*Before I continue, its my opinion that spearfishing is fantastic and spear fisherman have every right to rock it seaway style*
Recently whilst closely negotiating the north wall tip and throwing lures, a spearfisherman drove up next to me in a 3.5m. This person proceeded to throw an anchor rope and a separate detachable floating anchor? Hoping to claim a very small patch of water I held my position before realizing that they had water birthed directly in front of me and were surely going to be hooked. In utter disgust and to avoid a guaranteed incident, I began to move my boat. At this point I noticed that they had swum a third rope down attached to the wrist which was now around my engine causing it to fail. A short struggle 2m adjacent the graveyard area and the rope was off BUT my engine would not start. This had never happened so I persisted with all the usual tricks to start it. In no time I was faced with the event I had dreamed about and carefully avoided for so long…Booo.
In short my 4.3m boat and ego were beached, soaked and pulverized; my power tilt/trim taking the brunt. Some godlike underwater brute strength by my brother somehow kept the boat from being totaled and I eventually got it started and painfully escaped all whilst young surfers mocked us from behind.
My boat now makes ‘noises’..
Everyone knows to throw the anchor at the first sign of trouble but the wall so close and direction of the swell had me questioning rocks vs beach.
Lessons learned.
- Dont risk it, let them have it
- Immediately concede and pump the paddles to gain distance from the wall
- Anchor regardless / alert nearby boats
- attempt motor start during wave intervals and ring rescue
Confident in reading the drift I often have the engine off but tainted by this experience I have the 2 stroke running most of the time now. On a side note I have noticed a concerning impact of the engine noise keeping fish schooled deep and flighty.
Fish on 🙂
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