people in a big way was just such a blessing!!! A couple of weeks before I was leaving I spoke to a couple of my friends about coming as well and Gareth Dunwoodie jumped at the chance. Now this added to our ability to help out as Gareth is a builder and many of the local schools are in desperate need of a builders touch. The plan was that I was to head over the first week and organise some work for Gareth in
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the second week and in all our spare time we would go spearing. The day before I left all the gear from Pelaj and Aquanaut arrived. There were 10 sets of goggles and fins, 20 extra sets of Goggles to give to kids. There were 5 complete spearguns with riglines and floats. On top of that there was 10 metres of extra rubber, dyneema, jinkai, swages and crimping pliers everything needed to maintain the gifts that were to be given. As I looked through all this stuff I was so blown away by the generosity shown by these two great Aussie companies!! My trip over was great, although my excess baggage was crazy and getting through customs was nuts with two massive boxes, one of them full of spearguns. But, all went great and I was soon met at the entrance by my good friend Willie. We dropped a couple of other spearos I had met on the plane at Honiara and headed to what was going to be my home for the next two weeks. All the way back Willie talked about how excited everyone was that we were
going to be able to have fresh fish and how he had organised me to go diving the next afternoon at George’s reef from last year. The next days lecturing flew by and in the afternoon we packed the Hilux with gear and people and headed to the beach. When we arrived I was greeted by water that is best described as putrid. On top of that, the day after I last here, they had caught a crocodile just up the beach. But there were hungry mouths to feed back home so I unwrapped one of the new 90cm Pelaj guns to give it a go. When I hopped out of the dugout canoe into the water I was really glad I had the 90cm gun there as I would not have been able to see the end of my 120 RIFFE Euro I left on the beach.. I searched around and located the top of the bombie that was 2 metres deep and not in view from the surface. When I found it I tied off a rope to use as a marker and set about trying to secure a feed for that night. On the bottom the vis was terrible. I was shooting from the hip with the 90cm gun as I could not see
the flopper if I stretched out my arm holding the gun. My hunting technique was simple; dive down to the bottom at 5 metres, lay between two rocks and wait for a fish to swim in front of my spear. This worked as within an hour I had shot a few really nice Golden trevally. But as the sun started to drop the vis on the bottom had gotten worse and I could only see the silhouettes of fish if I was looking towards where the sun was setting. I could no longer pick what species was what, but 60 hungry mouths at home kept me in the water until on one dive I returned to the surface and hit my head on the dugout, which because of the dirty water I hadn’t seen. When I turned around all I saw was a big brown shape that looked just like a Crocodile simply because it is all I had been thinking about for the last hour. I figured at that point it was time to head in. That night when we arrived home it was to singing and dancing as fresh fish was on the menu!! For most of us this is a natural part of life but these people it is a once a year treat if you are well off!!!!
