Roni Essex Freediver, Spearo, Creator
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Alchemy partner David Ochoa embarked on a trip to New Zealand, in order to film renowned spearos Justin Lee and Ryan Meyers. The film produced was a challenging one, as he had to follow Justin & Ryan while they were scouting unknown territories for the New Zealand Spearfishing Nationals Comp. Finally, he managed to make a story that shows what goes behind spearfishing comps and it seems that he could not have had better guys to reflect this message. These guys might do everything to win, but at the end of the day spearfishing is a bit more than that.   


Why Compete?


I get asked all the time, why do i do it? Why do i compete? What drives me to go to waters that i'm not familiar with? To challenge some of the best in the world in their backyard? You know, when all of the odds are against us, what makes us want to go there? It's all the experiences in life. I want to look back at life and be like "i did this". For me at the end of the day, it's the stories that i'm gonna get to tell my daughter and hopefully get her interested in the ocean, get her interested in traveling and seeing much of the land while on earth. As a father that's all you can do, spark interest and passion.


That's one part of the drive and another part is that i'm a competitive person at nature. Spearfishing is such a an individual sport you know, it's all about "what place did you get at" or "what kind of fish have you shot". It's not "what was the biggest fish shot on the boat" or "what's your team place".

Ryan Myers has become a great friend. He's a very talented spearfisherman and freediver - i'm his biggest cheerleader! He does things in the water that i can only dream and fathom about. I see that drive and it pushes me. As much of a cheerleader as i am of his, i don't want to beat anyone more badly in a competition than him.


Be A Great Hunter


Me and Justin have been traveling, competing and diving together for the last few years. He hunts the way a hunter hunts on land but underwater he uses everything as something to hide behind. He knows how to put up an ambush. Whereas i'm just now starting to learn how to hunt, Justin has hunted like this his entire life. This is how you have to hunt in Hawaii and get those small, really smart fish. He really is the best diver i've ever seen. It made me understand that i still have a lot to learn, and if i want to be the best in the, world i've got to learn how to hunt in all these different conditions and different formats. That's why we've come here.


Not Your Backyard


This place has very different conditions than we're used to. It's got cold dirty water, sometimes very rough. The underwater landscape really mirrors the landscape on land and it's really raw and rugged underwater. It's got lots of kelp, greenery and surgey waves. In this environment, totally different fish live and that's the big name of the game here. You have to learn what these new fish do, where they live and then how to hunt them.

At this level, everyone we're competing against are amazing divers and what it really comes down to is strategy. Do i go left?  Do i go right? Who's more prepared than everybody else? We're not going to have the edge of local knowledge, we're only going to have what we learned in two weeks of preparation. So any little piece of gear or equipment or technique that we can use, that they don't have, we'll take it.

The day and the hours prior to the start of competition, i just get excited. It's that excitement that i love, it that's what keeps me coming back. But the excitement all disappears as soon as i slip into the water. As soon as i slip into the water, i get to my good place, i get to my calm place and i just do what i gotta do.


It's Not About Just That Day


On competition day, we're trying to kill every eligible fish that's worth points. But what people don't see is the weeks and sometimes months that we spent in that same location, diving those same waters, just looking at these same fish. And we'll look at them, we will figure out where they live, what they do, where they sleep at night and often give them funny names. Then on tournament day, we try and come back to them, but 9 times out of 10 we will never see them again. So these crates of dead fish you see at the end of the day is such a small part of what a competition is all about.

One of the coolest things about these events are the incredible divers that you get to hang out with. I mean people that were heroes and legends of mine, i'm now playing darts with and drinking around a table and just getting to hear these stories. You would never get to hang out with these people, unless you came to these competitions.

On top of it all, it is the travel and that's really what i want to do anyways. I want to see the world my own way, as much of it as i can and on my own terms. Travel around from destination to destination, to places where people spend their whole life trying to get to and that's just another stop of my year. And every single day i get to do what i
love the most.




Meet David's Carbon Spearfishing Fins Of Choice



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