We have been asked by a group of Hawaiian guys to charter them a spearfishing trip around Lombok. After a quick chat we decided to go to Sumbawa due to better weather conditions and more flexibility in the fish species.
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| Starting Day |
Sumbawa is around 8hours away by Car and FastBoat. And lots of waiting for all the transports. But currently one of the safest routs and only way to not spend lots of money on extra luggage cost in flying. Since we have been a group of 5 people. All with super heavy spearfishing gear and filming + camera equipment we decided that we will take the car route which is Island hopping. We started at 6 in the Morning and met at the KFC in Sanur, we got picked up by the boat companies private car so we can fit all our gear in and don't be in the way of other travelling customers that would complain that we take to much spaces away, we almost didn't fit in.
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| Baha Baha Villas from the top deck |
We crossed Lombok, jumped over with the fast boat to Sumbawa and got picked up by the owner of Baha Baha Villas, Sean. Quick 20 minute ride and we where in the Hotel, and waiting for our dinner. And the story exchanges began. Since Baha Baha was freshly opened up everyone was excited to be one of the first customers in the Villas.
With our luck the power turned off for the first night, but the problem was solved in around 3 hours. Well we didn't expect an instant fix since we are in the Jungle and its OK if something runs out and simple you just gotta deal with it.
We started to prepare our gear for tomorrow and packed our bags , went to bed early so we are fit for tomorrow. Everything was organised for the next day to go.
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| Warung Mamas |
Day - 1 Arrival
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| Hubert checking out the swell |
We woke up at 6am and had a quick small breakfast so we have energy for the whole day in the boat and for the diving. Packed up the truck with all the bouys and spearguns and we sit in the back of the pick up and went for a ride to our location where the boatman was waiting for us. It was decided the night before that we are not going to go super hard out on the first day so we went to a Reef fishing spot where we hoped to find some snappers and Maori seaperch/ Spanish Mackrel / Trevallies.
We started at a depth of 5-10m to warm ourselves up, we made team of 3 and 2 to stay safe, we swam against the current for a bit and then actually started drifting. After a couple of minutes we spotted some Jobfish and Black Sand snappers, everyone had some practice shots and Justin and Hubert landed one each.
The rest was not so trigger happy since everyone was hoping for something big to pass by. We decided to swap the spot pretty soon and tried to find some GT’S we went to our GT spot and as soon as we arrived we saw how rough it was.
Despite the weather conditions , we gave it a try and jumped into the water. Since we know that Giant Trevallys like it with some white was on the side of the coast. The depth was abit deeper around 15-30m was the hunting range. I’ve spotted a big spanish Mackrel on my first drop to 21m but as i was on the way up, i didn't decide to do a turn. Told the guys up top to drop down and have a look and give it a try. But the Mackrel was a bit shy.
After spending around 2hours trying for GT’s we drifted with the current around the corner and tried to hunt for other reef and pelagic species. Close to 7hours in the water and not much success we decided to go home, we did end up with caught fish and a happy finished first day.
In Baha Baha we had our chef taking care of the fish and he actually filleted it and made us prefect indonesian curry with it. - Delicious After we had dinner , its was the only way - off to bed , get well rested and get ready for another 6 am wake up call.
Day 2 Spearing Madness
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| Victory Pose |
Packed the Pick-up-truck and off we went to Maluk which is 20 minutes drive of the hotel to our boatman. Loaded up the boat and we headed for some bigger pelagic.
On our arrival the water looked bit murky , we jumped in and stayed at the spot. It was quite active, on my jump in and drift with the current i managed to load the gun , done my first dive and spotted a nice sized Bluefin trevally, and managed to land it. The hopes of the whole team went up so everyone started to get into a nice hunting mood.
We kept on dropping deep to around 30m (100feet) to spot nice sized fish, our main priority have been dogtooth tuna and GT’S. Justin Baluch dropped down on the flasher and managed to shot a nice rusty job fish, which is well worth a trophy and a good tick off the list.
After him i’ve went down and spotted few Dogtooth tuna , managed to shot a small one around 8kg and we got pumped to hunt, Justin Mack decided to go down and have a go, he dropped to around 25-30m / 75-100feet and actually managed to spot a bigger doggie, but it didn't want to come close so he didn't go for a shot. That day was full of action, soon on my next dive I've spotted a school of African Pompanos and managed to land TWO in separated dives.
The Sashimi for that day was sorted!!! We had Bluefin trevally , African Pompano and Dogtooth tuna, which was delicious that day, after so many deep dives you definitely love some good food, especially when its caught by your group! Hard earned dinner. Thats why we go and spearfish!
Off to Bed after a successful day of hunting.
Day 3 Relaxed Freediving
We’r on the boat and the conditions at the spot we wanted to go didn't look so good so we headed to another place, we did few dives and couldn't find much. So we kept on moving around, but that day was pretty average , spotted many GT’s but they haven't been coming close or been super shy , maybe it was the excitement that kept on scaring them away. We did end up having food, and a good day diving. It was rather a quite diving day, and the fish we really spooky. So we called it pretty quick and also decided that we are going to take a day off and rest on the next day.
Day 4 Motorbike Madness
On that day everyone slept in , we started our breakfast and decided what we’r gonna do, we borrowed the Motorbikes of Baha Baha Villas and head out with Indra Pastra the local spearfishing legend and professional tour guide for a run out into the jungle to do a short sight seeing and to jump off some waterfalls.
