Spear Fishing The Pass

Spear Fishing In The Pass

I slipped quietly into the water and placed the butt of my spear gun against my chest heaving back on the rubbers to load it.  The first thing I saw was a school of small silver fish with ruler length trevally hanging around the surface. Underneath me were 3 or 4 curious grey reef sharks lurking. I lined up a trevally aimed and shot.  The spear sprang from my spear-gun and buried itself into the trevally.  I swam quickly to the dingy and threw my spear-gun into it before the sharks could figure out what was happening.  Then I heaved myself aboard and donged it quickly on the head to kill it.  As we drifted further through the pass I shot a smaller goat fish while dad shot a parrot fish, goat fish and big eye.

Manta Rays

Manta Rays

I slipped into the water and dad passed me my spear gun. The first thing I saw was a sizeable black tip shark sitting right under me. I got a bit of a fright at first,  but when I identified it as a harmless black tip I calmed down a little.  I swam along the edge of the rocks in search of a big enough fish to shoot.

“Manta rays,” mum yelled from the dingy, before slipping into the water. Flicking the safety on my spear gun I raced over to see a parade of enormous manta rays swooping past, then diving gracefully to curve just under us.  Their mouths were at least 1 meter wide to catch the millions of tiny jellies that swarmed all around us.  They continued this for almost an hour, swooping, diving, gracefully curving, but each time managing to miss us by centimetres, until they finally glided away.