30 March 2009

This weekend was the culmination of all the excitement: 15th Australian Bluewater Freediving Classic: Woolgoolga 2009. Saturday saw the intended start of the competition. A serious S system had moved in on Friday and was threatening a cancellation. After some deliberation, the Safety Committee gave the divers the green light and the boats were launched. They collected behind the backline waiting for the official start. The flare was lit by the Woolgoolga Sea Rescue and off the fleet charged out toward their preferred destinations. The Big Island had been red-hot during the week but that left the crew with the arduous task of returning into the wind. The prediction was for the wind to drop later in the morning. We played it safe and headed into the wind prefering a return with the wind, our intended hotspot: The Lighthouse. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision because the wind did not follow the predictions and we returned with the S that was blowing way more than 20knots.



Pelagic fish can be very elusive and they lived up to their unpredictability. Some fish were seen and chased or shot at because as the day progressed, the fish became more flighty. I saw several species but they were too harassed to allow any bold approach. My first breakthrough came while investigating a gulley for Jewfish. Some yellowtail schooled above me and I was able to take one with little effort. Soon after a large Silver Trevally was also taken but as it turned out, I should have measured it, because it was undersize. We persevered in various known hotspots and on a dive to search for a large Cobia I bumped into a school of Amberjack. One was quickly collected and loaded into the esky.



At the close, all the divers on our boat had taken 2 species. There were some really large fish taken by some of the luckier divers with Adam Smith getting a 24kg Spanish.



The wind had strengthened all day and Sunday looked like being worse. After a long deliberation, the divers headed out once more. The previous day of chasing had heightened the awareness of many fish in the over-used areas and it was necessary to widen our search. Another important element was concentrating on being stealthy. My first fish for the day was a small Spanish that was in an area obviously ignored by other divers because the fish was quite bold about coming to look at me. The next fish, a Yellowtail came up a burley trail that I started when the area I was in looked fishy but no pelagics were showing themselves. We stopped at several spots that should have held something but just did not produce. I saw some tremendous fish like big Bluebar Parrots and a monster Gold-spot Wrasse but they weren't part of the days agenda. Finally we battled the S wind and headed out to the wave-recorder. In all the areas we had dived, the current was heading S-N but at the recorder a cracking N-S current was in play. I struggled to swim against it and when it dawned that I was making no headway a school of small Dorado circled me. A third fish was added to my total.

It was a long trip back but we were running with the wind which made for easier going, compared to the competitors that struggled for an hour, to cover distances that normally take 10 minutes. Several good fish came to the scales in particular 2 good Cobia both over 20kg.

The competition went down well with lots of prizes awarded by generous sponsors. I am looking forward to this competition next year.