Latham Island – A Strange Trip

This was a bit of a strange trip and yet again a humbling lesson in so many ways.

I have been going to Latham Island and other areas around Zanzibar since 2017 and have been blessed with great memories. From schools of hammer head sharks, to filming some of the biggest dogtooth tuna in the world or just simply freediving with big bull sharks behind the mothership, this place has given me plenty of reasons to come back. However, I always came either guiding or filming guests – most times doing both.

If you wanna have a look at what my job looks like check this video. If not, please proceed.

While I absolutely love my job, I was hoping to experience it with my brother Rui Rodrigues in a different way. A trip where the goal was not to film and guide others, but ourselves.

As my passion for filming grew, my view of spearfishing changed. And now the thing I like to do the most is to be in the water with close friends where one has the camera and other has the speargun and we just take turns. This way we can get the best of both worlds. And there is no one else I would rather do it than with Rui Rodrigues.

Last year I did trip with a group of friends (Ariel, Silvio, Humberto and Juancho) and we had the best conditions I have seen in Latham. Amazing weather and fish everywhere. However, for different reasons, I did not feel I enjoyed it properly and not having Rui there makes a big difference for me. So, I left with bittersweet taste and the motivation to go back and film a proper trip with him.

Then in November of 2023, a new opportunity came. Mads Petterson, one of my first guests on trips for well over ten years now and now a friend (I knew our relationship changed the moment we started sharing POV photos in the toilet) invited us to join him and Matt Camilieri during one week in Latham. I was stoked to finally have Rui on board and share this experience with everyone. I was also motivated to work on the final details of the speargun we have been devolving for the past two years as well as to make some content for the new brand OCHOA. I am not sure if these are the reasons I commit to this or if they are just a rationalizing process of something way more basic which is just loving to go on these trips just for the sake of it. Maybe a bit of both.

Like me, Mads had an epic trip the year before around the same dates so everyone was super pumped! But that voice in my head kept telling me “you should probably manage your expectations”.

Rui arrived late and all of his gear was left behind. His trip was a mess to the point he actually considered not making it all the way but somehow there he was. Tired, a bit frustrated and proudly wearing the one t shirt he would have for the whole trip. I was counting on him to bring enough gear for the both of us so I just had one speargun with me with two shafts (one of them was already bent from a guided trip I just did the week before) and a bit of extra gear. We improvised with what we had and went to bed.

We left on the morning of the 21^st with pristine weather! Glassy conditions and clear skies made our way to the spot a beautiful journey.

As we did the first drift I was just sure that it was going to be on fire! Crystal clear vis with rainbow runners, bonito and surgeons everywhere! From the surface to below 30meters was just full of life! As we hopped on the boat to start a new drift I said “it’s just a matter of time until we find them!”. And yet again that voice in my head replied “you know that you don’t know shit. You should just be quiet and see what happens.”

After quite a few uneventful drifts Mads pulled the trigger on a decent dogtooth tuna that got devoured by bull sharks in seconds. Me and Rui kept diving and eventually Rui got one chance. He pulled the trigger and placed a good head shot, but that was not enough. As soon as the fish took off it got devoured.

During five days of diving we had just a couple more opportunities on average size dogtooth and that was it. Not only we could not find the doggies but we sure did find the sharks. So even when someone would pull the trigger on a dogtooth, the fish would get evaporated in seconds. We struggled to get dinner and had to go to the reef at the end of the day on a couple of days. At least the job fish were there as usual and that is always a fun fish to hunt. We also target other small reef species that were a good surprise on the table.

The good side of this was that Rui got his first jobfish that weighed 7kg. It was such a cool moment to film him just waiting on the top of a patch of grass as this fish swam in. They remind us of the local seabass we have at home, just a bit more confident though.

I personally did not have one opportunity at a dogtooth. Even the other spots where we usually find lots of wahoo and yellowfin tuna were completely quiet. Not one yellowfin was seen and we managed to get just two wahoo during the whole trip. Two small fish that would have not been shot in normal circumstances. One of those fish were caught by Matt, who was doing blue water spearfishing for the first time, so is was a cool moment to see him getting his first wahoo! I caught the other one.

Everyone found their way of enjoying the conditions at hand, that deteriorated as the trip went forward. With some rougher nights of rain and wind and days cut short due to poor conditions that would change rapidly. Matt caught some nice Giant Trevally on the jig and me and Rui had some fun fishing from the back of the boat for some very small, long nose emperors. We released them all and failed miserably at getting anything decent, but I love fishing on the back of the boat when everyone is chilling. Just being in the middle of the ocean without connection is good enough so we get very happy with very little.

The trip went forward with no standout moments and with only one day of diving left, Eric suggested we should go back to shore. To a spot that I absolutely love! A ledge that is similar to the dogtooth tuna spot we dive in Latham, but that has been pretty much untouched.

The locals there are quite aggressive and no one has been allowed to dive there until the last trip we did there the year before. Eric has been negotiating with the village chiefs for over 10 years but we would finally be allowed to spearfish there under these terms: the fish was to be given to the village and one member from the fishing community would come on board to make sure the rules were followed.

On the two days I spent there, Patrice got a 60kg dogtooth, we saw two marlin, several big kingfish and just tons of life in general. From schools of mixed species of trevallies to jobfish or massive longnose emperors, the place was on fire. So this seemed like the last chance to end the trip on a good note. In terms of fishing I mean. The vibe was always great and everyone was very chilled accepting that some things we can’t control and fishing teaches you about it the hard way.

We woke up early inside the bay with flat seas and cloudy skies. A dark weather suited for a place that is usually murky and the home of monster fish. Being it the last day, we were pumped to make the most of it! A drive that is usually sunny with a “Caribbean’esk” vibe, had now a bit of a dramatic tone to it which I really love. I don’t know if it reminds me of home, but I always enjoyed rough weather and not so ideal conditions. Except at night. I do like me beauty sleep in flat anchorages.

The current was a bit unusual pushing into the shallows but with quite a bit of an angle, wich allowed us to do several dives on the drop which is not usually the case. I started filming Rui for a few drifts (he had spent most of the time filming me in Latham waiting for my chance on a doggy that never came) and the place looked great! Murky waters but lots of life and it didn’t take long for us to see a big sailfish that stayed far. We switched and I did a couple short dives just to position myself and then went for a deeper dive. A big school of barracudas came and I actually thought about getting one.

With such slow days it did not take a lot for me to get excited and as I am contemplating this thought, a 25kg GT swam bellow me. I went a bit deeper and pulled the trigger at the end of my dive at 32m but had a muzzle wrap. I had to let my gun go to then see it coming off. I was not sure if it would float as it looked like it was just staying still. I stressed a bit but it showed up a couple minutes later, found by the guys on the boat. As Rui was fighting my fish (while I was looking for the gun) a massive goliath grouper tried to eat it. We did not see it but the marks on the fish make it quite clear as you can see below.

A fish I would have passed on other trips was the highlight of this one. We cut the day short yet again and took the fish back to shore to be cut a distributed between the locals who appreciate this species a lot.

The more I travel the more I understand how little we know about the ocean. While there are certainly patterns that should be understood and increase our chances of success, at the end of the day we just barely grasp what motivates most fish behavior. So yet again we were humbled by the sharks, the weather, and our inability to find what we were looking for but on the other side we had a great group of people that made the most of it regardless. You have the epic trips and you have the trips the make you appreciated the epic ones, this was one of them.