The Spearfishing Adventure

I hope everyone is enjoying the 3 day Labor Day weekend. I know we are having great weather, so yesterday we decided to go out to the ocean. Ryan and some of his friends wanted to go spearfishing. This is a popular activity on th island. If you are unfamiliar with spearfishing it involves freediving, going a good distance underwater, then waiting, spear gun ready, to catch a fish. If you move around too much under water you will startle the fish and it becomes difficult to catch anything. I have no intentions of fishing, but the idea of snorkeling is very appealing. I have purchased all the correct gear: wet suit, boots, hood, gloves, mask with optical lenses so I can actually see, fins, and a snorkel. So I was ready to go.

On this island there is only one natural beach. There is an artificial beach in Angra. mostly there are these concrete beaches and swimming holes. Most places the water is calm (most places I think) they have ladders that go into the ocean. A lot of places have sliding boards and diving boards from the concrete beach into the ocean. Then there are often rafts floating out there. here you can see a concrete beach. The swimming hole is to the right, and the sliding board is off to the left going out to the bigger part of the ocean.

Here is a better shot of the swimming hole. It is actually very nice.

Here is a pic of some of my gear.
But that is a public swimming hole, so it is not safe to spearfish near people. Instead you find a nice rocky area like this to climb into the ocean. Here is where we entered from.
The guys stayed out longer than I did. I got to see some cool fish and float around for a bit. It was so nice and calm. Very relaxing. Here is the gear after everyone got out.

One of the guys caught all these fish. He has been doing this for awhile. We are still new here.

I also thought this was neat. One guy speared a crab.

It was a lot of fun and cool to have my own snorkel gear. Actually, we are headeed back out right now.

When we headed home the bad weather started and the rain kicked in. It was super sunny out, so we found a rainbow.

So, that was it for our spearfishing adventure and there will certainly be more to come as we explore this ancient sport. After a nice relaxing evening we woke upo this morning and tried out our new digital griddle. Nothing like a Sunday morning filled with chocolate chip pancakes!

Delicious!

Keep on enjoying your long weekend! I know we will.