Spear making 101

You can take the boys off the island, but you can't take the island off of the boys!  

     In the Torres Strait, Sutchy and Kibby loved spearing all manner of sea life with their five-prong bamboo spears.  They spent hours, no days and weeks and months, diving on reefs or in shallows, searching for something they could spear, and bring home and cook for their family.

     For our impending camping trip to Chillagoe with their Aunty Jen and cousins Bridget and Jack, Sutchy and Kibby had to do some spear making.  They have been spearless for the first time in their lives because Tony left their beloved bamboo five-prongs behind on TI!  

     Here, they demonstrate Spear Making 101 with mainland materials.

Always source quality spear making products from your local dump shop. Do not try and use Mum's brooms or rakes.  She'll notice!

Using a saw, remove the head from the shaft.  

After hacksawing into the fridge shelf, sharpen the prongs on paving stones in a traditional manner.  Kibby worked out if he rubbed the tip on the paver at high speed, pressed the white hot point into my arm and ran like hell, he got a hilarious reaction!

Sutchy worked out modern electrical methods of sharpening the prongs were faster and more effective.

Inner tubing may be used, but electrical tape provides an ideal medium with which to fix the prongs to the stick.  

Kibby and camera-shy Sutchy with their four-prongs.

     I followed Aunty Jen to our Chillagoe campsite.  I still don't know where we camped but it was near a creek in the middle of a sea of scrub and bull dust.  

     We hadn't even unpacked when Sutchy and Kibby donned their masks and snorkels, grabbed their spears and went diving in a creek. A creek, for God's sake! 

It wasn't long before Sutchy speared a red claw crayfish.

     Kibby and Sutchy spent two hours diving and netted two red claw, not quite enough to feed eight hungry campers.  Nonetheless I was one proud mamma as my boys dived and surfaced over and over, determined to catch something they could bring home, cook up and eat. 

     Fortunately, I have studied the bible and am familiar with the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes 101.  This miracle has a step-by-step account of how to feed many when you don't have much (such as filling up on muesli for breakfast first then having a mouthful of flame-grilled red claw). 
     There was the next day and hours of day light during which they could dive for crayfish. My boys were back on the island ... one composed of bull dust, covered in dry scrub and surrounded by fresh water!