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by John Featherstone
“My body aches. It is a good ache. I was struggling to comprehend what had just transpired over the last two weeks. From a Spearfishing perspective it simply could not have gotten any better. I am not sure I even know where to start, so forgive the cliché, “I will start at the beginning.”
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T
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the flu and I shake my head at the timing of it all. The weather has subsided and the forecast for the next few days at least looks great. After some serious logistical arrangements we set sail, exiting the marina and bearing North for the epic journey ahead.
First Stop - Shark Central
a place on the other side of the Exmouth peninsula called Tanntabiddi. We launch “The Donkey”, a 17ft Tinnie. It was a relief just to get in the water. We drift a long ridge that bumps from 28 to 17m, a rather “sharky” place and I get my first lesson about West Coast Spanish mackerel - burley. Everything I had learned about stalking Mackerel on the East coast seemed irrelevant. Without burley these West Coast Mackerel lack the curiosity of their East Coast cousins and they simply drifted away as I repeatedly instigated my “best” stalk. The addition of burley to the water column instantly changed their demeanour and a small “Mackie” is added to the fish tub. It was only a short dive, but invigorating, and I find myself back in the “Blue Nissan” with “The Donkey” in tow, heading back to Exmouth in the dark. Next morning the niggly sore throat from the day before has now become what I know is the start of
“How are you with sharks?”. I pause before I answer and to be honest I am not sure I have “an” answer. The question is about as open ended as you can get! “Good so long as they don’t try to eat me!” A long silence ensues. Ok then! We slip over the side to be greeted by about 15m visibility and little current. The light flickers off the burley as it drifts down and a Green jobfish materialises out of the gloom and snatches a piece before anyone can get a dive in. Within a few minutes a Spanish mackerel cruises in and Tim stops him in his tracks stoning him. Then it starts! An entourage of Whalers appear from NOWHERE and very aggressively attempt to take the fish. One swims straight past the fish and directly has a real go at Tim actually trying to bite him on the fins. Welcome to Western Australia. Is this what we are in for for the next 7 days? The lump we dive off Peak Island that afternoon produces some great fish including my first Longnose Emperor, some nice Mackerel and a few Green jobfish. We steamed Northward during the evening and the rhythmic cycle of hull on water lulls me but I cannot sleep at all. My flu worsens. The next day produces little as we try a few areas, they promise much but deliver little. There is a fair bit of travelling involved so by mid-afternoon when Tim pulls aboard a 33kg Spanish mackerel, everyone is stoked, except me who hate’s that little bastard. We steam on through the night and as we throttle back late into the night, the rattle of the anchor jolts me even though I am awake. Tryall Rocks.
Tryall Rocks (from Wikipedia)
here is the familiar “ding” as the ‘fasten seatbelt’ signs are turned on and the nose of the plane dips to make our descent into Karratha. We bank across the Indian Ocean. It is the first time I have ever set eyes upon her. Fingers of brown water extend out into the blue ocean from the coast to the West and below I can see the ordered layout of the mining city. A bump as we touchdown. Five and a half hour flight from Brisbane (3,800km). It is good to be off the aircraft. Young Cayle picks us up from the Airport and we stop over a night in Karratha with the Drummond boys. Great blokes and mad keen spearfishers to boot. We discuss Spearfishing of course until the jet lag and 14 hours of travel hit home and I crash. I awake to a sore throat as Murphy decides he is going to raise his ugly head and plant me one fair in the jewels. No please not the flu, not after all of the effort of getting here. I convince myself that it’s “not that bad” and we load up to make our way to Exmouth 550km South. “I’m the one with the Blue Nissan Patrol!” There is a lone Vehicle parked in the middle of what seems like nowhere. I have a chuckle to myself about the detailed description of the car I had been given, it hardly seemed necessary. “It doesn’t rain here much” I am told, and when it does the kid line the streets so you can splash them, it is such a novelty. Leigh’s gruff exterior reminds me yet again never to judge a book by its cover. As I would learn over the next week or so, a man of relentless bluntness, incredibly dry wit and a heart of absolute gold. The people we met in Exmouth all seemed to have the same endearing characteristics. What is probably the most evoking is the stark contrast of the landscape and seascape. Today looking West out to sea (which took some getting used to coming from the East coast) you see the calm blue waters of the Indian Ocean. To the East a harsh arid environment of a desert landscape. It is an unforgiving place. The first glimpses of the blue ribbon send a shiver down my spine and a level of expectation rises up like a desert dust storm. Tim interrogates Leigh for the duration of the trip until the slightly tacky “Welcome to Exmouth” sculpture looms large. Exmouth operates in a different headspace to what I am used to. Necessity of action is what prevails so unless it really needs doing right now, well it is usually put off to “later”. Perhaps it is the endless +40°C they endure in Summer or perhaps it is just Leigh. A steady stream of bodies arrives at the marina. Some just curious about the “East-Coasters”, others were those that we would call companions for the next week at sea. I feel like I am being summed up under a discerning eye. The weather looked questionable for a day or two and since we had a sliding window we decided to get in a local dive at
Tryal Rocks, sometimes spelt Trial Rocks or Tryall Rocks, formerly known as Ritchie’s Reef or the Greyhound’s Shoal, is a reef of rock located in the Indian Ocean off the Northwest coast of Australia, about 16 kilometres (10 mi) Northwest of the outer edge of the Montebello Islands group. It is named for the Tryall, the first known shipwreck in Australian waters, which sunk after striking the then-uncharted rocks in 1622. Described as “the theme and dread of every voyager to the eastern islands for the last two centuries”, their location was sought for over three centuries before finally being determined in the 1960s.
