UNDERWATER SPORT IN THE SEAS OF THE SOVIET UNION. O. Mokievsky.

Mastering underwater swimming demands a great deal of hard work and persistence from a beginner, but how generously that work is rewarded!
A wonderful world opens before your eyes on the sea floor. All the colours there are completely different from those on land: a bluish-green palette dominates. Your own body feels unusual too: for a long time you can't get used to its weightlessness, or rather its half-weightlessness. Here a wide hollow blocks the way. There is no need to climb down into it and then scramble up the opposite slope. A light push, and the hunter's body glides smoothly over the hollow and, just as smoothly and in slow motion, settles on the far side. Here the diver makes his way through a forest of kelp. The "trees" of this forest, despite their considerable size, can be pushed aside with a light movement of the hand. From the kelp forest the hunter has passed into thickets of Cystoseira. A multitude of small animals shelter among its dense bushes. The stems of the Cystoseira, like the surface of the rocks, are covered with small red algae. Their thalli, sometimes delicate, sometimes springy and cartilaginous, are striking in their elegance and variety of forms. Some are feathery, others toothed, others in the form of branching little bushes, cords, thin translucent plates. Other thickets catch the eye as well. But these are not plants; they are animals that lead a sessile life. They have no need to move in search of food here: the current brings it right to their mouths.
Loose crusts of sponges, now an inconspicuous grey, now a defiant orange; the calcareous lace of bryozoans, either spreading over the stone like an openwork net or rising above it and sometimes taking the shape of an exquisite fan or of fanciful deer antlers. Sea anemones spread their colourful tentacles wide, but at the slightest alarm they shrink into a shapeless lump.
Here lush flowerbeds of polychaetes, sea worms, spread out. One doesn't want to call them worms: they are so unlike the earthworms we are used to; they rather resemble some bright flowers. Sea urchins stir their spines, starfish crawl slowly. A crab spreads its claws threateningly, but, seeing that the hunter is not frightened, sidles away into the nearest crevice. Hermit crabs bustle about in a businesslike way, dragging behind them their bulky homes, mollusc shells. And here are living molluscs too, varied and colourful. Some of them are in massive twisted shells; others, the chitons, are covered with neat plates forming a sort of roof of overlapping tiles; the bodies of still others are enclosed between two valves. In places, solid ridges of oysters show white on the rocks. The sinuous edges of their wavy valves snap shut as the hunter approaches. A handsome scallop lies there, flat as a saucer. Suddenly it claps its valves together forcefully, jumps up off the bottom and settles a few metres away. It is hard to imagine that such a heavy-looking animal can move about so easily and freely by jumping. All around, various small fish dart about, and quite often a large fish swims past.
The sense of distance underwater is deceptive; everything seems closer than it really is. Sometimes you reach out for some animal that seems to be right next to you, but your hand slides through the water, and the prey swims away, runs off, or often simply stays where it is, but you haven't reached it. Overhead, in the bluish-green crystal of the water column, large jellyfish hover almost motionless. They look like beautiful chandeliers hanging from a ceiling. Unlike the sky as seen from land, here the "sky" looks flat. In clear weather, from a shallow depth, the whitish disc of the sun can be seen on it.
But now the rocky bottom gives way to sand. The hunter is surrounded by a meadow covered with emerald sea grass, eelgrass. This grass is lush and tall, waist-high and often much higher. The fauna is abundant here too. Among the stems, a pipefish, almost indistinguishable from them, stands vertically. Here a seahorse, looking like a chess knight, has hooked its tail around an eelgrass stem. Sea slaters (Idotea) and a host of other small crustaceans scurry around, and there are plenty of other sea creatures here as well: molluscs, worms, echinoderms.
So what can a spearfisher come across in our seas?
Let us rightly begin with the Black Sea: its picturesque shores and warm, gentle water draw holidaymakers from all corners of the country. Mullet, found fairly often right by the shore, will be rewarding prey for the spearfisher here. A few well-fed mullet make a decent result for a diver who has swum out not far from shore and spent about an hour in the sun-warmed surface layer of the water. You can also meet horse mackerel, bluefish, meagre and large sea bream here. It is hard to hit the narrow, snake-like body of the garfish with a spear. Many people mistakenly consider this tasty fish inedible, whether because of the shape of its body or because of its green-coloured bones. In sandy shallows or in sea grass beds you can take fairly large flounder. When hunting them, you should keep right at the bottom or, better still, move along the bottom. A flounder lying on the bottom takes on the colour of the ground it rests on, and you can swim over it or walk right past it without noticing the prey. Very often we would be walking along a flat sandy bottom when suddenly a large flounder would shoot out from under a bare heel, tickling it, and swim away with its characteristic sluggishness.
