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That day, we loaded up 200 liters of fuel into the front of the boat, and at five o'clock the next morning we began our journey. An excursion like this is pretty dangerous, especially on a small boat like mine, as there's no cell service out there in the middle of the ocean, and so if something were to go wrong, we’d be totally on our own. Which is why we brought a backup engine! When we arrived at the spot, at first I was a bit disappointed as there weren't that many fish around. Unfortunately, sometimes that's just how it goes, but I decided to take a deep dive to see if there was more life down below.
At about 80 feet, I found a good-sized rainbow runner. I know that if I shoot it, it's going to get tangled on that rope, but we’ve traveled such a long way to get here, and it really was the only fish around, so I pulled the trigger. During my long swim up to the surface, I had plenty of time to think about the stupid decision I had just made. Although I can freedive much deeper than 80 feet, it’s a different story to do it while spearfishing, it's a lot more difficult. I immediately dove back down but couldn't make it all the way to the fish. In freediving, relaxation is the most important thing. If you're not relaxed, you won't dive very deep or very long, and I could not have been less relaxed! I didn't just need to dive down there, I also needed to spend some time untangling the fish.
So, I returned to the surface, put my speargun on the boat, relaxed for a few minutes, and then tried again. And by the time I reached the fish, I already wanted to breathe normally! I normally feel totally fine 30 seconds into a dive, but I was way too excited and my lack of relaxation was making things much more difficult. There was no way in the world I was going to untangle that line, I wanted to breathe too badly so I just cut it with my knife and began my ascent. I could immediately tell that this was not going to be easy, the fish was bigger than I thought, probably around 8 or 10 pounds, and in addition to the added weight, it created a huge amount of drag in the water. Also, I stupidly didn't stab the fish in the brain while I was down there, so it was actively fighting against me as well. The combination of all of these factors made me decide to drop my weight belt - it’s a really nice belt made by Alchemy in Greece - but I was freaking out and had to choose between the fish and the belt - I chose the fish! My dive buddy saw that I was struggling, met me at about 30 feet, and took the fish. Finally, sweet sweet oxygen!