Cavalli Islands 3 & 4 March 2007

Yep, I can confirm that the Cavalli Islands are thick with snapper.

Just everywhere you look.  The shallows are full of them.  Saturday I snooped one of 4.25 kg, and sunday I got sick of spooking them in the vis which is really too good for snapper.  So I did a burley and got a 5 kg beastie (including the whole blue maomao in his tummy, and some drummer, that I had burleyed with), then snooped a couple of pannies.  Spooked a few nice ones whilst snooping, up to 9 kg, but although there were lots in the 1 to 2 kg range, not that many really big ones around.  Was enjoying approaching groups of feeding snapper in the shallows, sun behind me, and whispering them right in.

At one stage I was just swimming along in the shallows (well, really legging it to get back to the boat by the time I said I would) and I was thinking 'this is the sort of place one could just swim out of the weed right in front of me', and sure enough, within 20 seconds, a nice snap cruised in front of me.  Sun and current were all wrong, and he kept going. Sarah found some legal paua in her fave spot.  It was looking great for a romantic evening on the boat, just us, when baby Pipi starts puking all over the place.  Yuck.  Anyway, she finally settled down and we collapsed exhausted instead.

I was saving the best place until Sunday arvo, then we pull up there and see a ronstan float on the middle brick - scuba divers ruining my spot.  "No worries, I'll just swim over to that rock over there" - then a cattle truck full of flouro clad scuba bunnies rocks up and anchors there!  After 15 minutes of their safety checks and sign language practise , I realised I could have gone there, snooped the rock, and come back before they got in - all ten of them on a 10 sqm rock.  Anyways, there they were, no dive flag.  nice.    Boats all over the show, they found their flag finally.

And of course some muppet in a fizz boat stops to fish the nearby rock, gives up when he sees the bubble blowers, then races past at 25 knots within 30 metres of the dive boat.  That's pretty uncool.  Idiot stickers.  Fantastic examples of human beings, all of them! So took off and dived the 7 m reef just south of the Rainbow Warrior, which was very quiet with only a couple of rats,

So, was a tad grumpy after that. Sarah reckons they have just as much of a right to the sea as I do. I reckon that's bollix.  Scuba divers should be allowed to dive an area only when I have snooped it thoroughly first.  Bloody divers.  Idiot stickers are fine as long as they aren't on the best spot in the area.  Bloody idiot stickers.