Praia Do Bilene Christmas 2006

After months of my mind been totally consumed by the prospects of going to Mozambique, the time had come. Rather in a hurry, with end of year work pressure and the good ol’ 11th hour thing. I found myself packing and fixing up dive kit at all ours of the night the last few nights before leaving. This and the fact that excitement was oozing from every pore, well I don’t know how well I was sleeping.

I finished up at work on the Friday the 15th, juggled a few things with the boss so I could get off a little early. That did not stop the phone ringing!! Got home loaded all the kit the kitchen sink and the family and headed down the road to Morne’s spot in Salt Rock, where we going to pack into the 4by and leave early the next morning.

I will skip all the packing details, bar one. We weren’t loading up a boat like most normal fishermen, we hooked up a jetski!! The ‘Flying Fish’ was with wings and is parked in the yard. And Morne has this monster 1100cc 4strokeJetski he was super keen to use. So not being one to let a small thing like half a boat get in the way, we rigged the ski with fish, gun, and dive bags. In my mind I was thinking it could not be much different to diving off my boat the ‘Flying Fish’ which some people consider to only be half a boat any way.
But all the confidence in the world from me, did not seem to ease the look of apprehension on Morne’s face. Who could blame him?

So first thing the next morning, like 2:30 first thing we are off, aiming to get to the Swaziland boarder at 5:30 to get to the front of the queue for when the gat opened at 6am. But when we got there we realised that we weren’t first in line and after standing at the gat for 40min realised that it only opened at 7. Oh well chins up we are in the front, that’s until 30sec before the gate opened the gate was swamped by Africa and well we were lost in the sea of shoving and wonderful aromas. Put it this way the boarders we and absolute hack, fortunately we did not have to unpack our luggage or anything. A little positive reinforcement with the upright official at the Mozam boarder helped things along.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful other than the fact that I probably did not shut up the whole way there, except for the odd little cat nap here and there. Yes Morne’ was driving. We got to the spot early afternoon and when we stepped out the air-conditioned bukkie we were greeted by a warm humid klap! Damn it was hot! But that was soon overshadowed by the beuty of the place. The house was just like our dream house, only thing was this one had a little wooden walk way that lead down to a white coral sand beach with clear turquoise water lapping its shores. Damn this was going to be tough!

No sooner had we unpacked and I was on a mission. GPS points, and we needed some desperately. I had spent weeks at home trying to get some but did not come right. All I had was a guy I had spoken to once over the cell who was up there till the following day. He said to me to ask for him at some bar on the other end of the town and I would get to him from there. Knowing that he was leaving the next day and how frivolous  it would be to head out to sea with out GPS co-ords  we headed off to the bar.

I eventually found the owner who said he knew the guy and would get some one to explain to me how to get to the guys place. So we trundle through the bar to a table with some well lubricated and tan local chaps. The one speaks fairly good English and explains that it is not that far, only 4km. But if you go on the beach the officials might stop you and that could spell trouble. So best to go round, its very easy!!! Just follow the signes to ‘La Goona’ camp site and this guy is right next door.

I go back to Morne who is sitting at the table with his mates who were staying at the house and Mich. He was looking very content sipping on his 2M watching the palm trees. Not one to want to pull him away from this I explained the short mission and headed off in the 4by. Some many km later and countless redirections by the locals in Portuguese, which am super fluent in. I get to this guys place, who is very surprised to see me. He thusts a cold 2M in my paws and after some chit chat gets up and scribbles some co-ords in a note book I took along. While this is happening a bukkie pulls in with meat crates filled with kingfish and cuta, as it turns out these are regular to the spot and they proceed to tell me how wild the place was. But by now it is dark, and the rest of the crew were still sitting at the bar. So after getting as much info from the guys with out being rude I headed back. To find that I was not the most popular chap at the bar.

