Freediving

The Spear Hunter
If you think landing a human-sized tuna sounds sporting, try doing it Sheri Daye's way: Without a boat. Without a rod. Without being able to breathe.

Seven miles from the sounds and skyscrapers of Miami, Captain Steve Moore silences the twin engines of the Mobile Diver, and we bob like a pool toy in the wide-open ocean. We've bucked across Biscayne Bay in five-foot swells to reach Fowey Rocks, a patch reef about 40 feet below that stands out like a stain against the white sand bottom. The gin-clear water glows an iridescent blue, like peering into a bottle of Bombay Sapphire.

Sheri has been admiring the color, too. "See that bright blue? That's nice, clear water--good visibility," she notes with a hint of eagerness in her voice. This is her world: Every Saturday, every Sunday, Daye leaves behind her Monday through Friday corporate job to slip into the deep blue. Even better if she's unencumbered by scuba tanks. Even better if she's holding a speargun. "I live for the weekends," she says. "It's my escape, my passion. When you're down there, you're so focused on everything going on around you. We get to see things most people don't even dream of."

That passion that has made Sheri Daye one of the preeminent freedivers and spearfishers in North America. Using her lungs, her legs and a speargun powered by tensioned rubber tubing, Sheri successfully stalks everything from reef fish 20 feet deep to the immense tuna, wahoo and other species that cruise the "bluewater" at depths of 60 feet and more. She currently holds four women's spearfishing world records. They include--and this is not a typo--a 157-pound yellowfin tuna, yes, caught on a spear, yes, while freediving. Sheri, by the way, weighs in at 137 pounds.

And right now, she's all business. Bracing herself against the incessant waves, Sheri tugs on her wetsuit and buckles on a 10-pound weight belt, which allows her to hover--or even lie down--at depth. She straps on her mask and snorkel, then pulls on a pair of specialized fins for freediving. Made of a carbon fiber composite and nearly three feet long, they provide power and efficiency for reaching depths quickly.

She's ready within minutes, blithely stepping backward off the stern and into the water. Her diving buddy Chad Palan--an expert freediver who's been Sheri's mentor--leans down to hand off Sheri's four-foot-long teak speargun, then drops in himself.

For a minute or two they buoy on the surface, casual as a couple of sea turtles. Sheri had explained the technique: "When you get in the water, the first thing you do is some deep-belly breaths to calm down, maybe 60 to 100 times. It's a mental thing really. The calmer you are, the longer you can hold your breath."

Though Sheri also dives with scuba gear, these days she leaves it behind more and more. "On scuba, you're unnatural. With the bubbles and the noise, everything is wary of you," she notes. "But freediving, you're just another sea creature. Fish actually get curious and come check you out. You're part of the ocean, not an intruder in it."

Apparently calm and good to go, Sheri suddenly folds her body into a pike position, stretches one fin airborne like a synchronized swimmer, and disappears.

Underwater, Sheri indeed looks part of the marine world. Like a tarpon flashing through the deeps with an almost imperceptible twitch of its tail, Sheri is streamlined and graceful, diving downward with just a few well-executed fin kicks. She and Chad ease into a rhythm: Torpedo down to about 40 feet. Hover. Watch. Surface. Breathe. Rest. Repeat. As I gaze up at her shadowy silhouette from below--flowing hair, lithe body, long fins like a tail--it's impossible not to think of a mermaid.

I'm still shaking the cutesy cliche from my brain when Sheri suddenly raises her speargun from her side and squeezes the trigger. The spear rockets about 10 feet through the water and hits its mark, directly behind the eye of a foot-long hog snapper. Lightly treading water, Sheri reels in the line and the wriggling fish dinner. I revisit my cliche. Hmm, maybe a mermaid Annie Oakley?

For all she's accomplished in the sport, Sheri is a relative newcomer. The ocean has always been part of her life, growing up in Honduras and then Florida, the daughter of an American mother and a Spanish-speaking Chinese father. She took up scuba diving while in high school, eventually diving to depths of 275 feet.

Sheri first tried her hand at spearfishing about five years ago. "My mom has the most perplexed look on her face every time she looks in my Jeep and sees all the spearguns in back," she says. "But if you dive long enough, sooner or later you need a new challenge. Now it feels strange to go diving without a speargun in my hand."

Freediving soon followed, upping the ante of necessary skills. She joined local freediving and spearfishing clubs, where she found she was usually the only woman among dozens of men. "Diving with the guys is good for me," she shrugs. "It pushes me to get better, to keep up with them." She also discovered a feminine advantage: "Years of ballet. It gave me strong legs and flexible ankles."

Through the clubs, and through friends like Chad and Dave Earp, she quickly honed her skills, diving with them every weekend. "Dave and Chad taught me a lot," says Sheri. "You can't chase things down freediving--you have to complete rethink your strategy. You need to figure out where fish will be, then remain still and let the fish come to you. Even something like making eye contact can spook them."

Spearfishers point to their sport as the most environmentally sound method of fishing--more "release and catch" than "catch and release." "We target exactly what we want and let everything else swim by," notes Sheri. "When you do this and do it right, it makes you respect and value nature. When I bought my fish at the grocery store, I never made that connection."

"You're one with the natural world," adds Chad, who currently holds five spearfishing world records. "You're predator and prey."

Which raises the obvious topic. Sharks are highly sensitive to smell and movement; hanging around underwater with splashing, thrashing, bleeding fish is like sending the big boys a party invitation. Sheri estimates they see a shark one out of about every 50 dives. Of course, everyone likes a good shark story, and Sheri, Chad and Dave don't disappoint at dinner that night.

"I had just shot a cobia, and this hammerhead came out of nowhere," says Chad. "Took that 50-pound fish in one bite."

"It went right under my fins. Its hammer was as wide as this table," adds Sheri. "It was--what--maybe an 18-footer? It was so big, if I had seen that in a movie, I would've said, 'Oh, that's a little ridiculous.'"

And then on to another story: "I?ve been diving with Dave for 10 years, and I've never heard him yell," Sheri recounts. "But I heard this noise and I looked over, and here was this hammerhead latched onto his game bag."

"I had felt a bump on my hip," chimes in Dave. "Turns out it was him lifting his head to get a bite."

"See?" concludes Sheri, turning to the rest of the group. "It just goes to show they're not after you."

The odds of shark encounters increase when hunting for "pelagics," deepwater species like tuna. Seeking out these huge, deep, fast fish puts all the skills to the test--and captivates Sheri. "I blame it on Terry Maas," she says, referring to the author of the spearfishing bible, Bluewater Hunting and Freediving. "I saw the picture of a freediver holding a huge tuna on the cover, and was instantly hooked.

"Bluewater fish can always outswim and outmaneuver you," she explains. "So you have to put yourself in the position where they'll come by you, and then wait. My goal was to be able to hover one minute at 60 feet. I knew I could fish there."

And that's how Sheri found herself in the dark ocean depths off Costa Rica last November, on the light end of a speargun line hauled around by a 157-pound yellowfin tuna. Her account of her fishing trip (find it at spearfishing.org) reads more like Soldier of Fortune than Field and Stream: "We are in 500 fathoms of water, in the middle of a feeding frenzy...We kick down into the bottomless abyss. There is no more lonely, exhilarating or vulnerable feeling than floating around, suspended in deep blue, waiting for something big to appear out of nowhere."

Sheri's tuna was something big, all right--it shattered the previous world record by 119 pounds. But she's ready to raise the bar again. "I had a much bigger fish on the line on that trip," she says with a rueful smile. "Probably 300 pounds.

"I'm going back this winter," she adds, her smile brightening. "You know, the men's world record is 306 pounds."