Roni Essex
Freediver, Spearo, Creator
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Roni Essex
Freediver, Spearo, Creator
You never really know what kind of weekend it’s going to be until you're already halfway in—gear scattered, the sun slipping behind island silhouettes, salt caking your eyebrows. You tell yourself it’s about the fish, the drop, the breath-hold. But the truth always swims deeper than that.
Josh Munoz—Alchemy partner, spearo, and storyteller—knows this better than most. In his latest YouTube dive log, “Spearfishing Bull Mahi & Record Ukus | Epic Overnight Hunt In Hawaii,” he lets us slip beneath the surface not just of the Pacific, but of what it means to chase something real: connection, challenge, memory.
This wasn’t just another day in the water. It was the last weekend of lobster season in Hawaii. The kind of weekend you mark on the calendar, not for the catch, but for the crew. Josh packed his Aurora fins and headed out inner island with a band of familiar faces—Nick (the birthday boy), Mitch (the steady hand), Wayne (the lens turned hunter), and Kira (uku royalty). Each brought something different to the boat. What they shared was the hunger for that feeling. The one that only comes when your heart slows underwater and something wild moves in your peripheral.
From the start, the ocean answered.
Image by Josh Munoz
First up: ukus. A staple of deep reef hunting in Hawaii, they’re elusive, muscular, and sometimes temperamental. Nick took the first drop—a birthday courtesy—and despite a solid shot, lost his gun to muzzle wrap. A reminder that even experienced hunters get humbled. The gun surfaced later, intact. A small mercy.
Then it happened. A bull mahi, bold and gleaming like a firework, shot through the water at the surface. No time for setups, barely time to breathe. Josh landed a low shot—enough to hold, not enough to stop it. What followed was a 10-minute dance of tension, line management, tangled gear, and intuition. It’s the kind of underwater moment you don’t script. You respond.
Eventually, with Wayne’s help, the mahi was subdued. Not conquered—nothing wild ever really is—but honored.
Image by Josh Munoz
Nick redeemed his earlier miss with a personal best uku. Wayne, known mostly as the man behind the lens, landed his first fish—a rite of passage that no camera can truly capture. Mitch, always reliable, brought in more of the day’s color and weight, his movements underwater sharp and composed. Josh, of course, kept narrating the chaos with a mixture of humility and humor.
The numbers grew—seven fish in the cooler by 11 a.m. But no ono. Not yet.
Throughout the dives, both Josh and Wayne moved through the water with Alchemy Aurora fins—crafted for performance, yes, but also for moments like these. In the unpredictable tempo of bluewater hunting, the difference between getting close or falling short isn’t always in the lungs. Sometimes, it’s what’s strapped to your feet. Precision, efficiency, responsiveness—they matter when a fish is one fin stroke away.
But beyond performance, Aurora is something more: a shimmer of innovation, of color that shifts with the light, like scales under the sun. It’s a small detail in a hunt full of moving pieces, but it’s also a reflection of something deeper—a willingness to push boundaries in gear, in spirit, in self.
After the chaos of the day came the quiet promise of the night dive. The air turned cool. Rain threatened. Energy dipped. But the lobsters waited. Underwater, under moonlight, lobsters become ghosts—slipping through shadows, antennae twitching at the faintest disturbance.
Landing them takes more than light. It takes timing, speed, restraint. And luck.
The crew came up with a few. Enough for dinner. Enough to justify the cold showers, the damp sleeping bags, and the 2:50 a.m. wakeup in pouring rain. Life on a boat isn’t always as dreamy as it sounds. But sometimes the discomfort is part of the memory.
Image by Josh Munoz
Not all sunrises bring fire. Some bring fatigue. Day two dawned quiet. The fish weren’t as cooperative. Drops felt longer, returns slower. The ocean, still generous, held back just enough to remind everyone: nothing is guaranteed.
But then—a tiger shark. Not a threat. Not a villain. Just presence. A reminder of hierarchy, of balance, of beauty. The shark followed the chum line for a while, curious. The crew watched from a respectful distance. No fear. Just awe.
By the time the trip wrapped, there was mahi in the fryer, lobster mac and cheese on deck, and a dozen stories passed between bites. They weighed fish with proud uncertainty, cleaned gear in tired silence, and joked about microwave mishaps that left lobster guts in every crevice of the galley.
It was messy. It was magic.
There’s something pure about watching a birthday boy miss a shot and land a personal best an hour later. About seeing a photographer drop his camera and pick up a spear. About night diving for bugs with numb hands and coming up laughing.
What Josh captures, beyond the fish, is a mood. An ethos. That spearfishing isn’t just about the trophy. It’s about returning to something primal and quiet and hard. It’s about friendship that deepens with depth. About fins that carry more than your weight—they carry intention.
This wasn’t just a hunting trip. It was a lesson in staying present. In letting the ocean give what it wants to give, and being grateful for the chance to receive it.
In the end, the best stories are the ones that aren’t told from the beginning. They’re lived in reverse—understood only when you’re back on shore, gear drying, hands still smelling of salt, and you realize the best thing you brought back wasn’t a fish. It was the reminder that this—this pursuit, this ritual, this blue unknown—is what keeps us whole.
And maybe that’s the only intro that matters.