It's hard to believe that he was not with us on this one. Usually Ximo was mostly present in our spearfishing trips. It has been a week since we were planning this one, all the organization was just simply a team work. Just like our usual over night trips, we were so charged yet we were missing him. Once we reached our destination where we will spend the night, we gathered & started preparing our gear. You know the usual stuff. Rigging, mechanism checking & reviewing the basic checklist before hitting the sack.
Master & Commander surprised us with some new stuff. A graffite finished Nile-Tech 100. Fantastic. This one was so eye catching. The finish was just absolutely inexplicable. He decided to test this one on the next day.
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| Lunar Eclipse |
It's just that the wind reports show some strong NE winds that will start at 9knts around 7 am & will keep on blowing till it reaches 16knts by midday. Wind reports are not always so accurate however, we did not have any high hopes. Lets just go, enjoy the roller coaster ride, spear some fish & head back home. This one is for Ximo, since we planned to visit the last spots that he dived with us. It was also quite mysterious because it was only 2 days since the Lunar eclipse that occurred on June 15th. The moon usually has a strong influence over tide movement on earth. It controls how the oceans, seas or even lakes expand or shrink. Simply the moon acts like a magnet to the water. Along with that, the moon also affects the general marine life that lives beneath the surface. Specially crustaceans, and of course other fish and animals.
In the morning we were all set & reach our sailing point on time. We have waited for our boat for a long time. Possibly for 1hr & 30min. We started getting restless & we kept calling the captain several times who just said that he's on his way to pick us up. After a long time waiting & the wind speed was steadily increasing, finally he showed up.
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| Ximo Teruel |
What was wrong ? He deeply apologized about being so late. It seemed that he was facing a problem. This Captain is so punctual & we are not used to him being late. He said: Guys the boat was stuck in the sand !!! it took me allot of time & help to have it float in the sea. It seems that the Lunar Eclipse did its game. He explained that when he & the crew woke up to find the boat laying on the sand because of the low tide, & how they managed to push it afloat. To picture the scene; it is considerably a large & heavy boat with an outboard engine.
Well we take off, sailing the roller coaster. The waves rocked us like kids playing in a large blue amusement park. The Captain knows us quite well & he was as usual, so enthusiastic however so worried about the wind. He was motivating us all the time. Probably because when he asked about Ximo, we told him that he have unfortunately passed away back home in Spain.
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| Ximo Teruel |
We did not take any pictures of this wonderful trip. Where we paid condolences at sea in the same spots we last dived with Ximo. It was his last dive too in the same place. We kept on hunting & drifting all day long. Listening to nothing but our snorkels whistling as the wind blew air inside them. I have came to certain areas where I remembered while I'm drifting & coordinating with Ximo how will we hunt this space. Pretty sad. Anyway the couple of pictures in this post are from our last trip with Ximo on April 15th 2011.
We got a large icebox filled with decent fish for the team on that day. Enough to go back home & enjoy a wonderful sea food meal with the family. We enjoyed every moment although windy days are pretty tight. We all agreed that we should not extend our trip further & start heading back safely to harbor. A nice & to the point "Mazameer" trip. One last thing that I have intended to include in this post. Is the video of the tribute to Ximo that includes a footage to his last dive with me on 15 April 2011.
The Summer is quite short this year here at our ends, so I will be back soon to tell the story of our big bash in July with the Red Sea Hogs