The next day it took us about an hour to get ‘Ou Rooi Ry Perd’ the jet ski loaded up and ready. We headed across the lagoon which is longer than you think and down the winding channels and out to sea. We thought we would try ‘Long Reef’ a reef that is 20km long and is 4km out to sea. The journey was about 6.5km from the beach  it seemed to take for ever to get there. I remember Morne’ asking how much futher to go when we had not even gotten half way. I think my response was “we are getting there”

We finally got to the spot and you could make out the reef below, I was frothing!! We headed out onto the sand on the outside of the reef and dropped the drogue, kitted up and jump in. The vis wasn’t bad a good 15-18m, and I did my first dive down. 18m!! I was surprised it was so shallow, the current was hardly moving and we were some distance from the reef. I had only been down for 40sec or so when next to me appears this cuta! And a good size one at that, I stretched out my brand spanking new 1.4m Rob Allen Tuna Gun …. My Christmas prezzie to myself. Let the 7.5mm spear find its target straight through the fishes spine. I swam to the surface with the 15kg cuta in one hand and the other punching the water in victory. It truly was an epic moment. It was like everything had culminated at that moment, every dream, desire, the frustrations of getting there, all the uncertainties, like what’s the gun going to be like? Along with the ever chance of the trip just not working out. (ask Craig about those) Everything was settled in an instant, it was a magical moment where I think God just smiled down on me.

Morne's First Cuta

The rest of the dive was spent exploring the reef trying to find a good drift and where the fish were. We got some good fish that day, about 60kg well that’s almost as much fish as the ‘Ou Rooi Ry Perd’ could carry. Morne also landed his first cuta the largest one being about 10kg, so you can imagine how stoked he was.

First Day Spearfishing at Bilene

For the first time ever fish would just swim past with out a spear in them a truly great feeling. There is one fish that did not get away! I came off the bottom to hear Morne calling me. A Prodigal Son of about 5 or 6kg had swam right up to him and he had pushed it away with his spear. Not knowing what this strange half Shark, Remora, Barble fish was he calls me. The fish swims past me and starts off into the blue, I give a short chase and blatt it. I hit the surface to see a rather perplexed spearo, so I reply “good chow and it was getting away!” So I suppose I owe Morne a Cobia :-)

That was day 1. Day 2 we decided to take a look at the pinnacles straight off the mouth 4km out to sea. We had seen a map at a bar next to the house we were staying in and it showed some deeper water around a pinnacle that came up nice and shallow.
When we got there the water was a bit green and we landed up drifting down the sides of the reef. We had seen some fish but nothing exciting, and the 10-15m vis was a bit off putting especially to Morne who had a good size shark pay him a visit.

So we changed tactics now that we were familiar with the direction of the current and the drift of the ski. And moved to the current side of the reef, straight away there were more fish and I managed two good size cuta just off the drop off. With the fish bag full again we headed home, some school fees had been paid and we were amping for the next day.

Two fair sized Cuta

Day 3. The south wind which is onshore there blew all night promising better water than the previous day. And we headed out to the pinnacles again. The current had changed and so had the water, it was crystal. But it was a little overcast and this made it a little gloomy. We headed to the south side of the reef and hoped in, only to find that we were in a fish tank with millions of Kingfish. I remember Morne taking a dive to about 10m just to get into things, and noting that there were 4 species of King Fish around him. There were Big Eyed King fish around the 5-8kg mark, some Yellow Spotted King Fish around the same size, hundreds of Yellow Tailed King Fish and a bunch of Fulvies around the 7-8kg mark in the mix. And that’s not mention the ever present million baitfish.

Some of the million Kingfish - taken with a disposable camera.

