72 Hours of Death and Destruction.
With summer running out and having done little diving, an invite from a ‘rival’ club to join them on a three day expedition to Great Barrier Island was too good an opportunity to pass up. Talk of a nice big comfortable boat put any misgivings I had with the ‘Axemen’ to rest.
No, not exactly roughing it… 
The team met at
Gulf Harbour marina on the Thursday evening and proceeded to do our very best to sink the 48ft power-cat through sheer weight of spearo paraphernalia, food and alcohol.
The unusual suspects… 
Eventually we were on our way, making a dent in the 35 odd miles between us and our target. ‘Into The Blue’ was eating it up a rate of 18knots – not exactly fast, but a speed of which I was of no doubt she could maintain through just about
any weather likely to be found in the Gulf.
Three days of this sort of weather meant we never explored the boats full capacity... 
It was dark as we pulled up to anchor for our first night at the Barrier, however some of the boys were fairly chomping at the bit, and insisted on going swimming for crays that would become our breakfast the following morning.
Dive site for the first day was to be on the eastern side, at
Arid Island – an hours steaming from our anchorage – about right to settle the crayfish breakfast and kit up for a day in the water.
It was to prove a tough one.
By days end I think the skipper was thinking we were a bunch of no-hopers. It wasn’t through a lack of effort though – I had personally just about swum a circumnavigation of the small island for a couple of small snapper and john dory – and even with five more very dangerous individuals in the water, save for some crays and a nice snapper taken right at the end of the day, our ice-boxes had a concerning lack of fish in them.
Later that night parked at anchor, whilst consoling ourselves with massive amounts of food and drink, we laid plans for an all out assault on the northern end of Barrier for the following day – the fish had no idea what was in store for them…
Daybreak, and ‘Into The Blue’ was moving up to the battlefront… 
We were bound for the ‘Neddles’ – the craggy northern most point of Barrier - very remote, very deep and renown as big kingfish territory. The boys were bringing out some pretty heavy weaponry –– my ‘mere’ 120 was looking somewhat anorexic lying on the deck surrounded by 130s, 140s, double rubbers, double wraps and slip-tips with breakaway rigging – in hindsight they would prove not to be ‘overkill’…
Myself and the crazy Canadian, Marcel, were dropped right on the end – prime position for a kingfish with the reef-end falling away near vertically into over 200ft of water. Things were looking good – current just starting to build on the corner and lots baitfish around. I let the current blow me off the shore a little and as I dived into the inky blue, kahawai started to form up a ‘Daytona 500’ around me – many of them looked a bit beat up – kings were surely to follow… and on the third dive I spotted them, hanging in 15 to 20metres… a couple more dives to suss them out – they seemed to be in the 15-25kilo bracket, but the big ones were hanging back and a bit of a stretch for my ‘little’ gun so I made a compromise on one that was above average but came in just a bit too close…
clack went the gun and the fish paused just long enough for me see I had a good hit in the ‘green zone’. With a couple swats of the tail the fish was gone, deep and now out of sight – the floatline running fast through my hand as I returned to the surface. Once there I needed to put the brakes on the fish – there was potential for it to get hung up in the rocks more than 30metres below, a depth at which id have no chance of recovering it or my gear.
A tug-of-war was to follow – with both myself and the fish pedaling hard – in the first five minutes the fish took the second half my floatline off me – it was that or I was going down with it. After that, I started to recover some ground, but it took more than a few minutes to lift the fish for an iki.
With the boat gone to drop the other divers, I would have to tow the fish for a while. The best looking ground appeared to be down the northern side of the outcrop, so I went for it, snooping all the nice holding spots for large snapper without bumping into any. A couple of smaller examples were added to my floatline, which was now becoming rather heavy as the current I was swimming into had increased significantly. I was drained by the time I hauled myself and the fish over the transom of the boat several hours later – but happy to hear that others on board had also returned with good results.
My fish was to be impressive for all of five minutes… 
Id only just had time to get my kit off, take a picture and suck back some water, when there was a call from beyond the starboard aft quarter – about 30yards away two divers were escorting a very dead and rather large kingfish between them. It wasn’t until Donovan and Matt had the fish lying on the deck next to mine that we realised its mass.
Matt and Donovan with the best part of 70pounds of kingfish… 
We learned that Matt had put the initial shot in the soft gut area of the fish, fearing it would tear out – he yelled for Donovan to whack the fish again – through the back of the head as it turned out – even that didn’t really knock the stuffing out of the fish and it took a long time to subdue it apparently.
We needed a bit of R&R after the mornings pillaging – time was taken to process the fish – our ice-boxes were looking a whole lot better now.
Bloodydecks… 
An afternoon dive saw many good crays, snapper and johndory taken for dinner.
Line up of snapper – ‘solid’ to ‘trophy’ size… 
Another massive eating and drinking session that evening followed what had really been an amazing days diving. Many times were stories of big kingfish sounding run through. Just as many times it was decided that Matt’s luck with his gut-shot monster king deserved another toast.
The following day was to be a short one – we needed to head for home at a reasonable hour and I honestly think there were a few of us who had pushed hard and were secretly welcoming a slackening of the pace…
Sunday morning had us on the western side of the main island, checking out some dirty weedlines. With a couple of water days already under their belts, the boys were ripping off some good dives, repeatedly pulling 25metres whilst hunting elusive boarfish. None were to be had, but the good news story of the day was Richard, who was struggling with his sinus’ and only had had limited time in the water because of them, returned to the boat with a respectable kingfish in tow.
“I fink I got me a fish, auw...” 
“Would it be alright if I kissed it?” 
A very deserving spearo… 
That was to be the last fish of the trip, and as ‘Into The Blue’ turned westward for home, it gave each of us a couple of hours to reflect on what was a mighty expedition… and plan the next one…
Sounds like a great trip. I'd die happy with a boat like that.
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