In eelgrass beds you can also step on another fish, one that is by no means so harmless. This is the stingray, called the "sea cat" on the Black Sea. Reaching a considerable size, it would be a good quarry if it weren't for its tail, equipped with a long bony spine studded with numerous little teeth. Fishermen who catch a stingray first of all chop off its tail, since a ray thrashing in a boat or on the shore can inflict serious wounds on a person with its weapon. A careless bather who steps on a stingray in the sea grass, or a spearfisher who wounds one at close range, risks being slashed by the ray's tail. We therefore recommend watching your feet carefully when moving through eelgrass beds, and, on meeting a stingray, resisting the temptation to shoot it. Primitive cartilaginous fish (these include the stingray, the thornback ray or "sea fox", and the Black Sea spiny dogfish, the katran) are very tenacious of life. They are practically impossible to kill with a single shot, and when wounded they begin to thrash about and can cause considerable injury to the hunter with their prickly skin. The katran can also seriously wound a person with the spines of its dorsal fins. These wounds heal poorly, since the mucus that gets into them has venomous properties. If these fish are left undisturbed, however, they pose not the slightest danger. It should be noted that in our seas there are no fish at all that attack humans, so in this respect the spearfisher has nothing to fear.
Encounters with the scorpionfish (the "sea ruff"), with another fish called the weever or "sea scorpion", and with the barrel jellyfish can prove unpleasant. The fins and body outgrowths that give the scorpionfish a sort of dishevelled look can inflict wounds that take a long time to heal. Stings from the weever are even more venomous. Of the two Black Sea jellyfish, the dense and almost colourless Aurelia is quite harmless, while the other, Pilema, Rhizostoma, or the barrel jellyfish, distinguished by its powerful tentacles, can cause burns that are perhaps considerably more painful than nettle stings. The barrel jellyfish is often found in very large aggregations, especially, by our observations, at a depth of 2 - 4 m, and a diver passing through such an aggregation is advised not to touch the sluggish bodies of these jellyfish. The spearfisher need fear no other dangers or unpleasantness from the inhabitants of the Black Sea.
We sense that we have somewhat disappointed lovers of big game with our advice "not to mess with" sharks and rays. Let us console them with the chance to hunt fish such as bonito and tuna. These fish, weighing many kilograms, sometimes form large concentrations some distance from the shore, especially in the north-eastern part of the sea. It should be noted that these concentrations are not always easy to find, and to the hunter dreaming of such big prey we can suggest going out to sea with fishermen heading out to catch, if not bonito and tuna, then at least mackerel, whose schools these predators often follow.
Putting aside the speargun and arming himself with a knife or chisel, the underwater hunter can gather oysters growing on the rocks; they are found off the shores of the Caucasus too, and especially often in Karkinit Bay. You can also catch crabs: the large green crab in sandy shallows, usually overgrown with sea grass, and the stone crab among underwater rocks and ridges of stones. You can also collect black mussels, from which Odessa housewives make a tasty pilaf. On oyster beds and among the mussels it is easy to find and take as a souvenir the beautiful twisted shell of the rapa whelk. The story of this predatory mollusc is an interesting one. In the early forties it was accidentally brought into the Black Sea by ships from the Far East, multiplied here and firmly established itself among its inhabitants, becoming a real scourge of the oyster beds.
Off the shores of Crimea, around Kerch, Feodosia, Sudak and Balaklava, the underwater explorer can also make archaeological finds, relics of ancient Greek settlements and medieval Genoese colonies.
Excursions through eelgrass meadows, Cystoseira shrubs, among the rocks and along the underwater continuation of sandy beaches can give a great deal of pleasure. The variety of tones and shades of colour here changes many times a day. Wandering now in a green, now in a bluish, now in a deep-blue twilight, the diver admires the unique character of the underwater landscapes. It is interesting to watch the habits of small fish, crabs, hermit crabs, molluscs and anemones. You can spend a long time observing the various inhabitants of a single bush of Cystoseira or eelgrass. On the seemingly almost lifeless surface of a flat sandy bottom you can see only scurrying hermit crabs, a few crabs and little shoals of fish keeping above the bottom. But if you dig in the sand, you will discover various molluscs: the mother-of-pearl-sheened Donax or, deeper in the sand, the peculiar elongated shell of the razor clam, and here you can also startle a pale ghost shrimp.