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The next day after college Willie had again organised me to dive. This time we went to the Barge wreck which I dived the year earlier. When we arrived at the launch point we were met by a man with his dugout who was going to take me out to the wreck. This man did not speak a word of English and was also half deaf so that everytime I spoke he just looked at me blankly paused for a bit and then ….laughed. This made finding the right spot difficult with a massive communication barrier but after a couple of minutes searching I found it, tied off a marker and set about getting some more fresh fish. The wreck was a heap more alive than the previous year with numerous small jacks all through the wreck. (talking to the locals after, they told me they have not used dynamite here over the past year as the police have cut down on them doing it…. the results were obvious) On this small piece of structure I was reticent to take any of the jacks and was happy to just shoot the pelagic fish. The 90cm gun came in handy again as the vis was pretty bad. Some of the locals hopped in with me but were put off by the filthy water and soon retreated to the dugouts. I dived till it was too dark and had shot enough fish to feed us all again for another night. The next day after class I worked in the gardens with the students as Willie was in town organising a boat for the next day to head out to one of the wider islands and some blue water. I had a run in with a nest of local fire ants…how can something so small hurt so much?? That night as I tried to sleep all I could think about was blue water….oh PDT is a killer. Saturday morning I was up early but it felt like someone had pressed the pause button. There was nothing I could do to get them to move any faster. Finally we made it down to where the boat was but we spent the next 20 minutes in a discussion about who was going to get the motor for us. I was going crazy I knew that I was so close to getting to that beautiful water just offshore. Finally after what felt like forever we got the boat down to the water and loaded in the gear and were getting ready to go. The boat was not the most seaworthy boat I have ever been in and they wanted to put me and 5 others in the boat, I refused and allowed only 3 others which even then was sketchy. We finally pushed off and the plan was to head out to the island and have them tow me around to find some decent structure or dropoffs
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in deeper water (this is what I like to call a Solomon islands Sounder). The plan was to shoot some fish for dinner before heading in closer to get the guys in the water and do some coaching with them and their new gear. I jumped over in what looked like 30 metres of water and could make out the bottom … a great change! After towing around a bit I located a good looking dropoff with a heap of bait and started diving. I picked up a nice Large eye sea bream, a Black and gold sea perch and a good Jobfish before the first Spanish turned up. When I shot the first Mack and handed it into the boat the boys just started getting so excited. One of them danced around the boat and carried the Mack for the next ten minutes. After that the Macks kept coming through, one of them I shot ran 20 metres of line out of my reel before I landed it. When I was winding the line back onto my reel a 15kg Dogtooth came up and grabbed my spinning flopper. It only hung around long enough for me to get loaded and then it was nowhere to be seen. After a couple of Macks were in the boat I figured I had enough fish that I could spend some time with the boys in the shallows. We found a dropoff that dropped from 2 metres in a shear wall down to at least 40 metres. The boys hopped in and tried out their new gear. All of them found it a bit challenging but after a couple of hours of scratching around in the shallows one of them shot his first Parrot. It was amazing watching them try to relax then diving down a couple of metres, before turning around and clawing their way back to the surface. Incredibly I imagined it being easier to teach these guys to spear than this afternoon worked out.
When we arrived home that night everyone was waiting for us. The whole village was keen to see what we speared and when a few nice Mackerel came out of the esky people were singing and dancing. That night everyone had heaps of fish and we had plenty left over for Sunday BBQ after church the next day. Sunday morning church was AWESOME with people from all over Guadal Canal turning up for a combined meeting. After the service we had a big BBQ Mackerel feast. Lots of people were coming and speaking to me about spearfishing. Even though there was a language barrier I had a blast listening to Willie and the others tell stories in pigeon of the fish over the last couple of days. Church for all of them is as much about community as it is about worship and it becomes a whole day affair. Many of them travel for
