Omer 5th Annual Hatteras Blue Water Open
Posted By John Liang on 17 August 2006
Runaway Freediving
For someone who’s always wanted to find out how a major spearfishing tournament takes place, the Omer 5th Annual Hatteras Blue Water Open is a pretty good place to start.
The day before the start of competition and after the athletes’ and boat captains’ briefings, tournament organizer Mark Laboccetta hooked me up with Captain John Olney, whose 42-foot custom sportfishing boat “Runaway” would play host to five top-tier spearfishermen from California as well as one wet-behind-the-ears (as far as spearfishing is concerned) journalist on the first day of competition.
The contestants I hung out with on Day 1 of the tournament may have varied in age, but all were accomplished athletes in this sport, ranging from Larry Schuldt of Ukiah, CA, who retired from serious international competition about six years ago but still comes back to Hatteras every year, to multiple-time world champion Billl Ernst of Malibu, to last year’s Hatteras champ Brandon Wahlers – a college student – to Richard Balta and Ralph Tiemann.
When I asked Schuldt at one point while he rested in between dives why he keeps coming back to Hatteras, he said it was because “you can’t get this [kind of competition] at home.”
On Friday, July 28, my cellphone alarm chirped me awake at 5:30am, and I could hear the wind rustling the leaves outside my tent in the National Park Service’s campsite. Located in the neighboring village of Frisco, the campsite has a commanding view of the ocean, which on this day was churning with small whitecaps.
I arrived at the Teach’s Landing Marina in Hatteras Village a little after 6am, and once everyone had gotten their gear aboard and signed the requisite “I-promise-not-to-sue -you-if-a-shark-bites-my-family-jewels-off” liability forms, Runaway’s mate Nathan – a recent English-major graduate of East Carolina University – cast off the lines and Captain John got us under way.
On the way out, the five divers stretched out on the bunks in Runaway’s cabin and closed their eyes, trying to grab an extra hour of sleep during the transit out to the Gulf Stream. Once we cleared the lee side of Hatteras Island and moved into the open ocean, Runaway began to rise and fall into the wind, shrugging off the waves with aplomb.
About an hour and a half later, we arrived at the site of the wreck of the British Splendour, which was sunk April 7, 1942, by a German U-boat. Her hull rests in 100 feet of water, and is either a home or stopping point for Amberjacks, Spadefish, Baitfish, Barracudas, as well as African Pompano, Cobias and sharks that cruise the water about midway between the wreck and the surface.
The five men had started suiting up a little while before we arrived over the Splendour. Once we got there, Runaway’s capable mate Nathan sprang into action, helping the divers get their gear ready, tossing their floats over the side and holding their spearguns until they had slipped over the side.
I had brought my gear -- full-length skinsuit, 1.5-mm long-sleeve shortie wetsuit, mask, snorkel and long as well as short fins -- with me, with the intention of floating and following the divers along the surface, taking pictures with my new handy-dandy underwater digital camera as they dove and came back up. But the camera turned out to be not-so-dandy and even-less-handy, with the (what I thought was a fully charged) battery somehow inexplicably draining itself of power in about five minutes.
Once we had arrived at the wreck, I did actually suit up, but one more look out at the three- to five-foot seas and 12- to 17-knot winds, and I knew the conditions were beyond my comfort level.
I may be a chicken, but at least I’m a PROUD chicken! :-)
Probably the best thing about this group of guys – who ranged in age from college student to pending retiree – was that all of them sincerely supported my decision to stay aboard; no stupid macho challenges anywhere.
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