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I got this off the freedive list, and you girls think your tough???? ha Alan Pelstring s fl HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION. By Todd xxx I have just spent today washing my boat, flushing the motor with fresh water and cleaning my dive gear. About a month ago I invited Jim xxx over for a weekend of diving during the Labor Day holiday. Jim readily agreed as he and I wanted to explore some new areas with great potential as well as check out an old favorite, an offshore rock pinnacle where I had seen a large blue marlin 2 years ago at this time of year. Jim flew over to Tucson and we drove down the mainland of Mexico to the Sea of Cortez in my truck. When we arrived it was the day after the hurricane had past through the area and so the humidity was near 100% and the air temperature about 100 degrees. Also, I believe that the mosquito density was approaching 100%! We set off from the hotel in my truck early the second morning in the dark, hoping to avoid setting up my inflatable boat on the beach in the blazing sun. After a 2-hour drive to a remote beach we launched the boat and off we went to the offshore rock. =20 Upon our arrival we noticed that there were about 20 sealions on the rock and in the water surrounding the south point of the island. =20 Sealions are not unusual at this spot but usually there are no more than one or three juveniles. Two big bulls were sharing an entire large harem of females this time. The rock is approximately 200 feet by 50 feet in size and maybe 40 feet above the waterline. The surrounding water is very deep, plunging to over 200 feet less than 25 yards offshore. Jim and I anchored my inflatable boat by wedging the anchor in a crack between two large rocks in about 50 feet of water; easy freediving depth. The visibility seemed about 30-40 feet and the current was non existent. Jim got in first and then did I. Both of us were hunting the blue water for the usual game fish of that area, tuna, billfish, dorado, etc and therefore we didn't really concentrate any diving near the rock at first but instead dove about 100 yards from the rock. After a few hours of swimming in large circles around the rock and seeing not a single gamefish of any size, I started diving near the rock itself looking not only for a potential reef fish to spear but also just enjoying freediving and observing the tiny aquarium type fish which inhabit this place. =20 I swam near the end of the rock that the sealions were claiming as their territory. 18 sealions or so where out swimming in the water in a small group patrolled by the resident males with a few females choosing to bask in the sun. Unfortunately, at this time a big seal took a huge crap and I was forced to swim through a cloud of brown chunky seal shit. The south end of the rock has the only place for man or beast to get out of the water. The spot comprises one small horizontal shelf of rock about three feet by seven feet on an otherwise vertical piece of bird-shit splattered granite rock. The shelf is 2 feet above the waterline and the sealions have no difficulty jumping up onto it. One entire side of the rock is a shear wall, which drops vertically to 60 feet before tapering into a steep downward angle to 200 feet. This vertical wall is right below the sealion's rookery and is a great spot to spearfish for leopard grouper if the sealions will leave you alone. As I said, I was swimming around the outside edge of the group of sealions trying to avoid antagonizing the big bulls. To do this, I swam well around their group on the outside of them while making my dives.=20 The bulls would swim near me and growl, showing me their nasty teeth and barking with authority! I was not to have one of their females! (Sorry guys, I can do better.) =20 Unfortunately, at this time a big seal took a huge crap right in front of me and I was forced to swim through an enormous brown cloud of chunky seal shit. When seals go, they must crap about 15 pounds worth! Anyhow, I was in a "bottomless" depth, not being able to see the seafloor from about 40 feet down, trying to circumvent these nasty creatures. I had the group of sealions to my left side, behind them was the vertical wall of underwater rock and above them was their little haul out spot. To my right was a solid curtain of murky blue with perhaps 30 feet of visibility. I was eyeing the sealions from underwater to make sure one of those males didn't try to seek up behind me and give me a bite. They were not huge males but they were definitely anxious about my presence and could cause me trouble. =20 I was down on a dive to about 40 feet when all at once there was a loud "boom!" as the sealions darted in unison back to the rock wall with a couple of them leaping out of the water! Even the big males cracked their tails and hi-tailed it back to the rock. They acted exactly like a school of frightened baitfish. Never in my life had I seen seals behave in this manner. I was now left alone about 20 feet out from the ball of barking nervous seals who were hugging the rock wall. Talk about shit your pants!!! Those bastards set me up as bait! Of course I immediately spun around and looked into the murky blue curtain of water as I sunk vertically into the depths. I quickly scanned side to side and up and down....nothing. I didn't feel too good about what had happened but then again there wasn't anything in the water. I suppose if one seal acts like an idiot, all of the others will automatically follow. I swam around the harem, back to my little inflatable boat, threw the speargun in and