Going back to real life is never harder than it is after a spearfishing weekend on the South Coast! Slightly cooler waters are a small price to pay for the calm clear conditions and large species diversity you hope to find down south and this weekend was a South Coast Classic.

A mysterious illness struck me early on Thursday afternoon, prompting me to call in sick for work the next day, fortunately for me the illness cleared soon after the phone call and i snuck off down south for an unscheduled 3 day weekend. Arriving at Kioloa at around 9pm on Thursday there was not much to see besides a marauding kangaroo which had Deb up on the bonnet of the car. After a couple of quiet beers it was an early night to recover from the drive down.

Up the next morning with a few hours to kill before the others arrived we went to get supplies from Bawley Point and then off to check out the water. Too say I was stoked with the conditions would be putting it lightly, I am pretty sure the words "perfect 10" were thrown out there. The ocean was FLAT and looked very clear with a light offshore breeze, all this backed up by a warm clear morning was building a solid level of excitement and anticipation, at least in me anyway.

Back at the house it wasnt long until Craig, Therese, Justin, Alex and Brett arrived to join Stu, Phyllis, Huon, Deb and myself (as a side note the house easily fitted 10 people in comfortably). After a quick unpack it was straight to Kioloa ramp and out to the section of Brush Island that can still be dived and the exploring began. This is a fantastic dive site with plenty of shallow sections, a nice rocky drop off and some deep water areas with bits and pieces of old shipwrecks scattered over the bottom.

We grabbed a few fish for dinner including a cracking 1.5-2kg snapper shot by Brett which was his first snapper and turned out to be the fish of the weekend  Stu also grabbed one Cray. After Brush Island we hit several other headlands and everyone bagged out on Abs giving us 12 in total for dinner. Back at the house with fish and Abs cleaned we settled in for a few beers and a nice dinner of fresh seafood. After a few more beers it was off to bed to try to get some sleep before the comp the next day.

With only one boat and six divers it was a pretty relaxed morning and a pretty relaxed comp in general. In fact im not even 100% on what time we started and finished. Anyway the conditions were pretty similar to the day before with maybe a hint more swell because as we sped towards Brush Island, our first dive spot of the day we noticed the small swell lumping up out off a headland and made a note to check this new reef later in the day.

We dove Brush Island for a good couple of hours, covering every inch that was not Sanctuary zone. Some nice fish were speared but none of the snapper that had been seen the day before. Next we headed back to the new reef we spotted on the way out and after swimming around out there for a while and picking up a few nice banded mowies we swam in to the adjacent headland. it was great fun shooting salmon on the edge of the wash and watching surfers in small barrels only a few meters away.

We tried one last spot further south which turned out to be unproductive and no fish were speared with the exception of a 6-7kg Silver Drummer that Justin brought back to the boat! We soon called it quits and headed for home. At the ramp Stu and Justin check the breakwall for anything exciting and Stu managed to pull out another nice Cray.  Back at the house we held weigh-in and put the scores into the computer. Fish of note were a Bream over 1 kg from Brett as well as some large Blue and Banded Mowies.  

The south coast was kind to us as Alex, Brett and myself all got our highest scores for the year so far (See Shorty, you should have come)! next was the task of washing gear and cleaning fish, which in a state of exhaustion, seemed to take a lot of hours. Finally with that all done Alex, Justin and Brett hit the road leaving the rest of us to fresh bbq'd surf and turf which went down very well with a few drinks.

The next morning was pack-up and it was down in a slow and lazy fashion. Craig and Therese headed home and Stu and Phyllis went for a quick dive around Kioloa headland while Deb and Huon and I hung out on the beach. After a short time they returned with a nice blue mowie and it was time to head north, after a quick stop for a couple of Pies at Haydens pie shop in Ulladulla it was on to the Central Coast.

All in all we had 3 days of no swell, minimal wind, clear water, good fish, great food, great company and warm sunny days all in the middle of winter. What more could you want besides a few more days?