The Early Bird Gets the Worm

Waking up at 4.45am on a weekday is not everyone’s cup of English breakfast, but for Team Banana, this has become an enamored morning ritual. For the past month, once, often twice weekly, we rise before sparrows-fart to go spearfishing. 

The mina is a beautiful place at half-light. Deserted of the usual vultures (that sit and stare at your speedo), the atmosphere is temperate, still and quiet. The glassy sea reflects city lights like a new-rave Monet. Periodically, the dorsal of a muscular pelagic ruptures the surface sending an explosive scattering of baitfish. Racing the swift Arabian sunrise we equip ourselves and submerge into the waters welcome.

The break-wall along which we play is a monolithic accessory to the norther most tip of Port Zayed. One of its features is that it offers two juxtaposing conditions. Depending on the swell from the Arabian Gulf, or the wind direction, we will dive on either the seaward or port side. Beneath the surface the wall is a poor man's Tetris of ill-fitting boulders that descend on a 45 degree angle to a white sandy terrain. Most importantly it is the infrastructure to an aquatic highway of migrant cruisers we want to hunt.

On a good day visibility is around 10 meters.  Needle(dick)fish hang static an inch below the surface, shoals of sifters charge bucket-mouthed inhaling marine dust, curious trevally appear and disappear from the azure, Cheeky Charlie Faskar (local bream) weave warily between boulders, purple toast-shaped fish are here too but somehow look out of place and perhaps would be more appropriate cast in a Disney production . We hold our breaths and come face to face with these creatures. We dive to explore the alien terrain. Regularly something happens which warrants a Team Banana high five. Once we observed a leopard ray glide meters away from us. That same morning we disentangled a sea-turtle from a fishing line bind. Team unity reached an all-time high the morning we shot twin Giant Trevally, one each. These prized game fish are renowned for their Quad P (pound for pound punching power) and although proving themselves as a full handful, both fish succumbed to our invitation for a celebratory photo shoot… and yet another high five.

The morning dive ends. We turn up to our respective jobs refreshed and grinning like Cheshire Catfish. Colleagues gather round for another fisherman’s story; all cries of tall tales are quashed with photographic evidence.

Y&W