Portugal

Sinnes Trip 2000

On April the 21^st we landed in Lisbon to be greeted by our hosts, NASAEIST, one of Europe's largest diving Clubs.

Our Host and main contact within the club was Americo Vitorino. Over the last few months much corres -ponding between Americo and L.I.C had gone on to get the 11 members here. Accomodation, transport and boats had all been arranged.

In the 1^st group was Mike Bradshaw, George Balbino, Stuart Elburn, Trevor Leak, Nick McColgan, John Penrith and Paul Maxwell.

The 2^nd group consisting of Kivas Waters, Juan Askew and Poalo de Michelis were due to follow on the 27^th of April and would meet us in Sinnes.

Immediately we were introduced to Vasco Santos, the President of NASAEIST who had a large van waiting. We bundled all our gear into the van and in a convoy of 3 cars we headed out to Vasco's house for a quick snack, beforewe hit the road (a little late as Vasco made the mistake of putting on the video Extreme Spearfishing). After a 5 hour journey we hit the Algarve, Pria de Roche, where we stay for the next few days.

Saturday sees us all up early sussing out the sea. BAD BAD. Fortunately George Balbino's friends from Club ASCAD, Brazil have arrived and whip up a bit of enthusiasm. 4 Scouts launch one of the RIBS out of the river. The rest of us hang out around the slip and restaurants awaiting their return. Ever mischievous Americo goes in search of Mullet with his gun, creeping up the pier firing lying down next to the pillions. This impresses the local fishermen and we bag one for them. Unfortunately it does not impress Timo from Denmark as we loose his spear. Some of the others go off to repair a broken trailer wheel bearing.

The scouts arrive back freezing with bad news. Waters not good, Viz less than 5ft.

Sunday, after a hard night out we head off to Sagres for the day. Reports of cleaner water there make us keen. We eventually launch the boats at 1500hrs. The water looks promising and everyone is a lot happier . These are more like the conditions we expected!

During the day we bag small SeaBass, Mullet, Salpa and Pollock. I was very surprised when a Pollock swam up to me. I thought they did not frequent these parts. My very next fish was another Pollock. On one of the points we see thousands of small swimming crabs in deep water off the cliffs. We are told the SeaBass feed on them but we do not see anything worth shouting about. George also picked up a big Octopus and a crayfish. The general depth of the days diving was 15m.

Monday sees us up early encouraged by the day before; we are really into some decent fishing at last (or so we think). Sagres once again looks promising. Some of Portugal's best fishing areas lies some 6 km North of Sagres so our boat heads out there. After bashing out there for some time we arrive. I bomb down. Viz 0.5m. Definitely a no no, but he sounder shows nice pinnacles and fish.

Begrudgingly we move back towards Sinnes and fish one of the calm bays closer to the launch spot. Vis on the bottom is about 3m. Not too bad for shooting Sargos and SeaBass. There are not many fish around and we soon cover the small bay between the 4 of us. After that we head South of the launch site fishing around a wreck in shallow water. The fish that are around are skittish and move on quickly. We meet one of the other L.I.C boats at the spot and we all have great fun chasing small Sargos and SeaBass in the strong surge. Viz is around 6m.

Tuesday sees us back at Sagres after checking out of the Hotel to head up to Sinnes. Reports from Sinnes are of big ground swell, so we head close to the Harbour. Only a few of us are diving today. The rest are taking a break. The diving has been hard with few fish and bad viz. Every day has seen us do about 5-6 hours in the water. If nothing else we are getting water fit. The viz today is 10m and the swell has backed off completely. I bag a Walla Walla about 60cm long.

All our fish are weighted every day as the minimum size for the comp is 600 grammes. We are battling to achieve this. One of the Brazilians, Marcelo, bags a 2kg Mullet. This is probably the biggest fish we have had so far. We arrive in Sinnes that evening. Everyone immediately checks out the water. It's OK.

Wednesday we all take a break, eating squid for lunch at the local restaurant and the guys go on a Spearfishing Equipment buying spree. The equipment is cheap here.

