No Sharks Today

By Eric Smith

This is an updated version of my book which covers my life underwater fishing for my country in many far off parts of the world. It includes accounts of shark attacks, wrecks, giant jelly fish, congers and moray eels and the many friends I have made and some I have lost in the pursuit of the sport they loved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447568391

Eric Smith

Eric Smith is a literary agent and young adult author from Elizabeth, New Jersey. His recent books include Don’t Read the Comments, You Can Go Your Own Way, and Jagged Little Pill: The Novel, written in collaboration with Alanis Morissette, Diablo Cody, and Glenn Ballard. Together with award-winning author Lauren Gibaldi, he’s coedited the anthologies Battle of the Bands and First-Year Orientation. He enjoys pop-punk, video games, and crying over every movie. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and son.

Book preview

divers.

EARLY DAYS

So this was False Bay South Africa where all the under water footage of Great White Sharks was filmed for the blockbuster Jaws. As our boat rocked gently in a slight swell rolling up from the Southern Ocean, Steve our boatman for the day pointed to the seals swimming playfully around a small Rock Island. No sharks today, he announced in confident tones, The seals wouldn’t be in the water if there were. He failed to mention the dozen, sitting nervously watching their mates from the safety of a high ledge. Slipping into the water I hoped my tailor made camouflaged wet suit would distinguish me from the jet-black seals and that the sharks could tell the difference. Swimming towards the island my three-foot long plastic bladed fins propelled me through the water with ease, arriving at the breaker line to the honks and clapping of the now excited seals. The ones in the water took no chances; anything bigger than them was classed as very dangerous, causing them to flee in blind panic.

Taking three deep breaths through my snorkel I dived swam gently to the bottom in thirty foot and tucked myself into a gap in the boulders. Sitting dead still and holding my breath I looked out into the open water in the hope of seeing one of the large yellow finned Tuna that frequent these seas, when a movement on my left caught my eye. What I saw made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! A large seal had washed out of the hole next to me in the swell, once bright eyes were dull and lifeless it’s sleek black body was bitten clean in half leaving just the head, shoulders and front fins. The rest of the dive was spent trying to look in every direction at once, with the thought stuck in my mind, how did I ever get involved in such a dangerous but exhilarating sport?

My first recollection of fishing was standing on an arched wooden bridge as a four year old looking into a small clear canal in Cambridgeshire. My father pointed out a six-inch Jack Pike to me as he told me for the umpteenth time to stand very still. His favorite saying was The stiller you stay the more you see. This old country folk law would hold me in good stead for years to come. As we watched, the tiny pike rushed out to ferociously attack a fish twice his size only to be thrown off as his larger victim dived for the cover of a thick reed bed.

Moving with all the stealth a four-year-old could muster and with a fishing rod that seemed to go on forever, I positioned myself in the grass just above the spot where he lay in ambush. Dad had tied a ball of sheep’s wool plucked from a fence straight on to the line and following his instructions I let it sink down in front of the pint sized predator. After eyeing it up for a few moments it sprang, dad knew what he was doing, hooks were not needed, the little fishes teeth were stuck firmly enough in the wool for me to pull him onto the bank with an excited flick of the split cane rod.

A detailed anatomy lesson followed while the game little fish tried to bite anything coming within reach of his small needle sharp teeth. When released from the damp cloth that held him, he gave a little shrug then swam straight back to the same patch of weed to lay in wait for some other poor unsuspecting victim to swim by.

Like most kids I wanted to take the fish home to show my relatives how clever I was but despite my protests they would all be slipped carefully back into the water with only one exception, the Silver Eel. Dad had a special way of catching these long slimy predators, a hessian sack would be half filled with fresh straw, a rock large enough to make it sink and a piece of meat for bait. This was then thrown a few yards out into the canal late in the evening and attached by a rope to a peg in the bank. For some reason it seemed very important to rise before the sun came up to arrive at first light on the riverbank. I trudged along through the dew-wet grass wearing a pair of my aunt’s wellies that were three sizes too large and came way up past my knees to locate the pegs in the half-light. Holding the rope firmly dad would pull the sack out in one fluid movement spraying a large arcing scythe of water over his shoulder, nearly always going over me no matter where I stood. As the contents were emptied onto the grass, sometimes as many as three large eels would slither out looking to me for all the world like huge snakes. My job was to try and catch them before they slid into the damp undergrowth, something I did with great gusto much to the annoyance of my mother. She was the one who had to remove the eel slime off my best little brown coat with its velvet collar which dad in his enthusiasm to show me the ways of the country had not noticed I was wearing.

