At the beginning of November Steven Benjamin , Tai Cronje, John Henderson and Gavin Hau, headed to Nosy Be (Madagascar) in search of blue water, unexplored reefs and dog tooth tuna. We were headed for a bank lying 80km offshore, Castor Bank. This bank is 100km long and 40km wide with the shallowest point being 15m. Its massive !!! and most of it is covered with coral rubble, sand and sea grass. The water out there was 27C and ……40m vis every day……paradise
We had come prepared for big fish, we were looking for that fish of a life time. With this in mind we all had tuna bodyboards and big guns. Tai and John brought Rabitech tuna guns, I had 1.3m Freedivers guns and Gavin had a Tommy gun. Dog tooth tuna are probably the strongest, sneakiest fish in the ocean and if not kitted out with the right gear, you’ll just get broken up or loose your entire rig.
We were all using carbon fins and my Freedivers carbons were great in this open water environment. John and myself were diving in blue camo suits while Tai and Gavin had black or faded grey suits. I really don’t think it make a difference what color the suit is, to a fish your a black silhouette no matter what color the suit is.
Our home for the week was a very comfortable 50 foot catamaran. The yacht had a small tender which we used to pick up divers, chum off and fetch fish. The food was great and we ate a lot of sushi. We only had a small freezer and we knew before the trip that we were only able to shoot a few fish. This wasn’t a trip for practicing your aim.
The diving was great and we were lucky to have found a ledge at all and even luckier that the current was running down down it. On the last day we were doing slow drifts and covering 1.2km each time. The ledge we explored dropped off from the main bank and went from 18m, a 10m drop of a coral/rocky wall to a steep sand slope into the deep. With such amazing vis I could see most of the game fish just floating on the surface.
More than once I had huge shoals of giant kingfish come streaming up to me, take a close look and all at once stream off into the deep. I also had numerous sailfish come in to investigate. The fish life overall was amazing but the coral life wasn’t bright and colorful as one see’s in the Red sea. The reef did hold huge schools of moorish idols and goldies where ever there was good structure
The shark life was interesting. We found schools of Hammerheads on the drop offs early in the mornings and late evening. I only saw two bulls sharks while there and the were both very timid despite speared fish being with them. There were plenty of blacktip reef sharks and it was incredible to see the big giant kingfish swimming with them. One evening I found 15 of these sharks swimming up the ledge with about 10 huge (40kg+) giant kingfish swimming with them. Perhaps a co-operative hunting strategy? I filmed it all, but the tapes are being digitized at the moment
But make no mistake a trip like this requires a lot of planning, thought and input before you arrive there. Without Gavin and John’s advise and thoughts we would not have had such a successful trip. Small seemingly trivial aspects of diving have to be considered, things like – can the tender take 4 divers with gear?, does the boat have a fish finder and plotter? or does the skipper know how to deal with spear fishermen? All can cause huge problems if not considered and dealt with.
On a divers side your equipment has to be up to scratch and spares brought for everything! from watch straps to float lines, spears and trigger mechanisms. I owe a lot to of John, Gavin and Tai for their planning and working as a team and all of us having a great time.
Another aspect that is very important, is operating as a team. With skippers and crew that don’t always know what you need, one needs to explain clearly your objectives otherwise misunderstandings will occur. The skipper and his crew were great on this trip. With one of the crew taking a liking to the job of chumming or Yum-Yum as he called it. Once the routine had been established and everyone knew their rolls the experience was great.
The benefits of using a livaborad by far out-way weighted the cost. It is such a pleasure to wake up and be on the spot. The alternative is to rise before dawn and take the long boat ride to the site. On a livaboard your there and it really allows you to get to grips with the reef and your diving. There is also the flexibility to move, explore or just take a break. Ive done trip’s with 4hrs of transit time and its not the way to do it. Suck it up and do it properly, these trip are expense no matter what you do, so do it the right way
I am also extremely grateful to Shane from Freedivers for coming on board in the form of a video camera and equipment that made this a great experience for me and hopefully you will re-live it with me through the footage.
The great aspect of this trip was that we took very little but got to see so much. The encounters we all had with huge gamefish was just what we came for and priceless
Thanks to Freedivers for the support
The Gopro with corrective port work amazingly well. I was diving 15m – 28m all day and the port didn’t warp or leak. I glad I know it is working well and delivering the results, clear footage from these great little cameras
I know what your all thinking and the very bottom line is that a trip like this will cost around R25,000 including airfares.
Below are series of images that I hope will fill in the gaps and give you a better picture for what we did.
If anyone wants to go a do what we did, please contact me and I will help you set it up.
Arriving in Nosy Be, Madagascar after three flights and 16hrs
Traveling with a lot of equipment, weight was an issue ! Gopro
Festivities in the center of Hellville, Nosy Be. Gopro
Exploring the islands. Gopro
Day glow gecko's in the market
Tai and myself playing with a bread fruit. Gopro
Under the palm trees
Our home for the week
The pile of gear. You can see the bodyboards we used, mostly home made by Tai and John. The doggies we di shoot took those boards under, floats would of disappeared. Gopro
Lunch break....
If not diving then he was fishing, Gavin Hau
About to get in the water, Gopro on speargun and Freedivers carbon fins ready
John, Tai and Myself smiling after another ridiculous drift
The Gopro filming from the sea bed , 20m below. I float on the surface. Gopro
Searching.... Gopro mounted on gun
Thousands of bigeye kingfish were constantly with us. Gopro
I filmed a lot and will put a video up sometime soon. I got some amazing images. Gopro
A Giant Kingfish. Just one of many that came in, but not what we were after. There were shoals of thousands moving up and down the ledge. These giants swim up to you as if asking "what are you doing here ?" Gopro
....not what we were looking to shoot and absolutely amazing to have swimming around me. Gopro
...the amount of game fish was amazing. There was constantly a shoal of them around one of us. Gopro
A dog tooth comes into range in the dim light of the early morning.
It takes off with pace and power only a doggie can produce. Filmed with a Gopro mounted on the muzzle of the gun.
Tai and John deal with a dog tooth tuna
Gavin retrieving a tuna as a shcool of fulvies surround him. That tuna reefed him and it took some deep diving and pulling with the tender to get it off the ledge
The tuna were also there, this one came in after some chum. Around 20kg's .Gopro
...an early morning fish. This fish reefed me and took 15mins to work it off the bottom
The Team : Steve Benjamin, Tai Cronje, John Henderson and Gavin Hau
The sun set on a great trip and I cant wait for the next one