Our way was to see some cliffs and check the nature out , we started driving and had super fun on the way there , you know what happen when you put 6 guys on Motorbikes and let them drive around on endless empty roads. hahaha!!! We had go-pros out and filming our pure madness runs. Arrived at our destination and shot some pics, watches the nature do its things the cliffs were awesome.
After around 30 minutes of cliff staring , we started heading back and shot few pictures on the way back. Which turned out awesome having a professional photographer with you pays out, Justin Mack does some amazing shots and he's super talented.
As soon as we arrived back at Baha Baha we had a quick lunch and decided to head of to the waterfalls at around 13:00 which was a kinda catchy decision.
On the way to the waterfalls i went through a puddle of mud on the offload bike and lost the chain , luckly indra my best local friend took care of that issue and called the mechanic to fix it!! so we continued to the waterfalls by ourselves. The walk was around 30minutes into the jungle following the water noise, it was going up hill , which ended up in quite a exercise on our rest day.
Arriving to the waterfalls we looked up a spotted a group of locals grilling some fish right next to the waterfall. To bed our young generations don’t do such things these days.
We started doing some jumps into the water from the rocks as the locals showed us where to actually jump in. It was an around 8m jump at it was a pure adrenaline kick as done for the first time! Shortly after the whole waterfall fun we headed back to Baha Baha and enjoyed another amazing fish dinner, ping pong and lots of fun stories. And as every evening we decided to make a new plan for tomorrow on where were going to hit the sea!
Day 5
We decided to not make it such a long day since we have been spearing awhile and got one more day to go, so we went to our GT spot we started shallow , and went deeper. With not much luck during the day, only few small fish, a small Golden Trevally and a job fish as sashimi. I spotted few Giant Trevallys by the end of the day but they have not been interested in coming close, also there was rain chasing us so we decided to call it earlier then expected.
Day 6 Special Suprise
That was one special day..... The night before we decided on what we would like to do, 2 of us said that they are going to enjoy the land for abit and stayed at home. Vikram and Shane decided to give it another go on the last day of the Sumbawa trip.
So we left to the Harbour and on the spot waiting for the boat, the boatman called us and said that his engine wont start up... we thought that we are doomed and our hopes where low, but luckly the King of Hospitality of Sumbawa THE man, Indra did few phone calls and said that he knows someone with a boat that would take us if we share the fish with him. So without long of a deciding we called it a GO! We left the harbour , drove 30minutes to Indras friends place, carried the engine on the boat, bought the fuel... everything was pretty hectic because we saw big black clouds rocking up that where just behind the village we left. So we hurried up , heartbeats pumping because we know that there is just one time frame in this special day to catch some fish. Due to that moon phase we wanted to be exactly at that time in the water, and not later.
Luckly we managed to make it 10 minutes prior to our peak time in the water on the spot. We had no chance to warm up the current was pumping, we sorted ourselves our pretty quick and stayed in one spot that was protected from the current, one after another we started diving. Each dive we started noticing more and more fish where coming up and are interested from Rusty job fish to Green Job fish, small Bluefin trevallys but nothing really in size. Suddenly 8 minutes past peak time the water changed its colour, like some sort of magical moment. I dived down to around 25m and spotted Rainbow runners , i did not bother shooting after around a 25second bottom time i started coming back up and in the left corner i spotted few doggies crusing below the rainbows.
I went up and said to Vikram to go down , he went down to about 15m and Shane and I just heard a shot and saw a quick sliver flash. I thought he shot a rainbow runner because the floats had no pull on , nothing was moving... on the way up you could see his smile , as soon as he surfaced he yells out” OH MY GOD I FREAKING STONED IT, I FREAKING STONED IT” we where excited and knew with the reaction that i was a healthy dogtooth tuna worth 10KG. The whole group of us was so excited that we didn't notice the coming up clouds of rain and bad weather, we quickly loaded the Dogtooth on the boat and called it a day due to raising swell... managed to carry the boat back up the beach and relax for abit. While waiting for the pickup. Indra called up and asked if the got anything, just to play up a game we said that we didn't even see a fish.
As soon as he came to pick us up in the dripping rain , he spotted the fin sticking out of the esky. And laughed “hahah you guys are stinky liars” We then headed back to Baha Baha , where Justin Mack and Justin Baluch where chilling out and doing some bintangs, we didn't carry the esky in first. Pretending that we didn't catch anything and walked in quite sad, they asked “Did you guys get anything?” Vikram looked at Justin M, and went from a sort of Sad face to a screaming “YEA MAN WE GOT A DOGTOOTH TUNA” , they didn’t believe us , everyone was sceptic on that point until he showed them the doggie, everyone was screaming and high-fiving each other, we where so pumped that we got it, due to such a bad start. Luckly we didn't let those issues put our heads down and moved on with each opportunity that rocked up and just solved the problems.
On that evening we enjoyed some more fresh doggie sashimi, shared it with the man that helped us with the boat and the staff of Baha Baha, as everything worked out well that day, that fish was such hard work it even tasted better then usual!!
As the night finished we packed up our bags for departure on the next morning at 6:30am. Thats how few days spend in a magical spot ended up being a super fun trip , with spectacular views , stories, fun time and of course strong new friendships from another side of the world.
Photos by Justin Mack and Justin Baluch , thank you!!
