Fairy Bower freediving

Freediving to me contours up images of 100m craziness, the sort of craziness JCJ and I had no part of today as we descended, scuba-free, to maybe 7m at Fairy Bower. Being so shallow I thought scuba was a bit of an overkill and, even if I do say so myself, I think I made the right call.

We arrived at about 11 (I guess) to find some sort of swim-competition taking place and large floating 'you turn here' things over top of where we expected to find the sharks. That and swimmers, people standing on large surfboards and paddling them, and an inflatable boat. There were also plenty of snorkelers, but ha! Amateurs! In their board shorts and with their yellow-framed masks...look at us..! Wet-suits, weight belts and JCJ with his enormo-free-diving-fins! Foreseeing myself looking a bit of a dick if I was in my big fins as I weezed on the surface after my 10second duck-dive, I'd left mine at home...

So anyway, it was a picture-perfect beach day as JCJ left Sal and Rumpole and headed into the wet stuff. Pardon the language, but fuck-me was it great! Almost immediately we saw a couple of small sharks, but then it was shark free for a while. But it was great all the same. Trying to steer clear of the competition swimmers we headed north to where the large school of yellowtail usually hang out. When we got there we found a large school of yellowtail hanging out. This may have been due to the random snorkeler feeding them from a bag of bread she held. I dropped a couple of times and swam up through the shoal - so much freer than while encumbered by my scuba rig (naturally.) Best bit though...frm the surface I saw the chilled fish suddenly become agitated, bunch up and all start swimming more rapidly northwards. Behind them was a small kingfish that had clearly put the wind up them.

OK, more to follow, including details of the fifteen sharks circling beneath me...but now I'm off to bed.

Back again...we continued our swim north, JCJ suggesting we go and see what was on 'the point.' What was on the shore at the point was a few young ;adies in bikinis, while underwater I found various small critters and a lone, hunting squid. We turned the swim and headed back, determined to fins some sharks. On the way back we went over both sand and rocks and I was surprised to see, from the surface, just how far we were from shore (bodes well for a nutty dive I am planing inside the Harbour...watch this space...) I found a three bar porcupine fish that had scurried off by the time I dropped to the rocks it was swimming past. It was a great feeling to be free-swimming between the rocks, and even though the water was shallow it still looked a long way to the surface when I decided to return. Both JCJ and I were looking good, again in my humble opinion, as we allowed ourselves to gently drift back to the surface. JCJ, camerad, may even have got a shot that proves the point (hahahaha!)

As we got closer directly out front of the entry/exit point we swam out over the sand, this being where the sharks are typically found. And it was here that I found sharks. Lots of them. I'd been on the surface for a while, my right ear grumbling at the continued clearing had decided to block up (JCJ reported his ears were 'squealing like a dolphin') and from the surface I spotted 1, 2, 3, 4...hold on, wow. Beneath me was a small school of sharks. I counted six in sight at once (one less than we'd been told as we entered that an exiting diver had seen. Then something unexpected happened. All of a sudden another six or more sharks swam under me...too soon after the first ones to be the same fish coming around again. A snorkeller had bolted to the bottom and spooked them.

I am sure there must have been fifteen dusky whalers beneath me. I descended a couple of times, slowly to let my ears clear without blowing them. Lovely lovely lovely. From the surface it is clear to see that the fish are in two rough sizes, some noticably larger than others. Therefore I am guessing that what I saw was the result of a couple of puppings. Whatever it was it was damn impressive...so close to the City, so close to the shore, so clear, no scuba!

We heade back to shore, I swam at an angle to exit on the rocks Sal and Rumpole were sitting on, swimming over another shark not more than 20yards from where they sat. Rumpole, oblivious to his potential as a food source was allowed a naughty and brief cooling jump in the water as I clambered out, we rejoined JCJ and relived the dive in all it's glory.

I feel bad about not mentioning the butterflyfish, garfish, mullet, mackeral, stripey, shrimp, leatherjacket, sergant baker, blackfish...so there you go, I've mentioned them too.

Freeding rocks the Casbah.