climbed over the side. I took a break, drank some unfortunately hot bottled water that had been siting in the sun and for energy munched some oat bran cookies. I looked for Jim and saw his floats off of the northern point of the rock. The sealions were at the south end. Eventually I was rested up and decided to make another grand circuit tour of the island, this time without my speargun since there really wasn't anything to shoot and carrying it was becoming a pain. I just wanted to freedive without having to carry something and be able to enjoy the long meditations of a deep ride down. Jim joined me after a while and we made some fairly deep dives in blue water all around the rock. This lasted for many hours throughout the day and into mid afternoon. I dove down and checked the anchor which I found was right where I placed it wedged into a deep fissure in the rock. Clearly my little boat wasn't going to drift off in the wind without us. Jim began to have sinus trouble and headed back to the boat for some fluids and rest. I came around the rock once again by myself. As I neared the sealions, I veered out away from them into deep water making a large circular path. I wanted to give them plenty of room. While diving down in the vicinity of the sealions, "Boom!" they all charge back to the rock and leave me all alone to quietly sink into the depths. This time I had no gun and wasted no time with my scan. I gazed into the depths looking for a predator...shit! Nothing! Bastard sealions! I swam around them and back to the boat where Jim was. I drank some more water and told Jim about the strange behavior of the seals. Jim said, "Hmmm, really? I didn't notice them acting strange when I swam by". We both got back into the water and at this point we had been diving for maybe 5 hours. We both decided to forsake the guns and concentrate on our diving technique. (Jim really couldn't dive deep due to his sinus troubles). We swam back past the sealions and I made a dive right below them while Jim watched me from above. I closed my eyes as I usually do and relaxed....10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds,....must be approaching 65 feet.....open my eyes to check the bottom....there it is....pull out and glide towards a nice boulder to lay on. I look up in front of me. =20 Wow! Holy cow! I'm right in the middle of a huge school of leopard grouper. Really big ones and they are all around me! Big fat white bellies hanging off of each one of them. I don't think any fish were less than 20 pounds.=20 I quietly push off of the bottom, close my eyes and ascend the water column. It takes a bit of time to swim up from 65 feet and I just meditate on the way. As I break the surface, I excitedly tell Jim about the unusual school of big leopards below and he suggests that I get my new speargun out of the boat. My new gun has never been fired so I'm anxious to test it for accuracy and range. When I return, the sealions are all around us because the school of fish is right below them. Jim acts as the safety man, stays on the surface and feeds me my float line so that I do not have to feel the floatation of the line through the gun. =20 I close my eyes and concentrate on relaxing the large muscles of my back, my neck, my thighs and my calves. I'll have to dive a bit deeper this time to make a good intercept. Not an overly deep dive, but one that will have to be executed perfectly in order for me to have a decent bottom time at 70 feet. I inhale slowly and exhale fully several times, each time trying to get more air into my lungs without more muscular effort. I adjust my shoulders, sternum and ribcage to an optimum position for inhalation. When I'm about to fall asleep and I have a very slight feeling of hyperventilation, I slow my breathing rate further. I inhale fully, pinch my nose and pre-inflate my Eustachian tubes. I exhale...the light headed feeling has just past. I begin to inhale slowly until my lungs are full to capacity then I slightly pull back my shoulders, extend my rib cage and suck in a bit more. I close my eyes. I roll over like a dead man, angle my gun downward above my head and kick for the bottom of the ocean. It is deep here and I have no worries about my gun smacking into the rocks below. I monitor my depth by experience, knowing exactly how deep I am by the liquid sound and feel of the water's velocity as it massages past my cheeks. I clear my ears by moving my throat muscles only. As the water accelerates by with increasing depth I hear the barking of the sealions grow weaker and weaker. Jim is above me and 15 feet more distant from the rock as my vertical path. He doesn't want to be directly above me as I ascend, putting himself in line with my upward pointing speargun. When I have descended for perhaps 40 seconds I open my eyes and see the seafloor rushing up at me. I casually execute a vertical spin to place myself in a prone position upon my pull out. I then pull out at 65 feet, where the vertical wall meets the steep downward angle of the sea floor and continue deeper, parallel with the slanting bottom. I see some fish ahead and angle my descent for a particularly nice rock to lay on; a rock about 3 feet high which will give me a full field in which to swing my gun onto the fish below. I touch down with my left hand on the rock to break my fall. While holding my gun straight out over the rock I'm now laying on, I scan to my right. There are some fish in the near vacinity but deeper now. =20 I scan straight ahead.....a few more fish. =20 Damn, they are deeper this time, just my luck. =20 I scan to my left and see nothing but a great wall of moving grey flesh. The enormous flanks of a great white shark, swimming right next to me! I was paralyzed not with fear but with horror! My mind completely collapses. Complete and utter shock. A sickening wave of disbelief and hysteria hit me like a breaking surf.