After 5 days of touring and scouting, the tournament began. The tournament was a 2-day meet. During the pre-meet briefing, competitors had to select one of four drop-off areas in each tournament zone. This is where scouting became important. Three or 4 of the club's boats were used to get the divers to the tournament areas. 

I decided to select my locations based on areas suited to my abilities, where I had seen some fish, and my impression of how crowded I thought the spots would be. On the first day, I had enough fishing room, but there were not to many fish. Although I came in 30th of 67 on the first day, I did very well relative to the others at my location. I shot 6 fish, but 3 were just under the 1 kg limit. The rest totaled 4.7 kg. This gave me a total of 7700 points. For comparison, the day 1 winner (Philippe Bunel of France) shot 18 fish that together weighed over 30 kg for a total of 48,150 points. Click here for the day 1 official results.

Due to the very strong current I held onto kelp stalks at depth and pulled my way along using the rockweed when in the shallows.

The tournament rules were relatively simple. For the mens division any fish over 1 kg (2.2 lbs) counted. Shoot as many as possible in the time allowed. Cod and pollock were the main fish. Other species were allowed, but hard to find them over 1 kg. Most bottom fish were not counted. Each fish was worth a 1000 points and 1000 points awarded per kg. Flatfish were only worth 500 points and 500 points per kg. No flatfish were taken during the contest.

Women and juniors were allowed to take ballan wrasse as well as the cod, pollock, and flatfish.

Click the logo below for the offical tournament site.

The dive club's effort was amazing. Through their vollunteer efforts, they registered over 70 divers, made sure we all got there, picked us up at the airport, provided weights and other equipment when necessary, conducted all of the scouting and tours on club-owned vessels, got everyone to their selected tournament areas, weighed and clean all of the fish, put on a great banquet with prizes for all, and took us to the local night-club spots as well.