Spearfishing with Tepapa
29 August 2014 | Bora Bora
Eric
At about 730 in the morning Tepapa cruised on by in his small aluminum boat, and we all went out the pass. After saying a prayer to keep us safe in the water, we slipped in and did some deep diving. Tepapa is a stud, and was hanging out at about 80 feet for a solid minute on the bottom. Rob and I were not quite so solid in our diving, but improved throughout our session. I definitely hit some record dives for myself (while spearfishing that is) and probably hung out at 80 feet for a little bit trying to sneak up on some fish that were deeper down the dropoff - a futile effort, clearly. Tepapa said he saw a small dogtooth tuna, and that got us fired up. He had mostly been diving off by himself a little ways down the reef, with Rob and me hanging together.
I looked up to get my bearings on the boat, as I do frequently, and was not happy to see that the boat had dragged its anchor and was floating off to sea. Rob and I started to swim fast toward the boat, but it was a good couple hundred yards away. We eventually closed the gap, got the engine started, and re-anchored in a slightly shallower spot. Tepapa had set a nearly 1-to-1 scope on the anchor, and each wave that rolled out the pass pushed the boat a foot or so farther. Eventually, the boat was over the dropoff and couldn't grip the reef any more. Thankfully we got the boat back and secured the anchor well under a rock.
More excitement was to come though. We continued to dive, but now were much closer to Tepapa, just watching to see his technique and trying to replicate. He'd dive down on the dropoff, and lay motionless on the botom just looking over the edge of the underwater mountain. I watched Tepapa swim up after a long dive, and just as he reached the surface, he twitched slightly, and started to slip back down under the water. I saw his hands go limp, dropping his gun and his snorkel (he pulls the snorkel out of his mouth and holds it while he dives). I immediately dropped my gun (which was attached to my float system) and dove down after him. I pulled him up to the surface, and Rob was right there to grab him as well and help hold him up. He came to, coughed a bit, and thrashed around, clearly scared and not understanding fully what had just happened. We held his head out of the water, and tried to comfort him, just telling him he was OK and to breathe. He thankfully slowly regained his composure, started breathing more normally, and was ok to swim on his own. As he was recovering, I tried to keep my eye on his gear slowly sinking to the bottom. We were diving the dropoff, so his gun and snorkel eventually settled quite deep down - probably around 80-90 feet. I steeled myself, did a laughably mediocre breath-up and dove down. I spied his snorkel and gun right next to it, and grabbed each piece of gear, very much near my depth limit. Still shaken from his blackout, Tepapa could only muster a humble thank-you for both helping him resurface and for grabbing his gear. We decided to call it a day.
He dropped us back off at our boat, and we told him to just hang out for a little. We chatted, and took a couple pictures with him. He eventually had to go to work, so we said our goodbyes, and were sad to see him go. Later that day, he swung back over. He had clearly been thinking about our morning while at work, and the gravity of the situation had sunken in. He was endlessly thankful for what we'd done for him, and he said that he really wanted to give us his gun. The gun is a beautiful wooden masterpiece that he had made by hand, with an integral wooden grip, and external firing mechanism. It's gorgeous, and had taken him many days to complete. We told him we simply could not take the gun, since he needed it. He said, OK how about we trade? Then he can shoot fish and show us the fish he's taken with our gun and we can shoot fish and send him pictures of what we've captured using his gun. We liked the idea, so Rob traded his Mako enclosed track 110 for the gun. We gave him a spare shaft too, even though he insisted he buy the shaft. We told him no way, it's a gift. He was so grateful for everything. We had rescued his boat and saved his life all in one morning! The guy was so humble and just couldn't be more grateful. We said a long goodbye, telling each other that we'd be in touch and that we'd never forget what had happened that day.
The Lord was clearly watching out for us that morning. We had been diving separately all morning, and had only come back over near Tepapa minutes before his blackout dive. This was no coincidence, and I can't say how powerful it was that we were able to be there just at the right time and place to help our friend. Thank you God. Tepapa, bro, be safe out there!