miles to be there so it was amazing to watch them all laugh and tell stories for hours. Willie calls it ”stacka talk talk”. The following morning I lectured all day till 3:00pm and Willie had organised us to go to a place I had not dived before. It is apparently an old Japanese warship. When I quizzed a few guys who had been there what the depth was I received mixed reports. One said 40 metres another said 15 so I basically had no idea how deep it was. When I turned up I was met by the usual greeny brown of the inshore water and I wasn’t too sure if we were even going to find anything. We had a 200 metre walk down the beach then had to wade 20 metres across a river mouth that was spewing out a heap of dirty water. Fortunately the current was pushing that water away from the wreck as it was basically 100 metres out in front of the creek. A guy turned up in an old dugout and was to be my guide for the afternoon. He barely spoke English and to make matters worse it was raining a bit and he couldn’t see his sight lines to find the wreck. So here I was diving a place in goodness knows how deep water with what looked like 5 metres vis at best, no sounder, no GPS, sight lines hidden by cloud and the closest thing I had to knowing the depth was one of the guys told me that it was a coil and a half of fishing line deep….. What is a coil and a half of fishing line??? To top it off, when I hopped in the water the top 6 inches of water was fresh and muddy and you had to put your head down under it to see anything and there was a fair bit of current aswell. But I decided with 10 guys waiting on the beach for fresh fish and another 50 at home I couldn’t stand the look of that many disappointed faces if I came in empty handed. So I got the guy to paddle the dugout into position whilst I held onto the back, when he thought we were in position he would give me a yell and I would dive. The first dive down to 20 metres revealed nothing but green water, there goes the 15 metre theory!! Next dive was to the same level with the same result. After 10 more dives with nothing to see but a school of baitfish on one of the dives I was starting to think we were never going to see anything, until another older guy turned up with a 5 inch cigarette hanging out of his mouth and this old man of the sea paddled straight out and found it straight away. He fortunately dropped a fishing line on the wreck and got it snagged. I used him as a marker and found the wreck next drop. The vis on the bottom was about 4-5 metres. I only had 22metres of rigline and the top of the wreck was about 2 metres below me when I pulled up tight on the float. I speared a nice Trevally and headed back to the surface. It was nice to finally shoot a fish as we had been there for 1.5 hours and that is the first time I had found it. Fortunately the guy was still snagged and next drop I came down again right on top. A nice Jack came up over the wreck but I was out of rigline and pulling the float down and trying to shoot a fish is difficult and
he disappeared over the side. Next drop the vis had gotten worse as the sun was nearly down and I could only see about 2-3 metres. So with very little to show for my effort I reluctantly headed in. It was going to have to be fish soup tonight so everyone could have some of this one fish! Just after I got out of the water and started walking back along the beach to the car a Crocodile swam past us about 60 metres off the beach and all of a sudden diving 25 metres in 5 metres vis sounded stupider than it did 5 minutes earlier…which you would think would be impossible. The next afternoon Gareth arrived and we dived the barge wreck from the couple of days earlier as it was on the way home from the airport. Gareth only out of customs for 20 minutes was now (being fully utilized by Willie) straight in the water, which at 30 degrees was a fair bit warmer than the 18 degree day he left at the Brisbane airport. He revelled in the water with only a shirt and shorts. The vis had improved here and we could see the wreck from the surface 5 metres below us….just. We shot a few Trevally including one Gareth shot right on dark that to this day I can’t believe he speared as it was almost pitch black on the bottom at the time. That night after everyone enjoyed fresh fish for the 5th day in a row, Gareth and I talked to a group of about 20 guys that had gathered about spearfshing. We showed them how to rig up gear, how to fix their guns. We also talked about hunting different species, a lot of laughs were had as we got some of the guys tying up rubbers and rigging jinkai. We talked about sustainability, something that many of them had never thought of before. Before I had left I was a little torn about bringing Spearfishing equipment to give away as the Solomon islanders can have a tendency to use every natural resource until it is depleted. But as we all know Spearfishing is the most ecologically sustainable form of fishing. And on top of this John Featherstone in a conversation about this very thing pointed out to me that educated use of a speargun is much better than some of their previously preferred methods of fishing, which includes poisoning reefs with the use of a local fruit that they showed me on the last day of my trip or the crazy method of dynamiting reefs. I talked to them about how destructive this was not only to the fish species but also the environment they live in. (Most of us just shake our heads and say “why would they do this”… but most of us also don’t really know what it is to go with out a meal!!) We taught them the value of resting particular areas and not fishing the same spots all the time. We also talked about only taking as much as you need not all you can. On top of this I brought only small 90cm guns that will restrict their catch limits. The next morning I was lecturing and Gareth was to be met by Leonard at 8 oclock (which usually means 9 o’clock…. This is what is called Solomon’s time) and was heading to the local school to do some work building them a toilet, as the school has never
