Reversible suits-Perfect for Winter
I know most of you guys down south would consider a water temp of 22 degrees warm enough to still be wearing your lycra, but up here in the tropics we are freezing our arses off!! I guess when we are getting temperatures in the 30's during Summer you really start to appreciate how good we have it up here most of the year...
I have recently been wearing a 2.5mm Beuchat wetsuit but when I was diving the other day I really started to feel the cold and realised I needed to wear something a bit warmer. I had recently bought a 3.5mm Beuchat reversible and decided to give it a go as I remember reading that the smooth skin side of the suit cuts out a lot of the wind chill. I won't go into any details but lets just say doing 35knots in a centre console boat in a wet suit with an air temp of 14 degrees would normally have me shivering my arse off but not with this suit, to say I was not feeling the cold would be an understatement!
Here are some more pics from a couple of days diving I did recently. We were diving out wide chasing Dogtooth and Spanish and after bending the shaft on my 1.35 Aimrite on a small Spanish I had no option but to dive with my other weapon of choice, a 1m reel gun meant for diving dirty water on the coast. We had got some really good Spanish, Lukey shot a PB of 20kgs and Jimmy shot and lost his first Dogtooth Tuna to a pack of hungry sharks. With the tax collectors in full force we decided to do a drift along a shallower section of the reef. We were after some quality fish and after seeing some Maori Sea Perch and Coronations in the deep I knew stealth was paramount especially with a small gun in great visibility.
I will save the details for a story later on but to say I was stoked with the days efforts was an understatement! Only having a small gun really makes you think like a fish and hunt your heart out. To score a big Long-nosed Emperor and one of the flightiest fish in the ocean, the Coronation Trout with a 1m gun in 25m visibility makes this catch so much more rewarding!
The next day we dived the coast and I was lucky enough to shoot my first Baramundi with the same gun, unfortunately I missed the big one which was well over a metre. Although this was a great moment for me the highlight of the day was laying on the bottom and watching a couple of small Maori Sea Perch darting around me for over a minute. These fish even at a young age are flighty so its easy to see why they are such a hard fish to hunt when they are bigger. Hopefully these guys grow up to be a prized fish one day....
Wade and Lukey also shot their first Barra's which made the morning one to remember....
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