Something massive is speeding toward me. A black shape, like a torpedo, with a prominent fin. I’m not really frozen, the truth is I don’t have time to react. It’s over by the time my brain has taken it in…
Jervis Bay, Australia.
I’m spear fishing off the beach in a secluded cove. There are a few bream, some blackfish. Suddenly, a massive school of big, beautiful trevally surge in front of me. Hundreds of flashing, fat fish, swimming in tight formation. I lunge forward, kicking hard with my fins.
(Top photo: a luckier day on Jervis Bay.)
My arms tense as I haul back the spear, tensioning the rubber spring. I swim as hard as I can, but the fish are fast. The school is slipping by me, and I hesitate, trying to focus, trying to target on one of the flickering bodies in front of me. I loose the spear, but it hits nothing; sinks. I grab it back, and still swimming hard, re-tension the spring. I know I’m loosing my chance. My breath sounds like a V8 in my ears, roaring and deepened by the water pressure. The fish are gone. I’m no match for their speed, and they have swarmed around an outcrop of rock and disappeared.
But, there’s a straggler. One lone, confused looking trevally, striking out, left and right, seeming disoriented.
I push every bit of energy I’ve got left into a forward thrust. My legs scissor hard, my arm stretches forward, closing the distance between the barbed prongs of the spear and the fish’s fat belly. I can see the spear, in my mind’s eye, lurching away from me, speeding out to meet my target. I aim just a little above the fish, and just a little in front, compensating for the animal’s speed and… The spear is sinking, dragged down by gravity through the water, and the fish is writhing on the tip, impaled by more than half of the 7 steel barbs.
I’m elated. I got it. I’m going to eat it. I’m a hunter. I can taste the triumph and the BBQ savour.
I suck in a breath, and prepare to dive, to retrieve my prize, and then I freeze.
It only takes 2 seconds to happen, but I can examine the scene in detail, with the clarity induced by shock. Something massive is speeding toward me. A black shape, like a torpedo, with a prominent fin.
I’m not really frozen, the truth is I don’t have time to react. It’s over by the time my brain has taken it in. The dolphin slides past me, graceful, silent, the perfect predator. It plucks the trevally from the tip of my spear without slowing its pace, and is gone.
I watch, awestruck and enormously relieved, as four more dolphins fly past me. And they’re gone. I’m alone in the water. Bobbing on the surface, my heart pounding.
All that’s left of my prize are a few scales spiralling in the eddies the dolphins left in their wake, shimmering, and turning, and settling onto fronds of seaweed.
Humbled, I dive for my spear and paddle back to the beach. I stagger up the sand, awkward and clumsy, tripping over my fins, and stumbling in the breakers. I drop on the beach grass and drag off my wetsuit, and gradually get my breath back.
I feel alive. Being reminded you are part of the food chain is invigorating.
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