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had a toilet. The kids would just run off into the bush whenever they needed to go. About 2 hours after Gareth left he returned and in a break in the lectures I asked him what had happened. Apparently there was no wood when they turned up so they went and found some but when they came back they realised they didn’t have any nails….. This is what is called Solomon’s organisation (I had been bugging them all week to make sure everything was organised). Leonard headed into town to find some nails for the next day and Gareth busied himself by fixing up some stuff in the Bible College and gardens till I had finished lectures. Then we loaded the Hilux and were off again to dive the Japanese warship of a couple of days earlier. The whole way there I was trying to erase the memory of the Croc I had seen. As we crossed the creek Willie thought it was funny to use a stick and poke my legs, I tried to act like it didn’t scare me but failed miserably. We geared up and hopped in the water to head to the wreck. I got in the dugout and Gareth swam beside us. About 40 metres off the front of the creek Gareth spotted a dead tree and called us over. It was a huge tree in 5 metres of water and its roots came up to 2 metres and you could just make them out from the surface. He called out that he could see what he thought was a Maori sea perch. I chucked him his gun then hopped in as well. As I was preparing to load my gun I looked down and saw a nice fish, black with a yellow tail swim up above the roots it looked at me before heading back under the log. I turned
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to Gareth and said “that is not Maori sea perch, it’s a Black bass!!!” ( a fish many line fisherman who read fishing magazines would be aware of but not something I ever expected to spear as they generally inhabit dirty croc filled creeks of PNG and other larger South Pacific Islands) Gareth dived first and was surrounded by Jacks and Trevally but the Black bass only gave him a quick glimpse before heading off without offering a shot. I dived and missed the log all together as I had lost sight of it in my excitement; I landed on the sand about 10 metres away from the log. A couple of small Jacks swam past followed by the Black bass. I couldn’t believe my luck as I aimed my 90cm Pelaj gun and
shot my first Black bass!! I headed back in to take a couple of pictures on the beach. When I headed back out a few of the local boys donned some of the extra gear and joined us on the log. There wasn’t enough gear to go around so they were all sharing it. One guy was diving with a pair of swimming goggles and put on some of the fins. He did well shooting a couple of fish. Another of the boys shot one as well. We were passing the fish into the Dugout and he was ferrying them to shore. On shore the guys were putting the fish on the “Solomon island esky”…. A stick to keep them off the sand…GOLD! After about an hour the fish had all scattered and it was getting dark so we headed in. We organised the guys to meet us there again the next day but we left them with enough rope and a buoy to put a marker on the wreck before we arrived so we could go straight out and dive. As the guys were putting the dugout back up the creek they spooked another croc off the bank about 100 metres up the creek from where we were. The next day I lectured till lunch time then headed down to the school to give Gareth and the guys a hand. Working there was absolutely hilarious. Work consists of 2 minutes work 10 minutes chat, 2 more minutes work 10 minutes walking around finding someone else to chat to…. Also there is no such thing as work place
health and safety here. All of the guys were wearing thongs and cutting with saws was a scary thing to watch. The guys wanted to knock off at lunch but Gareth was pushing them to get it done. Every piece of timber was a different width and most of it wasn’t square so it made Gareth’s job very tricky. But he persevered and we got it finished in time for another afternoon dive. We headed back to the Japanese warship and arrived as the boys had just finished dropping the buoy. Gareth and I swam out to meet them and guided the local guys to the tree on the way out. We made it out to the buoy and the current was workable. It was caught on the front of the wreck. First dive Gareth did was to 24 metres and thought he had seen the wreck but was unsure as he thought the vis was pretty bad. Next I dived, I looked at my watch at 18 metres and things were getting dark I put my gun in front of me and continued my descent. At 22 metres I thought I should be able to see the wreck from here I must have gone off the side. As I had that thought my spear ran into the wreck with a loud BONG!! I looked around realising that the vis was a paltry 2 metres. I felt a tug on my rig and Gareth was pulling up my line he had heard the bang and thought I had shot. We pulled the buoy and headed in as it was simply too dirty to dive. Back onshore the boys had shot a small fish on the log and had cooked it up. A couple of other locals had turned up and were telling stories of a couple of big Black bass that had been caught a bit further up the beach. So Gareth and I jumped in the dugout and tried to paddle up there and see what we could see. After 20 minutes of moving like snails. We headed back to shore and walked the rest of the way as we were running out of light and wanted to see what was up that way so we continued on foot. We found another creek mouth which the locals told us there were more trees off a dropoff in front of the river mouth. The problem… it was getting dark, there was muddy water spewing out of the creek and we had never dived here before so we had no idea what to expect but we were here now and so we jumped in to see what we could see. The top layer was complete mud but under that there was about 3 metres vis. We swam about 30 metres out and found a sand dropoff. The water at 10 metres was just black and to top it off Gareth ran into a half car body that scared him half to death. At that, commonsense prevailed so we got out and walked back down the beach to meet up with