Some eels would be taken back to my aunt’s house to be expertly skinned and cleaned before being left in salt water over night to take away any muddy taste. They would be fried the next morning in butter on the Aga cooker to be eaten with fresh hot bread taken straight from the lower oven. Nothing was ever wasted; skin, head and any other food left over were boiled up together in a large copper saucepan. This was left to cool in a galvanized bucket before being mixed with water, which like all their sweet tasting water was drawn from an artisan well outside the back door. It was my job, while staying there for my summer holidays, to drag this concoction down to the bottom of their garden to feed the big white pig that always seemed to know I was coming, trying his best to leap over the wall of his sty to meet me. It might be an old cliché but looking back on those summer holidays of my childhood, auntie’s food tasted mouthwateringly fresh and the sun always shone out of a clear blue sky.

Living on the south coast at

Hove in Sussex my interest

soon turned to sea fishing,

with many enjoyable hours

spent without much success

in pursuit of edible fish.

Several different factors

occurred at the age of eleven

to draw me into the

completely different world

of Free Diving. My family

had become the proud

owners of their very own

television set, which stood in

the corner of the front room,

the tiny screen dominated by

its large dark brown cabinet.

In the winter evenings of 1958 we gathered round to watch ‘Sea Hunt’ with the late Lloyd Bridges performing all sorts of underwater feats in the black and white undersea world. It began to dawn on me; I could go in and find the fish rather than wait for them to come to me.

Rummaging through a playmates overburdened toy cupboard in the spring, a large blue round rubber facemask fell out at my feet. It had no glass or strap but with it held to my face I was immediately transformed into my underwater hero Lloyd Bridges. Seeing how much enjoyment it was giving me Mr. Wenban an ex-navy diver told me I could have it, as it was no use to him anymore.

Nothing was ever written off by my ingenious father. An old windowpane was produced from the depths of the shed to be cut, then nibbled with a pair of pinchers until it fitted perfectly into the round hole. An old bike inner tube was given his attention next and a nice springy strap materialized after some deft work with his wallpapering scissors. Swimming fins were needed, so clutching three weeks pocket money dad drove me in his old Ford van full of paint tins and with ladders tied on the roof, down to the local Woolworths store. After much searching we found what we were looking for, the complete diving kit in a polybag for ten shillings and sixpence. This consisted of a pair of blue fins with adjustable straps, a snorkel tube with a ping pong ball in a cage on the end and a face mask that was nothing like Lloyd Bridges, so was sold to a friend for half a crown.

On returning home dad disappeared into the Aladdin’s cave he called his shed to reappear holding a five-foot long brass curtain rod and a four-inch cut nail. The nail was hammered into the rod then heated on the gas stove until it glowed red-hot before being beaten flat on the back door step. After much banging, a file was produced to shape the flattened nail into a pointed arrowhead shape. All that was needed now was a leather belt with a metal coat hanger bent into a circle attached to it, this was to hold all the fish I was convinced I was going to catch.

With all my newly acquired gear strapped on to my red pushbike and accompanied by a gang of other lads similarly attired from Woolworths, we cycled the two miles to the local beach full of anticipation. After much clowning about and posing we swam out to sea in a very tight knit formation fearful of the unknown, young imaginations conjuring up pictures of sharks, giant squids and octopuses. A few yards off the beach I speared a nice sole, which caused great excitement with everyone gathering, round to have a look and feel the roughness of its skin. The cold water of early May soon dampened their enthusiasm, and after half an hour most of the lads swam the short distance to the beach to wrap up in towels and exchange fishy stories about the ones that got away. Bolstered by my earlier success and a good layer of puppy fat I stayed out longer than the others, swimming back on my own an hour later. What looked like a dead fish about six inches wide laying on the sand near the shore attracted my attention and seemed to be the ideal opportunity to try out my new found skills. Pushing my new hand spear through it with some force the bottom erupted as the biggest flat fish I had ever seen emerged from the sand. Forcing my spear two-foot into the bottom and with my snorkel just above the water, it was all I could do to stop the fish swimming off with my much prized curtain rod. Thinking a shark was attacking me, several of my braver schoolmates waded out to help me drag the huge brown and white Turbot up the shingle beach.

