Abalone, sweep, wrasse, leatherjacket sea urchins, crayfish. And a bootie. Catch of the day...
Went for a dive today, and while finding crayfish was not easy, I did eventually spot one. He was in a never-reach-him hole. I speared a small sea sweep, and breaking his neck, put the fish just in the mouth of the gap on the end of the spear to see if greed overcame common sense, holding my spear with my left hand and lying on my right side in the narrow gap. - there must have been 8 inches in front of me. The cray was of a size where I would have had to measure, but it looked around legal - about two pounds. Not vast but in a blank day, anything is good. He was steadily coming out and I was very slowly pulling the spear away, when I reaised that... I had company. Company cheerfully heading for the 8 inch gap between my shoulder and the rock, intent on getting that fish befor the other crayfish did. A BIG cray - eight and half pounds - 3.8 kg. All I had to do was drop the spear (falls slowly in the water) and grab him with my left hand - which I did. He did get my thumb with his feeding claws, but I got him. Letting greed over-ride caution is not always a good thing. Not for humans, or crayfish.
You can see the size of the feeding claw in the pictures - a lot bigger than my hand, let alone thumb.
And when I cam out we got a double rainbow (if you click on the pictures they go full size), the top one sadly is not that clear in the picture. But there are two pots of gold out there.
Be greedy to want both especially as well as the cray.
I know from experience (not the diving, but the subsistence farming and hunting) that what you are doing is more often than not wet, cold, and dam hard work. But it's beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I can't say I miss it, but sometimes I do.
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