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Adventure Through Latin America Scouting Hunting Snapper Dive Adventure On Edge Beginners Luck The Shadows Best Laid Plans The Great Escape
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Issue #31
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Editorial Letters Spear?Tips GreatShot10 Winners GreatVideo10 Winners Spearing Sydney Travelling Spearo Queensland Titles The Phantom New Products
Lachlan Perry 14 Red Emporer
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Cameron Nilsson Linne - Samsonfish
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Blah, blah, blah. So you think this is another story about a dive charter with lotsa blokes with funny nick names where I’m going to bore you with how the boys speared their dream fish, even if they did not land them, and then thank them for their assistance in helping the team achieve and land fish... Well no, I’m not going to do that. I am however, going to give you some excerpts of the 6 day trip of absolute insane spearing on far away reefs off the North Queensland coast.
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f there was less of a full moon in early Summer, close to Christmas on December the 22nd 2010 you would not have made out the four swags laying close by the boat ramp on the far North Coast. Nor would you have seen the long rock wall or the many boats safely docked inside. Like many coastal towns that dot lands edge most of the boats are working ones, all except the small 5m centre console pulled up next to the sleeping men. It has been a long day and night of driving, arriving just after midnight, swags were thrown on the bitumen above and next to a small sand spit. Four hours later, the pre dawn air is neither cool nor hot, still, broken by the far away rumble of a diesel engine. At peace, cocooned in my swag, I hear the
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by Paul McKeown whine and belching of a big diesel start up. Oddly, it’s a sound that sends a tingle up the spine, the day is about to begin and I am heading to a place I have only heard about from a few lucky souls that have been there, discussed in quiet tones with a faraway gleam in their eye. Pushing back the green canvas a gull cries overhead, perhaps beginning its hunt for breakfast. Other Cray boats start up, by the shore close to the boat ramp 4 of us lie, all probably awake waiting to see who will break the spell and be first up. Down on the sand a loon adds to the dawn chorus, the sound is almost human, it evokes a strange sentience, and I am reminded just for a moment of the tranquillity of what life must be like to live by the sea in a small country town. To make your living off the sea, day by day, to be attuned to the ebb and flow of season and tide. I am envious, suburbia
sucks. The rest of the lads slowly emerge and before too long gear is swiftly stowed and a hasty breakfast wolfed down. A few comments are thrown around on the magic day that it’s sure to be. I am still shaking the cobwebs loose as John backs the Interceptor down the ramp. It’s a long run offshore and it’s a place not to be taken lightly, nowhere to hide, no one to help if things go wrong. It’s a place talked about often but infrequently dived. Pushing past the entrance to the marina and across the bar, the Eastern horizon is swathed in storm cloud, but it is high and moving away, the remnant of a spent Cyclone. The sun not yet risen above it, the early dawn light is silvery, the ocean quicksilver, the air close and heavy with the scent of recent rains. Our wake is the only disturbance on the surface of the ocean; I have never seen it so
Down on the sand a loon adds to the dawn chorus, the sound is almost human it evokes a strange sentience, and I am reminded just for a moment of the tranquility of what life must be like to live by the sea in small country town. To make your living off the sea, day by day, to be attuned to the ebb and flow of season and tide. I am envious, suburbia sucks.
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