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everyone else. Back at the first creek the kids were still swimming in the water. I took some pics of the boys as we crossed the creek to head back to the car. About halfway there, Mr Crocodile made his appearance again and I was feeling really glad to be out of the water. The next day I had a full day lecturing as it was my last day. Gareth spent all day at the school finishing off the toilet and building doors for the class rooms, as half the rooms didn’t have doors. After getting our gear ready for a day at the island the next day, we spent the rest of the night talking with the guys and watched the ladies cook dinner in the traditional way with coals, hot rocks and banana leaves. We sat around having “stacka talk talk” and laughing with the guys. At dinner that night Willie told us that he had somehow organised a place to freeze fish for him at Honiara and he wanted us to get as much fish as we could so that he could have fish after we left. He was pretty insistent and I think both Gareth and I headed to bed feeling the pressure. The next morning we headed out early to get the boat. On the way, Willie told me that someone had hired the boat the day before and were going to be home with it that night. Now this is never good news as it can be very difficult to rely on people there to be back when they say they will. Sure enough when we arrived the guys were not back with the boat and after an hour waiting Gareth was starting to think he would never make it to see the blue water of the Solomon’s as the best he had seen was only 5 metres. After an hour and a half the others arrived with the boat and it turns out that they were actually local spearos who had spent the night diving with torches. I had a look in their box and the biggest fish was a 30cm trout! They had one Coronation that was the same length as the tip of my pointer finger to the base of my thumb!! When they unpacked and we packed and were off, it was a glassout and we had the 15hp purring, the first reef was 6kms offshore and I swear it felt like it took a week to get there. When we finally arrived the boys towed Gareth and I around till we found a good ledge packed with bait. Before we even let go of the boat a nice Spanish was under us, Gareth dived and stalked it perfectly but Willie’s pressure was playing havoc on him and he missed point blank. Another came in with the same result, Gareth was kicking himself. Finally, with the 3rd
fish he didn’t make the same mistake. I dived to shoot one but as I was lining it up another fish swam right between me and the Spanish and it was a …Doggie, I quickly lined him up and shot him. He raced off for the bottom and I put the brakes on the reel to keep him off the bottom. All of a sudden a big 30+kg Doggie appeared out of nowhere and circled my injured fish. I stuck my head up and started screaming for Gareth who was 50 metres away and had just past his Mack into the boat. He started swimming as fast as he could back to me as the doggie was now circling me only metres from the surface and as Gareth arrived he had just lost interest, Gareth dived on him but he headed back out off the dropoff not to be seen again. I chucked my Doggie into the boat and headed back to try and attract the Doggie again. The plan, shoot something else and see if it would attract him. I dived and as I came down to the bottom I spotted a beautiful Vermiculated trout. They are such a beautiful fish also really willey. I was lucky and hit him with a long shot just as he was heading into a cave. But no Doggie attracted. The dropoff was going off, fish all over the bottom and Spanish kept cruising past and Gareth and I picked a couple off each. I also managed a couple of really nice Black and gold sea perch and a Red flushed rock e which was a first for me. We spotted a bunch more Doggies but none of them provided Gareth with a good enough shot. The next spot we picked up a couple of really nice Vermiculated trout. Gareth’s holed up and we both thought it was gone when a nasty Whaler started zipping through the cave but he finally dug it out and was stoked to land his first Vermiculated trout. A really nice fish too. The current really started to pick up and we had a good feed of fish so we headed into the shallows to give the local guys a dive and some coaching. We had our host Willie’s 2 sons with us, Linson and Gagly and they were very keen to hop in and try out spearfishing. That morning when we had hopped up, Gagly had told me that he couldn’t sleep all night as he had been thinking about fish the whole time….. WOW that sounds familiar… he has the bug!! We headed back to the dropoff we had dived a couple of days earlier. The boys spent a bunch of time practicing their dives. I hopped in without a gun and took the camera instead so I could get some footage and do a bit of coaching. After about 45 minutes Gagly shot his first fish. It was a small Parrot but he was so excited. The boys seamed very comfortable
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Gareth (above and below)- the beautiful Vermiculated coral trout
Tim - Buffalo Emperor
Black and Gold Sea Perch
Lil’ Doggie!
