As I recall that Saturday night vividly, and have retold many times since ...
To the north, a lone yakker was working his nets patiently, in silence.
To the south, a crew of yakkers were working inside and outside the reef, occassionally shattering the quiet evening. "Somebody was sure sceaming happy at their legal bug(s) for sure. Holy cow.
" A megaphone was not required. One of the crew repeatedly encourages the others to move closer inside; there is not much swell.
To the east, the spotlights at Vietors turned on bright as day, probably to see what all the screaming (to the south) was about. Fortunately, they did not stay lit all night.
All around, bioluminescense, illumination of every particle, kelp, bait (or squid), and an occasional mysterious "splash" - of what I still do not know. When I shone my light in the direction of each "splash" I saw in the distance (in my Scopace induced night vision) - (1) commercial trap floats, (2) nothing discernable, but definitely some kind of "splashing" critter, and (3) what "appeared" to be a diver's breathing apparatus.
I remained close by my 2 hoops. A five foot shark swam by - maybe a Thresher or a Sevengill. My traps yield nothing but "just barely" shorts.
A yakker approached and described his ordeal of: slashed nets, getting splashed by something, and of begin capsized. I found it hard to believe, yet it is a strange night, with many unexplicables, the red tide and Scopace-induced psuedo-hallucinations. Perhaps it was a seal or a shark that splashed, or an eel that slashed the nets. Or, perhaps that appartent diver's breathing apparatus was for real.
Shortly after the crew left the crawl shut down. I paddled back to the launch empty handed, perplexed, but with nets and lines intact.