Roi of the Week

A 2 pounder from Oahu's South Shore, poached in shoyu and ginger water, thrown on a salad, and topped with Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce and pepper.

Today's Special: Invasives

How exactly they chose these fish for introduction, I'm not sure.  But they couldn't have picked easier fish to spear.

Ono Recipes

I'm trying to get more kinetic on posting on here.  I'm already falling slightly behind on my roi diet, but I'm diving tomorrow, so I'm sure I can grab one and catch up.  I want to make ceviche with it.  I think it will be the perfect texture for that.

The reason I haven't eaten roi this week, is because I have so many other fish to go through already- most notably some ono.

I mentioned to Mikey the other day that ono is one of my favorite fish.  "For what?" he asked.  "To shoot, to eat, to see?"  The answer is: all of the above.

The ono looks like a good sports car, sleek and refined but still somehow mean and dangerous.  It moves nonchalantly, like a master predator should.  You'll never see one having a panic attack like an uhu, or hovering about brainlessly like a roi.  They're so cool, but most of all, I just like to eat them.  I really like eating them.

I have some steaks to cook this evening.  I haven't thought about how I'll cook them yet.  You don't have to think about it.  If you've arrived at this article to learn an ono recipe, quit wasting time.  Just put it in a pan and shake some pepper on it.  Or don't even do that; just go raw.  Anyway, we should both get going... every second we spend here is a second of ono hunting lost.

Roi Diet

I've always thought that the hysteria around roi was a witch hunt.  I've read studies claiming that half the roi population is ciguatoxic.  Yet, not only do they continue to show up in markets and restaurants, people continue to buy and eat them.  Granted, someone could get sick from roi and we wouldn't necessarily hear about it.  But literally thousands are eaten, and we never read of an episode like this: http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2009/Nov/09/ln/hawaii911090324.html  And even if ciguatera hits don't make mainstream news, word gets around among divers.  I know of several people who have had ciguatera.  I can think of two cases from tableboss, one from uku, several from knifejaws (don't eat them), but only one possible case of cig from roi, despite the fact that I believe many more roi are consumed than the previously mentioned fish (maybe not uku).
To my knowledge, the studies done on ciguatera in roi have all used tests that have proven faulty (i.e. the discontinued product "Cigua-Check").  In an effort to conduct an experiment of my own, I'm going to eat a roi every week in 2012.  If only 2% of roi are hot, I'm statistically likely to get hit from my 52 roi at some point during the year.  So far I've eaten one from the south shore and one from the east side.  Out of laziness I baked both with only garlic salt.  I also ate the head of one (reputedly the most toxic part).  One was slightly overcooked, but still far superior to uhu.  Stay tuned for 50 more roi recipe reviews.

Beach Tax

There are many natural phenomena that pertain to the sport of spearfishing.  For example, the shifting of the tides, the migrational patterns of fish, and the symbiotic relationships between many of the ocean's creatures, just to name a few.  But there are also many societal phenomena that are less well known.  Like how people always want a closer look at long blades, or how security always gets called when you dive in the country club's koi pond.  But perhaps the least known and poorest understood of these phenomena is the way people gravitate towards a full kui (stringer).  It's easier to drag a side of beef through the lion cage at the zoo than to get a full kui from the beach to your car.  Perhaps rather than using a kui we should use grocery produce bags.  No one would ever stop to take a look at your newly acquired head of cabbage.  If we came out of the water with a bag of McDonald's no one would ask for some, but people are just all too glad to relieve you of any excess fresh fish.  

Take this recent story as an example: It started one evening with me checking the weather forecasts: winds, waves, and second opinions on winds and waves.  It's what I do 90% of the time I'm not diving.  However, unlike the usual forecast of brisk tradewinds and high surf on the north shore, this time the prognosis was for light and variable winds and calm surf.  I had a number of things to do the next day, like clean the pizza boxes off my floor and attend to work which I had been neglecting even more than normal lately.  But those things would have to wait.  Working on a day like the one predicted could only be done by a spearfisherman in his right mind, and there's very few of those.  Besides, I needed to catch some fish to barbeque when my family got together on the weekend.  With that, my trip was justified. 

The next day turned out to be just what they forecasted (I didn't expect that); the Pacific was like a giant aquarium.  A "touch tank" to be more precise.  Assisted by the great conditions, I filled my kui with 4 uhus (parrotfish), 2 mus (bigeye emperor), a nice kali (goatfish), 1 papio (jack), several toaus (snappers), and a few nice, red menpachi (soldierfish).  As I lifted all the fish out of the water the metal bar of the kui dug deep into my fingers, gracing me with the pains of a successful spearfishing session. Unfortunately for my dive buddy, he had some technical difficulties, sinus difficulties, and lack of skill difficulties.  Like a kid on an Easter egg hunt he searched for a nice blue uhu, but when he came up empty I didn't think twice about giving him mine.  