Despite shivering uncontrollably from the cold I was the hero of the hour and a large crowd soon gathered to inspect the Turbot, marvel at its size and try to estimate its weight. After turning down many offers to buy it, I struggled home on my bike, the prized fish wrapped in my mum’s best towel, tucked under my arm. Dad was working in the kitchen as I walked in with the sole held proudly in front of me. ‘Well done, son’, he said. ‘At least you caught something’. Gesturing for him to follow, we popped our heads round the corner to see the huge Turbot laid out in the passageway. His face broke into a wide smile as he patted me on the back. Fish was introduced to our menu for the rest of the summer to ease the financial burdens of a large young family growing up in post war Britain.

Several years later and with more money to spare I became the proud owner of a tight fitting stiff rubber wet suit and my first speargun, five foot long and feeling like it weighed a ton, it required the strength of a weight lifter to carry it around for any length of time. It worked by pushing the spear down the barrel compressing a long spring until it locked in behind the trigger. When released, the spear rattled out of the gun sounding like a train leaving a tunnel. It traveled so slowly most of the fish saw it coming and were long gone before it reached them but it was better than my old curtain rod.

The noble sea bass now became my main adversary and armed with the new gun I made my way to Black Rock at the eastern end of Brighton to dive on a line of concrete blocks. These large hard blocks had been laid down by the enterprising Victorians to hold up the rails for a train that ran on stilts above the waves. It had worked well through the first summer, only to be totally destroyed in the first big gale of the winter with the blocks now laying fifteen feet below the surface at obscure angles, forming under hangs and caves with lots of hanging weed. This was the perfect lair for the silver black bass to hide in. Entering the water from a large sea defence now built into the modern day Marina, I swam slowly along following the line of blocks seen clearly fifteen foot below me. The odd fish swam away in front of me until a monster, looking more like a log than a fish disappeared into a hole twenty foot further on. Diving quietly to the bottom full of anticipation I peered into the darkness hoping to see a very large bass, as my eyes became accustomed to the dark, a fish (with a head seemingly as large as a football in the confined space) swam to within an inch of my facemask. It was only when it opened its huge mouth that I realized it was a very bad tempered conger eel. Recoiling so fast that my facemask pulled off I shot to the surface temporarily blinded and well shaken.

This was my first encounter with the conger, a fish of legend on this part of the coast. It was blamed for everything from the loss of countless sets of fishing tackle to the sinking of small boats. I was to meet hundreds more in the following years, only to be bitten twice and neither time too seriously but that first encounter etched into my memory never to be forgotten.

British Record Conger Taken Some Years Later

Emerging from the

sea with a belt full

of prime plaice and soles

in the summer of

1968, Robin Pyle, the

only one of the

original school boys

divers to pursue the

sport and I were

approached by Nick

Reubens of the newly

formed Sussex

Spearfishing Club. He

informed us that hundreds of divers

spread from Cornwall

to Yorkshire took part in the sport and competitions were held throughout the summer months at various locations up and down the country. These competitions produced a British Champion and were used to select the British team to fish in the World Championships, which were held at different exotic locations around the world. We were amazed to find so many people – sixty in the Sussex club alone – participated in the sport we had chosen to follow. We joined on the spot.

Nicky, a great influence on many other young

divers early years, and mine died in a tragic

accident in the spring of 1978 off Cornwall.

Being a larger than life character and a lovable

rogue he was mourned by many.

Arriving for our first Club dive and

immediately nicknamed Fat Man and Robin

we found fifty divers kitted up on the beach

and eager to start. We had never seen so many gathered in one place. As we stood marveling at all the latest guns and suits, which made ours, look positively ancient, a whistle sounded sending them all rushing out to sea in a thrashing racing mass.

Although getting changed as quickly as we could, by the time we entered the water the divers were distant specks further out to sea than we had ever dared to go. Four hours later we arrived back in the car park to find them all gathered around a set of weighing scales supported on a wooden tripod. With only Robin and I to weigh in, the leader so far was proudly standing with two flat fish laid at his feet on a