Tryall Rocks
An eerie place. A small rocky outcrop with nothing that resembles land for some 16km. I imagine the plight of the doomed men as they watched the only life raft paddle away leaving them to perish. The water is warm and blue and I am diving in just a long sleeve rash shirt and 1mm wetsuit pant. It is really comfortable in the water, but is still an uneasy place. The intensity of the moment is magnified by the life. Parrotfish, some of the biggest I have ever seen, inhabit every nook and cranny, completely oblivious to me they cruise about pecking away at the coral like the winged namesakes. Red bass are a close cousin of the Mangrove jack but on steroids. Their thick shoulders and robust appearance are not just for looks they fight hard and they fight dirty. They tear around the reef with reckless abandon. They are naturally wary creatures and it is not until burley is introduced that they come in to feed veraciously on the sinking fish frames from
The Tryall was only the second English ship to attempt to sail from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) along the Brouwer Route, a route pioneered by the Dutch and used routinely by them since 1616. The Brouwer Route drastically shortened voyage times by keeping ships sailing Eastwards in the Roaring Forties for as long as possible before turning North. The captain of the Tryall, John Brookes, grossly underestimated the longitude of the ship, and ended up around 1000 kilometres (600 mi) farther East than the route specified. On turning North, the Tryall found itself skirting the West coast of Australia. Around 11pm on 25 May
1622, it struck the Tryall Rocks and sunk. 46 of 139 lives were saved, including Brookes’. Brookes’ subsequent report was extremely vague; it did not even give a position for the wreck. James Henderson characterises this as deliberate obfuscation, an attempt to avoid the blame for being so far off course. Consequently, the Tryall Rocks were originally thought to be well to the West of their actual location. Concerned for the threat to their own ships, the Dutch placed the reef on their charts, but “exactly South of the Western extremity of Java according to the statements made by the English sailors”. This represents an error of around ten degrees of longitude.
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the day before. Sharks are EVERYWHERE and they are dogged. They buzz us daring someone, anyone, to pull the trigger on the +10kg Red bass that now relentlessly pillage the sinking frames. Of course it is not just someone who pulls the trigger, it is Tim “I don’t have to buy my own spears” McDonald. Smashed is an understatement! The shot is good but the sharks are better. Within 10 seconds all that remains is a spear that now resembles a pretzel, a cloud of scales and blood, thirty cranky, amped up sharks and 4 massive Potato cod that decide they want a piece of the action. WTF?
