A trip to seixal

Last month a group of work friends and myself decided to hang up our hiking boots and head for the sea. A good friend of mine heads up an activity club in which every month we participate in a specific activity such as hiking, fishing an even the occasional boat trip. For those who are curious about our activities you can visit his blog at disportobay.blogspot.com ( its in Portuguese though, but the photos are really great). Our trip took us to seixal. I was very excited upon arrival at the prospect of a good days spearfishing. I had heard lots of stories about good size fish swimming in these waters ( now all you big game spearos hang on, when I say a good size I mean in the 1kg to 2kg fish, being a beginner is tough :) )
After all the necessary inspections of our gear we started to suite up, followed by a couple of quick remarks to heighten up spirits and get us excited for the days spearing. All in all there were four spearos comprised of Suzano, Carlos, Nuno and myself. I had done some spearfishing with Nuno before and so we decided to tag together for the beginning of the dive. We decided to head for a shallow in hope of spotting a good fish but upon arrival were disappointed, no fish .

In the distance I could see Suzanos´ float and decided to head out towards him and as I approached him I noticed that he had already bagged a parrot fish, dangling from his stringer.

With the hope of spotting a good fish I decided to follow him around for a while, constantly diving down in hopes of seeing something. Ten minutes later bang ! another one for Suzano and this time it was a sea bream and a nice one. Two down and still no site of fish. I
continued to dive searching for fish and instead I found Nuno in the shallows chasing some mullet, he too had had no luck yet. An hour later and still not having any fish, I decided to head back to shore. On my way back I noticed some shinny fish in the water and went to investigate. Took a deep breath and dived down to about 4 meters ( did I already mention that I am a beginner) waiting for something to happen, when slowly a fish came in my direction, then with a pull of the trigger twak ! his mine. Stringed him up and headed for land.

Upon getting out of the water I was met by eager supporters to see what I had brought from the mornings spearing. With a couple of smiles and laughs I displayed my fish proudly. Nuno came out much later with four mullets and a good size bag of limpets ( here in Madeira we don't have bugs so the next best thing are limpets and we have to dive for them ).

After some time with the family by the natural pools we were off to do a braai. This was my chance at covering up the days bad spearfishing on my part, so I wipped up a fire and then brought out the family special, skewered tuna with lemon sauce. Most of the guys had never had skewered Tuna before so they were eager to try and I must say that with the comments received I had redeemed myself. Some fun spearfishing and good food made the day worth while.

Now I know after reading this some of you would really like to see my fish so here goes, and remember biginner.