On 16 April, a night dive like any other, the Love of My Life and I were half way through our dive when I spotted a MONSTER under the water.
My Special Friend was about a metre
to my right, hovering in the water as he so expertly does. Me, I’m more of a
bottom dweller, still perfecting my buoyancy and thus prefer to be closer to
the bottom because when I catch a prawn I get rather excited and tend to hold
my breath. Not a good move underwater because it means I rise slightly in the
water. So, being a bottom-dweller works in may favour when I catch prawns.
The MONSTER I spotted under the water
during this dive was no typical fiend. We have been buzzed by cheeky dolphins
while night-diving and seen seahorses, huge-mungus crabs, flatheads, mantis
shrimp, sea-stars, flounder and mulloway – which grunt incessantly when they
are mating. OMG it’s a sound and a half to hear underwater.
But this was
different and unexpected. It was a Tiger prawn and it was HUGE!
Normally our
catch is river prawns averaging five to eight centimetres. They are a
brown-yellow prawn and are often passed over in favour of our preferred catch of
King Prawns which are generally between 10 and 20 centimetres in length. They
look great underwater and taste amazing especially in my Special Friend’s infamous
garlic prawn nacho tower!
But this Tiger prawn was a MONSTER in
comparison and when I saw it I definitely held my breath. In fact I froze and
my only thought was “I’m not catching that!” I got my Special Friend’s
attention in the only way I know to underwater by erratically flashing my light
in his direction while squealing hysterically to myself.
Well, it worked and my Special Friend
edged his way expertly closer to the MONSTER prawn and strategically lowered
his net over the creature. The seconds seemed like minutes and I had to remind
myself to breath so I would stay close enough to watch...OMG!!!
The moment the Tiger prawn sensed
danger, like any prawn, it jumped, but for this thing it was like a frickin
leap!!! It scared me how quickly it moved and with such power. But my Special
Friend has been doing this for more than 30 years and was therefore ready for
the tactics of mister-not-so-clever-Tiger-prawn – HA!
The prawn scooted up in the net and
was trapped in the top with the other already placated King prawns. The
squealing coming from my direction only subsided after the MONSTER prawn was
safely captured in the top section of my Special Friend’s net – the place of no
return. I was soooo excited; if I hadn’t already been in the water I’m sure I
would have wet my pants!
We celebrated the capture by doing a
dance with our lights on the riverbed and the smile on my face while gripping
my regulator between my teeth let water into my mask, typical but so worth it.
We continued on our dive catching
King prawns here and there but they just didn’t compare.
As we swam along I
kept looking at my Special Friend’s net to make sure the MONSTER had not
escaped and the smile that appeared each time let water into my mask again, so
funny!
When we surfaced the laughter and
excitement continued, packing up and taking photos of our catch which was a
combined effort I must say. I spotted it and the Love of My Life caught it – thank
goodness!
The MONSTER measured a whopping
28centimetres.
Do you like prawns? What is your
favourite dish?