Red Flushed Rock Cod
Lil’er Doggie!
Tim - Buffalo Emperor
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in the water so I headed back and grabbed my gun out of the boat to show them a little of how it was done. The boys swam along in the shallows on top of the dropoff and Gareth and I worked our way along the dropoff. A few nice fish were speared including a really nice Buffalo emperor I shot in the tail as it was heading up a cave. The flopper opened up inside the actual tail, something I had never seen before. I chased him and wrestled him out of the cave. It cost me couple of bad spikes in the stomach, but worth every bit of pain!! We also picked off a couple of trout to add to our dinner for the night and after Linson also shot a fish we headed for home. That night I watched as Gagly and Linson cook and eat the fish they speared, to them it was no doubt sweeter than the Trout and Buffalo emperor fillets that I ate. There is nothing like eating the first fish you have speared I think every true hunter remembers that moment!!! I actually sat there feeling proud as punch as I watched those boys devour those fish especially knowing how hard they had worked for it. After dinner we had a few laughs looking
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at the footage of the boys diving and Gagly missing a couple of fish. The next day we headed off to church again. It was our second last day there and we had a blast again after the service, chatting to many of the locals and that night Gareth and I headed off to bed early so we were fresh for the morning; our last full day’s diving. We were up early and to my surprise Willie was up and ready. He was keen for us to catch a heap of fish so he could get some frozen. We headed down to the boat and were in and launched in record time. Some of the locals who were supposed to meet us didn’t arrive so we were off with only Laurence; the worlds greatest boatie to keep us company. The wind was up early and the current was roaring so after spearing a couple of Mack’s we headed into the shelter of the reef as the wind picked up to 20+ knots and our little boat was copping a flogging. We pulled the boat up on a sand cay and headed off to search around the lee of the reef to see what we could find. Gareth still hadn’t shot a doggie and it was looking as though we
may have missed our chance to do it as we were now confined to the sheltered areas. We headed off to cover some ground and find some more fish to fill the Esky as Willie was so keen to have fish after we were gone. I stumbled on a small bombie in 25 metres and shot some nice reef fish before a couple of sharks arrived. This place was amazing as it was 8 square metres of reef surrounded by sand but was covered in fish. As I was pulling up a cod I had shot, something buzzing my fish caught my eye. First impression was small shark but second glimpse I saw white fin tips… small Doggie. Gareth dived but it headed straight off. I pulled my fish straight up, pulled out my spear and dropped it down to 15 metres and used it as a flasher…. It worked perfectly as the small Doggie came straight back in and Gareth dropped down and nailed his first Doggie. After a few hi-fives we got back to mission. This time we found another bombie this one a heap bigger. My first drop I nailed a really good Buffalo emperor even bigger than the one I had shot a couple of days earlier. Gareth followed it up with a cracking Vermiculated trout. A look at the full stringer we decided we are best off getting the fish back to the boat before the tax man comes and breaks Willies heart by eating our fish. We headed back to the boat to take a heap of photos, when Laurence arrived back he patiently watched us taking photos all the time with a look on his face that read “why do you take so many photos of your food?” He had been spearing the shallows but had not seen much and he was impressed with our catch. He comes from the Island of Malata and has done a fair bit of fishing. He started to tell us all the different Solomon’s names for the fish. The only one I remember was the Bon Bon Fish which is what they call the Maori sea perch. I think I only remembered this one because a little bit later when I hopped back in the water I found a 10kg specimen under a bombie in 10 metres of water. As I dived he came out giving me a bad backend shot so I held off and followed him into the hole. He headed deep up the back of the bombie, I layed there and let my eyes adjust; I could see movement up the back but I couldn’t focus on the fish. When it happened….. I saw a big flash of yellow and I let him have it!! All of a sudden a “Bon Bon” Fish flew out past me and I thought there must have been 2. At that I pulled my fish out of the cave and it revealed itself to be a big…..Batfish. I hit the surface gutted. Gareth made it worse by saying “why
Out with the OLD (above) and in with the NEW (Right)!