Thursday sees us launching from Sinnes harbour to start scouting the area at 11am. The days are long here, often we finish diving for the day at 8 or 9pm. The Viz is bad and Mike is still suffering with a persistent cold that has plagued him on the trip. We head South, dropping Mike next to the harbour wall to shoot from the top and look longingly at the deep caves deeper down. The south is not good at all, 1/2 m viz, so we turn back.

On the way back we spot bait balls in the water and drop in around the balls plucking off the Walla Walla and Mackerel that are herding them from the bottom. Although the fish are small the experience is exciting. Both the L.I.C boats join in the fun. We then head out to a Mooring Buoy a kilometre off shore. The chart shows an area of 20m to the east of the buoy. Once there, we drop Timo and George off to see what is around the buoy while Sakies and myself sound around in Ever increasing Circles. No luck, we cannot find it although it looks obvious. The widening circles bring us close to the breakwater and we jump off to dive with Mike while the boat heads back to pick up the guys at the buoy. The breakwater is clean with 10m+ viz. All around are loads of Mullet but no SeaBass. The Brazilians join us there. They have been diving in bad, viz up north, in 26m looking for area.

That evening we are given the run of the kitchen and everyone lends a hand preparing and cooking the days catch. Nick has overall control of the situation and does everyone proud. The remainder of L.I.C, including our official photographer Trevor, arrive that night just in time to partake in the feast.

Friday I go out with the guys that arrived last night. We dive up north anchoring the boat up we all get in. The viz is good, 8m, but very little fish. Diving the shallow areas in the surf proves to be interesting with a few fish around but difficult to line up on in the surge. Trevor and Stuart try a shories driving up the coast but it is not good.

Saturday is another rest day. Some of the guys head to Lisbon to check-out the Aquarium and get totally lost on the way back..

Sunday is the day of the comp. Mike still cannot clear so we draft Timo in to take his place with Juan and Poalo. It turns out that there is a problem with Nick, Stuart and John's RIB so the start is slightly delayed. Eventually they come out the harbour and the comp starts. Most people head North and a one boat heads South; the Portuguese champion with a big boat and, we suspect, a sounder. When we get in the water the surge is massive.

At 20m there is about a 3m+ surge making it nearly impossible to bring your gun to bear. The rules are that a team of three only has two people in the water at a time so Sakies and I jump in, Kivas keeps a watchful eye on the rest of the boats. There are a few fish about. The pinnacles that we are diving have massive swells rolling over them. It makes for almost impossible shooting to we head out to calmer deeper water. Once again the surge defeats us but we manage a few Wrasse.

We are lucky enough to have a good skipper and RIB so we decide to make the long (6km) journey to the extreme south where we have seen and Island that may provide shelter. It takes us about an hour in the rough conditions. Once there we try diving the seaside of the island along with the other LIC boat that has also by chance made the trip. No-one says we are not a determined lot. I get dragged over the reef under the watchful eye of our boatboy. He thinks we are crazy. Eventually we tuck in behind the island and are finally rewarded by a few Salpa and Mullet. The viz is about 2m max so you have to shoot where you think the fish have gone.

With about an hour and a half left we decide to start heading back trying one more area. On our way there the official boat comes passed breaking the news that one of our team has been disqualified because they were out of the area (turns out they were cheesed off and decided just to fish the harbour wall) and that most of the others had already returned. When we get to the next area Sakies bombs down popping up to say the viz is OK. I bail in and find the bottom is about a patchy 1m. Regretfully the task of converting Sakies from a Greek clear water spearfisherman into a UK Murk spearfisherman has backfired on us but we persist for a few minutes. On the way back we look once again for the area around the buoy but the massive tanker-mooring buoy is gone.

