hi guys just got back last night. gee what an adventure...muz and i caught up with the rest of the team in auckland for the flight to tahiti(papeetee). arrived 140am and muz and me were supposed to be picked up and the rest had a flight out to rurutu at 630am. we had 2 days to kill in papeetee. no one arrived to get us so we caught a cab into town to look for some accom. and on a whim i wanted to go to a dive shop. the dive shop prevailed, a quick chat with the owner and he had us a pick up, someone to stay with and a boat to dive the next day.
this is where we met claymor, he dropped everything mid morning friday to pick us up and take us an hours drive to his house, along the way giving us a tour of some caves and scenery, fantastic. english is his third language so a little bit hard to communicate sometimes. claymor and his son nicki were very accomplished divers, claymor being the district president. i can't express how friendly and welcoming his family were.
the next day there was a comp in papeetee and muz and i were invited to compete. wow what an eye opener, the better fish were at 20 - 30m with the odd fish a bit shallower. our 1.4m guns were to long for the holes where they get most of there fish. we came 7th for the day. next day we drove down to teahpoo, no surf pumping
and flew out to rurutu at lunch.
the view from the plane was fantastic, clear blue water and the fringing reef around the islands, so invitable.we arrived at rurutu ready for a quick dive before dark. quick unpack and gear up, down the beach and into the gin clear 26 degree water. the fishlife here noticably different. though the depth similar. on 1 dive while on the bottom in 27m muz had a dogtooth tuna approx 45kg swim within range but as a comp zone had no gun..
a day of scouting the next day had us excited as plenty of fish seen, along with a local fisherman showing us 4 yellowfin tuna about 50kg each he had just caught a mile out. muz had encountered his limits and did what we later came to call "the funky chicken". he was pushing himself and did a personal best dive of 37m with the supervision of his buddy on the surface watching his every move. this is why this competition is a pairs event, to promote SAFE diving with a buddy on the surface to watch you during your dive. this became invaluable during the comp as a few stories of some very close calls surfacing. noticeably 1 full black out, not from a real deep dive, but from extra exertion to get a speared fish from a hole. the buddy of the diver had to bring him to the surface from 4m and 'struggled' while telling us the coarse of events because of the thought of losing his good friend.
from memory, first day scores: tahiti 76 fish
new zealand 72
australia 56
rurutu 49
hawaii 40
second day tahiti 75
nz 70
rurutu 42
hawaii 40
aus 36
overall 1st tahiti 2nd nz 3rd rurutu 4th aus 5th hawaii.
unfortunately we bombed on the second day and were beatin overall by rurutu by 5 percent..
a bit of drinking that night by some of us... saw me break my big toe and be called skippy for the rest of my time on the island and flight home.
congrats to muz on his 37m dive and some good challenging fish speared in the depths.
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wasnt from a lack of trying just didnt know the area well enough. Our guns were to big for there style of fishing which made things hard, and heaps of deep diving. Cheers to tim guy dave and skippy 
for a great trip, and our Sheep loving buddies across the Pacific. will talk more at the meeting. And did you read that Leathal?37.1m 