did you shoot that, there was a big Maori Sea Perch under there!” GRRRR!! My only saving grace was how much the locals loved batfish as they have a really oily meat that is delicious in soup. We speared a couple more reef fish before it started getting late and we felt like we had enough fish to keep Willie going for a couple of weeks. We dragged our weary sunburnt bodies out of the water and prepared for our rough trip back to land. When we arrived Willie was really happy since we had plenty of fish. That night after dinner I slept like a log and woke early to prepare our gear for the flight home that afternoon. Gareth and I spent the morning giving away the rest of the gear. On the way to the airport we stopped at a couple of the villages to catch up with the local boys who had failed to arrive the previous day. We gave them a set of goggles and fins each and a gun to share between them. I went to George’s village and gave him and his kids a couple of sets of goggles for which he was really appreciative. We also gave goggles to the families in the college and organised for one of the guns to go to the Island of Malata to be shared by 5 families. Another went to the Western side of Guadal Canal to be shared by 3 families. The other 3 guns were shared by a couple of the local villages. After all that we made it to the airport and checked in. Carrying only one bag was a lot lighter to when I had arrived 14 days earlier. I was also a heap lighter thanks to a bad stomach bug for the past week. But it was with regret that I had to hug my good friend Willie and his family goodbye. We spent the trip looking through photos of our last couple of weeks. There were some great photos of the people, the work we had done and some of the great fish we had speared including a couple of firsts for both of us. Gareth had shot his first Doggie
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Special Thanks
I would like to convey a huge thank you to Citipointe Church, Aquanaut, Pelaj and Spearfishing Downunder Magazine for their generosity and compassion in enabling me to bring this wonderful way of life to the people of the Solomon Islands. Without their help none of this would have been possible. Each in their own right is a fantastic Australian institution or business and I cannot thank each and every one of them enough.
She Rescue Home
and Vermiculated trout, I had speared my first Black bass. Four hours later it was strange to step out of Brissy airport into 15 degree temperatures, cars and trucks buzzing everywhere, even more amazing was to see a truck that doesn’t have 30 people on the back of it! A day lattr I was back to my busy schedule in my comfortable life with my ample possessions. But amongst all of that I can’t stop thinking about the
amazing Solomon friends that I have made during my last 2 trips there. These guys whom I love so much yet have so little in common. These guys that everytime I think of causes me to smile, especially when I see a photo of some of those smiling faces. It always makes me think back on the great honor it is to step away from my blessed life and use one of my great passions...... Spearfishing to be a BLESSING TO OTHERS!!
I would also like to take this short opportunity to mention the She Rescue Home run by Citipointe Church. The She Rescue Home is a secure haven for young Cambodian girls who are at risk or who have been rescued from being trafficked. Each of these beautiful girls deserves a safe and secure place to live, where counseling, medical attention, and educational and vocational training can take place in a safe and loving location. While a child’s tragic journey into prostitution is sometimes due to a family’s financial struggle, many families are lured or tricked into thinking their children are being offered a legitimate education or job. Trapped in this world, they are held captive against their will. Threatened with violence, they are imprisoned between two worlds of unimaginable pain. While there is still one child who is at risk of trafficking or enslaved in prostitution, SHE Rescue Homes will continue to provide a safe haven for them. Each girl’s story is hers, and it is unique – we endeavour to support these innocent lives through their difficult time and work toward a safe reintegration within their family or Khmer community. Website address www.sherescuehome.org
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