Plan “B”
Ok so we are not going to land ANY fish like this so we move away from the epicentre of the shark infestation where their numbers are more manageable, but they are still present. The burelying is conducted in a very controlled fashion. Just enough to tweak the interest but not enough to command the attention of the sharks. It seems to work! The stalk is on as we work in pairs. Kade and I work together. I am riding shotgun as he stalks big mackerel. I love watching people shooting fish, almost as much as I love shooting fish myself. The intricate ballet of predator and prey, although here at Tryall Rocks it is difficult to know which is which as a big whaler follows Kade as he stalks the mackerel. Click, boom, crap! Fortunately the mackerel is big enough for the sharks to think twice and it gives us enough time to land a great fish. We wisely return the fish to the boat for a quick refreshment break and see there have been some great fish added to the tub. We return to our spot on the reef. I swim over a drop-off and laid out before me on the bottom are anchors and cannons from the Tryall herself. I get a deep shiver. This wreck has been lying on the bottom for nearly 400 years. I say it over and over again 400 years. It is truly a breathtaking sight. Parrot and all manner of reef fish thread in and out of the wreck oblivious to its origins, to them it is simply home. Whalers cruise the drop-off like guardians and I cannot help but feel they are the lost souls of the Tryall unable to rest. I am truly moved. I dive down the 10-12m and drift across the cannons and anchors in the slight current. It is something that I will never forget. The reef running parallel to the gentle current drops off even further out onto +20m of sand and broke reef. Huge Barracuda tail away in the current, Giant trevally, Golden trevally and Bludger trevally check out the seldom visitors. Two monster mackerel cruise under us at depth, but they never look back. It is an AWESOME sight. The current is rising, so we begin to make our way back closer to the boat. I had seen a pair of Maori sea perch earlier in the day and they had proved to be a very elusive target. Ducking in an out of caves and reef structure. I simply had not been able to get anywhere near
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close enough for a shot. Up-current and back within range of the boat, should the tide continue to rise we mill around not unlike the myriad of Parrot that makes the reef look like an organic rainbow, shifting and moving beneath in the clear warm water. A flash of Yellow catches my eye. A massive Maori sea perch simply glides past, just out of range, and he knows it. But he has made a near fatal mistake, his fixation on me blinds him to Kade just up-current. Kade quickly swings his gun around and makes a reflex shot. The Sea perch is good, too good, his instincts serve him well and he does enough to only suffer a glancing blow and loses a few scales. He bolts into the reef into a well concealed cave. I quickly dive downward to the entrance of
the cave, but these fish have an uncanny ability to simply “disappear”, even the biggest of fish - they are amazingly cunning. I look in vain into the dark of the cave. He knows these reefs a lot better than me, he is gone. I drift up with natural buoyancy in the shallower water, but another yellow flash catches my eye. Fish number one whilst making good his escape has given away his mate. Cunningly concealed in an off shoot from the cave another big Maori sea perch sits motionless. Motionless, until I see him, he bolts, but his escape route brings him past me within range and I make no mistake. I thump him solidly and quickly haul him in. He tips the scales at 13.1kg. He is an incredibly beautiful fish, impressive and cunning a real challenge shoot.
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Ignoring the Alarm
As I stepped onto the boat for the first time I ask, “Were do I sleep?” “Wherever you like!” “No, I mean is there a bed”, blank stare. “You can sleep up the front there if you like but it’ll be pretty crowded in there. Perhaps you should sleep out on the deck?”. The idea of fresh air sounded good. “Do you have a mattress”, again a blank stare. “Actually I think there is a swag up there somewhere”. That’s cool I thought. I can rough it a bit. “Were can I put my clothes bag?” “What do you need clothes for, what’s wrong with the ones you’ve got on?” Apparently seven days at sea doesn’t necessarily constitute a requirement for a change of clothes, or shower. The alarm bells should have been ringing, but perhaps the rising flu had me a little hard of hearing. Three sleepless nights under the retina burning deck lights, with spray continually lashing my face, and hard diving everyday despite the flu, I am shattered. The 1 inch thick mattress does little to cushion the blows as the waves relentlessly send shockwaves through the vessel and my limp body. The infection has now spread deep into my lungs and I am struggling to breath. Handfuls of yellow phlegm continually pour out of me and I’m every bit a shell of my former self. The only way I can get my breath is to remain upright, as soon as I lay flat my lungs seem to fill and I can’t breathe again. I sit propped against the esky as the waves rock the boat to and fro. Wanting to die and actually afraid that I just might, I long for the sunrise. Despite the desire to sleep I cannot. I want to be excited. Tomorrow (or is it today?) brings with it the opportunity to spearfishing a place that very few people, if any, ever have. It promises to be yet another highlight of the trip and here am I about as low as I can go. Despite it all I smile and let out what is now a slightly delirious chuckle - I think I am actually losing it. The sun breaks and dawn brings relief. I kick Tim who looks like he has actually been asleep all night, “check this out”.
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Expectation
Chance favours the prepared. Location specific information is always relentlessly sourced prior to any expedition, the problem this time is that nobody we knew of had actually ever dived here before. The few that had fished it spoke of Dogtooth tuna and marlin and Sailfish and mackerel in particular, the size of which you have never seen before. Speculation, there is really only one way to find out. Tim stirs, “what?”, “look!”. He stands up and looks out across the now glassy ocean, the water looks blue and warm and the bottom 20m below is
visible. We have arrived. I could talk for pages about the day, but I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves. Suffice to say the 34kg Spanish that I landed did an immense amount to improve my demeanour. There were so many 1st and personal bests it’s hard to know what was the highlight. Perhaps wrestling a 21kg Dogtooth tuna out of the mouth of a 200kg Potato cod and the elation of Dan as he secured his first Dogtooth, or Tim’s first decent Dogtooth. Some really great fish.