After unloading that fish I strained to drag the rest up to the shower. There I saw my old friend Kimo, who had just finished paddling and was rinsing off.  He noticed my nice catch and remarked that it's been awhile since he had stuffed uhu.  Happy to help a friend, I parted way with one of the three, heaved the rest over my shoulder, and continued towards my car.  Visions of Chinese style steamed fish, baked fish, pan fried fish, beer battered fish, raw fish, grilled fish, and many more recipes danced through my head and tantalized my starved stomach. I was stopped by a few people who walked from across the street wishing to take a look at the fish I had gathered just offshore.  Glad to show respect for the locals, I handed off a couple toau.  A lady nearby mentioned that she, too, lived across the street.  Accustomed to taking hints from women, I doled out the rest of my toau.  I picked up my kui, still fairly full, and moved on to the car. 

Before I left I figured I should give thanks to the lifeguard for always watching over us.  I gave him a couple menpachi.  He thanked me for helping fee his family.  "I've got a biiiig family," he remarked pointedly, prompting me to pull a couple more off the kui.  "And my wife looooves sashimi."  Waving goodbye to my papio, I gathered what was left into a cooler.  I still had a nice variety of fish, so I headed to my dive buddy's house to drop him off and get more ice.  

While unloading my car, I found out his dad was setting up for a party.  The driveway, street, and some of the yard started to fill with cars of party guests, so I moved down the street a ways.  While I was gone, party guests, naturally attracted to coolers, discovered my fish.  Of course I wasn't going to refuse to donate my uhus to a good cause like a party.  One of the guests also requested a delicious mu be added to the menu.  I shrugged and watched the fruits of my 3 minute underwater tactical ambush disappear.  The danger of losing fish to sharks was beginning to look mundane and highly over rated.  Before I could leave I learned that the party was held to celebrate a birthday.  WIth a pick of any fish, it was obvious what the birthday girl would choose.  Having lost my kali, I grabbed the kui in my fingers and flung the remaining fish in the cooler, my spirit bearing the heavy burden of the light catch. What was left was barely enough for dinner Friday.  Forget about dinner the rest of the week, or even that night.  I didn't have time to cook anyway.  Instead I just grabbed a pizza.  I heard winds were forecasted to be light, so I had to get home to dry my gear and call into work in preparation for the next day of diving.  

About the author: Derek LeVault is an avid spearo and has enjoyed writing ever since he learned the alphabet at age 17.  Though the account you just read is based on a true story, it is not the author's personal story, as he is incapable of catching such amounts of fish.

Fluid Goggles

A high volume mask is like a parasite to the freediver, sapping precious, life-giving air every time it needs equalized on descent.  The primary feature divers look for in a mask is low volume.  Low volume is to a mask what 4G is to the cell phone, what moist and chewy is to the cookie.  It is an integral feature of a good mask.  In fact, it's so important, I say let's go off the deep end (I wish I named my podcast that- "off the deep end"), and say "Why stop at low volume?  Why not... no volume!"

How can you achieve "no volume?"  How do you eliminate that parasitic airspace required for sight?  The fluid goggle, that's how.

Fluid goggles use special lenses that allow you to flood the airspaces with water and still focus.  Bye bye mask equalization, and as a side benefit, you can wear a nose clip, allowing for hands free equalization of your sinuses.  Before we get too carried away, I should offer the disclaimer that you do sacrifice some clarity of vision.  You can't see nearly as well as you could with a standard mask.  But make no mistake, they're still awesome.

So where has this treasure been hiding all your life?  Well, you could buy them online from LiquiVision or Martin Stepanek.  I'm sure these are fine products, but what I would recommend is that you simply make your own.

You will need a pair of goggles, of course, and the lenses.  The lenses you need should be 20mm focal length.  The ones I got are medical grade 20x20 lenses from Anchor Optics.  They are part number 23086.

Then you just need to mount them in the goggles.  Put on your goggles and have someone mark where your pupils (use dry erase or a grease pencil) are centered so you know where to place the lens.  I epoxied some acrylic tubing with 20mm ID onto the goggles and slid the lens right in.  I used a pair of goggles I already had, but they eye pieces were a little small and I wasn't able to center the lenses, but they still work pretty well... at all depths without equalization!

Training Schedule

Here's what I'm going to do in order to try to increase my max constant weight depth from 220 ft to 300 ft:

October:

• Begin aerobic base training
• mainly long, slow bike rides
• Begin weight training
• lift a few times a week as a second priority to cardio work

November:

• Apex of aerobic base training
• Goal: 100 mile bike ride mid-month
• Begin harder cardio work
• intervals, working to (supposed) VO2 max, etc
• Continue with weights

December:

• Final month of dry land training
• Aerobic workouts
• Goal: 18:30 5K
• Weight lifting/ strength training (becoming priority over cardio)
• Goal: 20 pullups (increasing squat performance is a more prominent concern, but this is only a goal if I buy more weights for my "home gym")

January:

• Begin apnea and in-water training
• statics, FRC, VW dives
• Continue with brief cardio or weight circuits a few times a week

February:

• Conclude training by month's end.
• Goal: 300ft/91m constant weight dive

Everyday:

• stretching and breathing
• Goal: increase TLC to 11L and increase FRC depth to 40m
• Priority is always given to spearfishing on days with variables or other favorable conditions

As you can see, I'm not even concerned about getting in the water for the first 60% of my training period.  Hopefully this works.  It seems similar to what some other top divers do (such as Herbert Nitsch and Tanya Streeter).

Send me a message if you have your own program, and make sure to check out the Deeper Perspectives Podcast for updates.  I'll update progress on this blog also.