Keen to check this out before drifting off the mark I go down the moment Morne hits the surface. I come to rest on some boulders in about 18m, the drop off looming up behind me to about 8m and the sand out in front at about 24m. From here the shoals of Kingfish were even more impressive, all of them just mingling around. Then out the back I see what appears to be some Big Eyed King Fish, but the long pecs give them away. Iggies!!
There are 3 or 4 of them and they are on the out side of the mass of fish, but they move in closer. One swims directly towards me, I take aim as he gives me a broad side. I am about to pull the trigger when it dawns on me that this is probably only about 20kg. It was my desire and goal for the trip to get a big Iggie and I had made up my mind before the trip that I would only shoot one. The diver’s dilemma, do I let this one go?? Maybe I wont get another chance?? Then the age old advice of a good friend Graham “Shoot first ask questions later” And the spear disappears into the blue to find its mark …. Much further away than I thought!!

By the time I hit the surface the 1m bungie plus the 10m of clear ghost line and at least half of the 5m bungie was through my hands. I applied a bit of pressure and the fish bolted, and almost straight away I was on the float. Next thing I know the fish is pulling me and the float under …. 20kg??? I don’t think so! I call for Morne who has the typical fight with flashers and line when you are in a rush. By the time he gets to me the fish is tiring and I am on the ghost line. After a couple more short charges I get to the fish. It’s huge, and have no idea how much it weighs. It’s too big to put on the ski so we strap it to the back of the ski, with half the fish hanging off the back.

Chris's 42.8kg Gaint Kingfish

We only shot a couple cuta that day, trying to just take the bigger ones and also been careful not to overload the ski.

The days that followed were a bit of a cuta blur, all I can remember was holding up some more fish for the camera. Eventually we were just letting fish swim past. And some times would land up pointing fish out to each other once we had got a good fish for the day.
The pinnacle was great; I had on at least 4 different occasions big Iggies swim past. It was kind of cool just to let them swim on with out a spear in them.

Morne was not aware that Pickhandle Barracuta can BITE!

Morne with a nice 12kg Cuta

On the one day I shot a small cuta about 8kg and as per usual it shot out away from the reef, and pulled it back from the deep blue. Only to see a large shape coming up underneath it. There were always sharks around so thinking it was a shark I pull the fish in with a little more force. But it was not a shark but a seriously over sized cuta. Don’t ask me how big it was …. Well over the 25 – 30 kg mark! I mean this thing was trying to chomp an 8kg fish like a sardine. I shouted to Morne, but the fish had gone by the time he got to me. On returning to the ski to load the fish on the ski the cuta swam under me again. Man it was huge …….. Next time!!!!

4km out to sea on the "Rooi Ry Perd"

We took 2 days off to do some fishing and do the family Christmas thing. We fished for a bout an hour catching some cuta in the backline. Loosing some and even releasing one. Now there’s one for the record books!

We had decided to have one last good day at sea before coming home, so when on the 26th to an absolute pearler we were stoked. The south had blown for a whole day and the water was crystal, and the plankton layer the was normally there was gone. There was not a breath of wind and the sun was out adding to the vis. This did however mess with Morne’s track record of landing every fish he shot. The clean water made for long shots and Morne had a frustrating morning.  I had shot 2 good fish both over 12kg, and landed up pointing Morne onto the fish from the bottom. He eventually did get a couple and we decided to pack it in.

One of the Bigger Cuta 16kg

We travelled back to the beach, Morne hungry for more and me hungry for that BIG cuta that swam past. But there was a certain sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. We had managed to get diving off a jetski right. And with very few school fees, managed to work out too some degree Bilene Pinnacles and Long reef . I have been on so many dive trips where only one day comes right or the fish are quiet and the wind howls. But this was not one of those, we had one morning of bad weather and managed to still get in that arvo. And worst vis we had was 10-15m with a slight green tinge.  Morne shot a new species almost every dive, and we always came away with a couple of fish over the 10kg mark. The Rooi Ry Perd was also our friend in away, with having limited capacity; we became very selective and never felt guilty of pulling the ring out the fish.

All in all this is probably the best holiday I have ever been on. Its gonna be tough topping this one.

Cheers,

Chris

For More Pics Click Here