Spearfishing in Yap

Today I went out with some locals for spearfishing. The Chief of my village put some

pressure on me. "We need a lot of fish, better you are good!". ;-)

First by boat to another village for getting the permission to fish at the place the guys wanted to and 

then to the first spot. They all have handmade spearguns, which is impressive compared to my own 

facility made one.

The visibility was like 5m-7m, very bad. The first half an hour I had 

problems with my mask and I couldn't localize where it came from. All the time water was running 

into my mask at the right side. Like in the past at the Lake of Zurich during training, it was

the silicon which was not covering the glass 100%. After I fixed that, one of my best Spearfishing/Freediving

days started ;)

The locals did not went really deep for fish, they stayed between 3-10m. I spotted some Buffalo-Fish 

(better known as Humphead Parrotfish) and bigger Groupers at 15-17m and tried to get one of them. 

No chance getting in shooting distance, except once, but already counted 11 Grey Reef Sharks. Not 

worse it risking accidentally getting bitten by one of them. 

So many Sharks around there so I was watching my back all the time. That's also the reason why

the Eagle rays and even two Manta ray's!, scared the shit out of me when I saw that shadows not even

one meter above my head. One of my best moments in freediving!!!

Getting surprised by an Eagle ray during spearfishing (Tonga) is quite nice, but getting surprised by two 

Mantas, that's really cool!!!

You also have to know, that it is not allowed to do Freediving/Skindiving with Manta Ray's at that spot 

we've been in Yap, I already asked for that before. So I was very lucky!

Two Manta Ray's, seven Eagle Ray's, one Leopard Shark and Whitetip Reef and plenty of Grey Reefs.

Not easy shooting there something, specially when every one is hunting on there own, but

at the end the Chief was satisfied and I shared some of my fish with some Japanese in the Restaurant.

Fresh Bigeye Travelly sashimi and fried Spadefish, delicious!

During Dinner, the Dive Instructor (and owner of the Restaurant) told me, that I was fishing at a dive spot, which was 

voted a couple of years ago to one of the best diving sites, I can imagine why ;)

Looks like the storm is coming in 2-3 days.