=20 =20 "I'm not seeing this." "This isn't real." =20 "This isn't happening." His great bulk was moving slowly through the water without so much as a twitch of his giant sickle tail. His movement was as if he were levitating. He was directly parallel to me and a few feet higher in the water column from the bottom than was I. He was swimming dead ahead into the blue curtain of water and it was obvious from his trajectory that he had followed me down through the water column all of those long long seconds to the sea floor. At the bottom he had pulled out with me and at the last second sensed in it's primordial brain that something just wasn't quite right with a seal that lays directly on the bottom.=20 He decided to keep swimming....this time. Why shouldn't he? He had been hunting this stupid seal all day and sooner or later it would dive again. Then, just maybe, the neurons of its brain would be triggered into an electrical frenzy culminating with an explosive charge and a savage fatal bite! =20 ONE FACT IS QUITE SOBERING; HE HAD ME COLD AND I NEVER SAW IT COMING. =20 Just then my mind screams "NEED AIR! GET OUT!" I regain physical control over myself, push my left hand onto the rock I had been laying on and swam backwards as fast as humanly possible with my new (and untried) speargun pointing between my legs. I came up short when my back smacked into the bottom of the vertical rock wall. I was pinned! =20 At that point I half swam, half crawled up the rock face while looking for Whitey's charge. Would he turn around and make a vertical charge up the wall inhaling my legs?=20 When I was 15 feet from the surface I looked up in order to locate Jim.=20 He was further out into the ocean than either myself or the 20 nervous sealions. (The sealions probably thought that I was a smart little seal this time!) I waved frantically to get Jim's attention. Luckily, Jim was looking right at me. Unluckily for Jim, he thought I had just speared a large fish and that I wanted him to swim away=85and so he did, out further from the rock. When I broke the surface I inhaled and screamed four words Jim will never forget. "WHITE SHARK, GET OUT!" Poor Jim was out there without a gun just floating on the surface like a dead seal carcass! I think that his eyes actually popped out and touched the glass inside of his facemask. I think it would be in the United States best interest to appoint Jim as Team Captain to the World Finswimming Championships because I witnessed him swim 20 meters in less than 2 seconds! In fact, he nearly swam right over me and I thought he was going to jump up with the sealions on the rock! We were now positioned with our backs against the rock wall scanning downward into the depths looking for the direction of the expected attack. Just then, I realized that we were right below all of the sealions. Our heads were not more than 18 inches below theirs and boy were they howling, barking and making a ruckus. I think they were afraid that we were going to jump up out of the water and shove them off their shelf! In fact, Jim almost did! =20 At this point I was seriously concerned that a seal would bend down and take a chomp out of the top of my head! They were going berserk! Jim and I quickly swam around the south point of the rock and into relatively safe and shallow water. At lease from this point we would see Whitey coming. Now the trick was going to be to swim out to the inflatable boat anchored off shore in 65 feet of water and 20 yards from the seals perch. I told Jim to swim for it and I would cover his butt. Jim took off swimming and when he was 10 yards ahead I left the security of the shallow water and swam like hell. I didn't even look down. I was too scared! Jim jumped over the side of the boat and I threw my gun to him. Up over the side I went and I don't mind telling you that I yanked my dangling legs up out of the water with shiver! We both breathed hard and I felt weak and shaky from the adrenaline. Jim immediately wanted to get the hell out of there and I wasn't going to argue in an inflatable rubber boat! =20 Just then I remembered with dread that the anchor was securely wedged in a deep crack. There was no way it would come out of the fissure without someone manually lifting it out. I told Jim, " I REALLY don't want to go back down there again". Jim suggested that we first try to pull it up anyhow and I was glad to try something in order to stall for time! I pull started the 30 H.P. outboard motor and put it into forward gear.=20 Jim untied the anchor line from the bow, took up the slack line, and began bouncing the anchor chain up and down. Our attempt failed and with despair I resigned myself to making a dive (or two?) back down to where the beast was hunting. Then, Jim suggested that we motor up ahead of the anchor while paying out line and pull up and down as we drifted over the spot. This we did. I watched Jim's arm movements intently, anticipating every move.=20 =20 Up-down, up-down, up-down. =20 "Is it coming up?!" No answer.=20 =20 Up-down, up-down, up-down. =20 "Is it coming up?!" No answer Up-down, up-down, up-down. =20 "Is it coming up?!" No answer. "Yep, I got it!" "Yahoo!" And away we went! That's how I spent my summer vacation. Todd xxx (Tucson, AZ) -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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