2014 Port Elizabeth Spearfishing Nations Day 1

Day 1 Leader Charlie Myburgh

This year’s nationals in PE got off to a great start!
We have a really good attendance this year with 8 teams participating in the competition, with a nice surprise in that EP represented a Veteran’s team as well.
We had the re appearance of the Western Province teams which was super encouraging to see!

Day 1 kicked off with a beautiful sunny day (never guaranteed in the windy city) so we decided to take full advantage of the conditions and run the team event as well as an individual event overlapping on the same day. The conditions in PE can be quite inconsistent hence deciding to run these 2 categories together.

Great conditions for Day 1 at SA Spearfishing Nationals

Conditions in the morning were light winds and the sea swell slightly large but not too bad and the visibility looked really good. We wasted no time and all headed out and met on the backline Richard Snoek Lenard blew the hooter and it was go time. The day went off very well. It was quite a scratch as there weren’t too many fish around.
This was good in a way for Nationals as it really tests the skill levels of the divers. The first dive area which was chosen for Day 1 was Area One. When we got out there the vis was even better than expected with some marks holding 6-10 meters vis, again excellent conditions for PE.
The wind rose slightly in the afternoon but it wasn’t too bad and the visibility remained very good. The diving was tough however and the fish were not plentiful often found in deeper water, around the 20 meter mark.

12kg White Muscle Cracker - Rupert Dorfiling

All divers were out the water at 2pm and back on the beach for weigh in at 3. We saw some impressive catches coming in one being a 12kg White Musclecracker taken by Rupert Dorfiling. Another great fish that was taken was a good size Yellowtail by Charlie Myburgh. Then lots of other great fish like Miss Lucy’s, Bank Steenbras, Poenskop and many others, with the lucky EP A-Team managing to land a couple nice Bank Steenbras.

Richard Leonard with good size Bankie

So lots of fish taken in some tough conditions hunting wise but disappointingly, no one appeared to have taken their 10 species of fish, but considering the challenging diving, not bad for the first days diving.

Day 1 Results for the South African Spearfishing National Championships as follows:

On day 1 For the Individuals:

• Charlie Mayberg is leading in the individuals category
• Richard Leonard is leading in the development division

Names are in order from first to 10th place:

1. Charlie Mayberg
2. Eugene van Wyngaardt
3. Neil Bamard
4. Guy Le Meme
5. Heinrigh Eksteen
6. Angelo Spada
7. Robert Moreland
8. Graeme Forrer
9. Corrie Versluis
10. Rowan Carter

It looks like we will get another 3 dive days in this week which will nullify the existing individual points standing. We will only be announcing the Team events results at prize giving.