The weight in goes pretty smoothly and we do not feel to bad when we see the amount, if anything, that the other local teams have weighted in. The results are as follows:

NAS-AEIST International Club tournament

Final Results

Cl	Nr.	Name/Nationality	Federation/Club	Points
1º	10	António Silva/Portugal Miguel Aires/Portugal AndréDomingues/Portugal	FPAS/SCP C	53835
2º	6	Luis Paixão/Portugal Paulo Alves/Portugal Filipe Oliveira/Portugal	FPAS/SCP A	32080
3º	5	FredericoEspecial/Portugal Rui Torres/Portugal Luis Lança/Portugal	FPAS/Vasco da Gama	31820
4º	2	Carlos Osório/Portugal JoãoPedroOliveira/Portug João Battaglia/Portugal	FPAS/OMER	21190
5º	12	Aires Pedro/Portugal Rui Rocha/Portugal José Pereira/Portugal	FPAS/Desportivo Náutico Marinha Grande	20155
6º	19	Rolando Oliveira/Portugal Luís Gomes/Portugal António Frade/Portugal	FPAS/C.N. Sesimbra	18100
7º	9	Zé Carlos/Portugal Jorge Torres/Portugal Luis Prata/Portugal	FPAS/Picasso-CV Lagos	17105
8º	22	Fernando Costa/Brasil Marcelo Man/Brasil Heitor Filho/Brasil	Confederação Brasileir de Pesca e Desportos Subaquáticos/ASCADE	16730
9º	11	Márcio Fonseca/Portugal Pedro Neves/Portugal João Maia/Portugal	FPAS/Individual	12295
10º	1	Manuel Garcia/Portugal Vitor Oliveira/Portugal Pedro Nunes/Portugal	FPAS/C.N. Sesimbra	9000
11º	18	José Marques/Portugal João Lourenço/Portugal Daniel Andrade/Portugal	FPAS/NAS-AEIST	8130
12º	13	Mário Lopes/Portugal Mário Feteira/Portugal João Mónica/Portugal	FPAS/SCP D	6955
13º	14	Paul Maxwell/S.African Kivas Waters/S.African T.Griparis/Greek	British Spearfishing Association /LIC A	4570
14º	24	Mauricio Fragoso/Portugal Ruy Rafa/Spain Ruy Moi/Spain	FPAS/FEDAS/ NAS-AEIST/CAS Cadiz	3590
15º	20	Chistian/Spain José Enrique/Spain German Soto/Spain	FEDAS/CAS Cadiz	3530
16º	16	Timo Jattu/Denmark Juan Askew/English Paolo de Michelis/Italian	British Spearfishing Association /LIC B	3460
17º	4	Carlos Garção/Portugal Rui Lino/Portugal Nuno Lino/Portugal	FPAS/C.N. Peniche	3365
18º	7	Gonçalo Sá/Portugal Paulo Pinto/Portugal Jorge Guitana/Portugal	FPAS/SCP 2	3270
19º	17	João Santos/Portugal António Cerqueira/Portugal José Cerqueira/Portugal	FPAS/Megasub	0
20º	23	Mário Crespo/Portugal José Guimarães/Portugal Jorge Frias/Portugal	FPAS/C.N. Sesimbra	0
21º	8	Jorge Silva/Portugal Paulo Bruno/Portugal António Sousa/Portugal	FPAS/Inaqua-Sub	Desistência Avaria motor
22º	3	Jorge Grave/Portugal Nuno Grave/Portugal Paulo Silva/Portugal	FPAS/C.V. Lagos	Desclassificada Zona interdita
23º	15	Rey David/France Boucher Jean-Phillipe/France Richard Badano/France	Federation Française d'etudes et de Sports Sous-Marines/Homopalmus	Desclassificada Zona Interdita
24º	21	Stuart Elburn/English Jon Penrith/English Nick McColgan/English	British Spearfishing Association /LIC C	Desclassificada Zona Interdita

That evening we attend the prize giving. We are wined and dined. No one comes away without a gift of some sort. The following day we all pack up and spent the remainder of the day lazing around the beach restaurant. That evening we flew out.

Our thanks to Club NASEIST, especially Americo and Vasco who did all within their power to make our stay a memorable one. We look forward to returning the hospitality at the BSA Talland Bay competition in September.

Paul Maxwell