I have very fond memories of my time at Utila Dive Center as an instructor trainee. The waters were wonderful, the people friendly and knowledgeable, the location beautiful, and the après-diving monumental. I cannot wax lyrical enough about UDC and its denizens, suffice to say that I received the best dive training in the Americas whilst having a Whale(shark) of a time.
One of the highlights of those fun times was the weekly UDC staff/trainee dive that took place every Sunday if memory serves me well. The occasion gave us lucky few the opportunity to dive without vexing about the exact sequence for demonstrating how to remove and replace a mask, or worrying about accompanying green fun divers or Open Water students – we were free to just be. The first time going on one of these dives I felt a sense of privilege at being included amongst scuba diving’s best of the best and of course we went deeper and we lasted longer; the freedom down there was palpable. After my initial illusions of grandeur wore off, I realised that maybe I should spend the time on land instead, to rest and recuperate before the next round of instructor training dives; that never happened though, I kept going, and it was all because of a fish.
The second time I ventured forth for my ‘freedom’ dive I noticed a UDC member of staff on the boat with some peculiar, extra equipment. Aside from the usual scuba paraphernalia, there were some heavy-duty gloves, a half-metre long white plastic tube with a one-way opening on one end and a handle along the side, and also a wicked-looking three-pronged spear with rubber tubing attached to it. Interest sparked, I sidled over to the member of staff (who shall remain nameless at this time, not because of anything untoward but based on the fact that I cannot for the life of me remember his name. Thirteen years distant and hundreds of dives later, one can be excused for forgetting a dive buddy’s name off the top of one’s head and God knows where the log book from that pre-digital era resides to help de-fog the brain), I asked him what he was going to do with the strange equipment and when I found out, immediately informed him that I was joining him on his dive. Luckily for me, he ceded to my request and that was that. The equipment was for hunting and collecting lionfish from the reef – I was fascinated.
Why? How? What for? All these questions bandied about in my head until it was explained to me. Lionfish were an invasive species in Caribbean waters, they had no predators, were consuming an alarming amount of smaller and juvenile fish, and also came to maturity extraordinarily fast. These facets of lionfish biology had led to a proliferation of their numbers and something needed to be done to counter their negative effect on the Caribbean ecosystem. Hunting and culling lionfish had begun to aid the situation.
No one is sure how lionfish arrived in the Caribbean. Urban legend would have you believe that six lionfish escaped from a flooded Florida aquarium during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and thereafter populated the whole region. A more likely scenario is that people dumped unwanted lionfish from their home aquariums into the sea, and the rest is history. Regardless of how they got there though, having followed the nameless UDC staff diver around on that second freedom dive, I knew that I wanted a crack at them. The Greek in me wanted the opportunity to spear fish while scuba diving (an illegal practice in Greek waters), but the rest of me, the sea and sea-creature and nature-loving side of me, wanted to help alleviate a potential environmental catastrophe. I trained up with Josiah ‘Juicy’ Mackin, one of my instructors at the time and current UDC head honcho, who had created his very own Caribbean Lionfish Containment Diver PADI specialty, and I was good to go. The freedom dives offered me the perfect opportunity to practice my lionfish culling skills and I took full advantage.
Most of our freedom dives took place at an offshore seamount site called ‘Black Hills’. The boat would moor above the top of the mount, which started about 10 metres below the surface. I would suit up, giant stride into the water, make my way down the mooring line and then proceed to descend to about thirty metres. Working in a circular pattern around the seamount, gradually getting shallower, I would look for lionfish and eventually work my way back to the mooring line for my safety stop after three-quarters of an hour or so. Using my pole spear (Hawaiian Sling) I would collect as many lionfish as possible in the allotted time and carefully place them in a plastic tube containment device. Upon returning to UDC the lionfish containment divers would collect and tally their fish for scientific purposes and afterwards lionfish cookouts often occurred – a very tasty fish and also a healthy one to consume as the species’ fast maturity rates meant less time for heavy metals to be absorbed.
After half a dozen or so lionfish containment dives, I had become pretty adept at finding, spearing, and containing the fish, and it felt quite fulfilling doing my bit for the local ecosystem whilst having a good time doing it. On one occasion the ‘call of the cull’ persuaded me to go on the freedom dive even though the skies were partially cloudy and the winds brisk. The weather and sea conditions created an otherworldly atmosphere below the surface with plenty of snow (suspended marine sediment) stirred up, and with shadows and light constantly changing as clouds sped across the path of the sun. I spotted my first lionfish of the day as I was descending to the deepest part of the dive; I positioned myself, drew back the rubber tubing, and slingshot the pole spear right into the midriff of the unsuspecting individual. As I pulled the pole spear with the victim away from under the overhanging rock where my target had slunk, a dark shadow appeared in my peripheral vision above and to the right of me. It was not a trick of the light or the shade of a passing cloud or another diver, it was a huge grouper and he was eyeballing me. I am not going to lie, the sudden appearance of this goliath grouper scared the bejesus out of me for a few heartbeats until I could register that I was face to face with an overgrown sea puppy. After a few moments passed the grouper’s gaze started shifting between me and what was on the end of my spear – was this behemoth eyeing up a free meal? I remember thinking that that couldn’t be right. Spontaneously I pulled the lionfish off the business end of the spear, herded it towards the grouper, and in a blur, it opened its huge maw and sucked in my offering. This bolt from the blue was quickly followed by another and another, as I served two more lionfish to the grouper. I was excited, what if grouper could get used to eating lionfish and eventually started predating on them? Lionfish containment in the Caribbean would be sorted. Of course that was a huge jump from offering a few skewered lionfish to an individual grouper but it felt like the start of something. It goes without saying that no one believed my fish tale afterward, but I didn’t care; I knew I had experienced something wonderful.
A week later and still excited about the last time I had been there, I entered the water and slowly dropped down towards the reef. Before long my shadow appeared from nowhere and started following me. Every time I hit a lionfish, Gary (as I affectionately called the grouper) would sidle over in front of the spear and wait for his snack patiently. Lionfish consumed, I would swim on with my shadow following attentively behind me.
On one occasion with Gary in tow, I could not find any lionfish (a good thing). Suddenly, Gary zoomed off about ninety degrees away from my path, stopped about ten metres away, and turned and looked at me. I remember thinking that this fish was trying to get me to follow him. Not possible. But I did, and sure enough behind the rock that Gary was perched above, there were three lionfish! Mind blown.
Inevitably my time at UDC came to an end and therefore so did my dives at Black Hills with my buddy Gary. Unlike the nameless and faceless UDC staff member, I can still see Gary clear as day in my mind’s eye and often think about him and hope he’s still enjoying engulfing lionfish to this day. Lionfish are still a huge problem in the Caribbean and unfortunately, they’ve found their way into the Mediterranean and my home waters around Andros. We do not have many ‘Garys’ left in our overfished and unprotected waters and spear-gunning is still illegal with scuba gear in Greece but hopefully, exceptions will be made in the future and the hunt can begin anew. But that is a story for another day.