Still, compared with seas located closer to the ocean, the fauna and flora of the Black Sea are considerably impoverished. This is due both to its history (relatively recently a freshwater basin lay where the Black Sea is now) and to the Black Sea's salinity, which is half that of the ocean, and to its harsher temperature regime compared with, say, the Mediterranean. There are no starfish, no sea urchins and no corals here, and other groups of animals are represented by fewer species and smaller specimens. However, in terms of the abundance of all the species that have adapted to its conditions, the Black Sea not only does not lag behind other seas but often surpasses them.
One sometimes hears the opinion that the large amount of hydrogen sulphide in the Black Sea harms its fauna. This is true only for depths greater than 180 - 200 m, which really are poisoned by hydrogen sulphide and lifeless. However, this does not affect the flora and fauna of shallower depths, since hydrogen sulphide is very unstable and is completely broken down by oxygen by a depth of 150 m.
An impoverished species composition of flora and fauna is even more characteristic of the Sea of Azov, and also of the sea-lakes, the Caspian and the Aral. But in terms of productivity the Sea of Azov ranks first in the world, since the few species of its fauna develop in abundance.
In the Sea of Azov many fish can attract the spearfisher's attention. These are two kinds of zander, the Don and the Kuban, bream, mullet, flounder (the Azov turbot), Azov roach, vimba, shemaya, numerous gobies, and, in the less salty areas, catfish and asp. However, hunting here will inevitably come up against a very serious difficulty, namely the exceptionally poor water visibility. Scientists have established that because of its high turbidity the Sea of Azov has no predatory fish. Such a so-called pelagic predator (as opposed to a bottom predator feeding on sluggish bottom animals) must above all see its prey. In the murky waters of the Sea of Azov this ability is very limited. The spearfisher will evidently find himself in a similar position. We have neither had occasion to dive in this sea nor to talk with Azov divers. Whether murky water is an insurmountable obstacle to spearfishing should nevertheless be tested in practice.
The northern part of the Caspian Sea is very reminiscent of the Sea of Azov. It is precisely its shallows, washed by rather murky water too, that hold its main fish wealth. The central and southern parts of the Caspian are much more like "real" seas: the water here is both clearer and saltier. Targets for spearfishing in the Caspian can include herring (of which the Dolginsk herring and the black-backed shad reach up to half a metre in length), vimba, barbel and mullet. In the areas off river mouths you can meet catfish, asp, pike and sterlet. Underwater the swimmer may also run into a creature of a completely different element, the cormorant, an excellent diver. The underwater landscapes of the Caspian are less attractive than those of the Black Sea. Thickets of unremarkable pondweeds, stoneworts and so on prevail here. Only carpets of the red alga Laurencia recall the splendour of marine thickets.
Surrounded by desert sands, the Aral is distinguished by the bright blue of its clear waters. When you swim in the Aral Sea, especially in its central parts, it seems that when you come out of the water, blue drops will run down your body. The fauna and flora of the Aral are very monotonous. Freshwater fish live in the slightly salty water of this lake: zander, perch, carp, bream, white-eye bream, barbel, catfish, asp. In the Baltic Sea the spearfisher can meet many attractive targets: cod, flounder, eel, whitefish, zander, vimba. However, any hunting of any length in the cool waters of the Baltic is hardly possible without a wetsuit. The low water temperature of the northern seas requires not only a wetsuit but also insulating it with several layers of underwear. The slightest breach in the suit's seal can lead to serious consequences. Therefore neither the White Sea nor the Barents Sea can be recommended either for sport diving or for spearfishing, despite their wealth of fish, cod above all.
Let us also dwell on the Sea of Japan. This body of water, remote from the central parts of our country, is distinguished by an exceptionally rich and varied fauna and flora. For comparison, suffice it to say that while the Black Sea has 180 species of fish, the Sea of Japan is home to 603 species. Many of them are commercially important and make good targets for spearfishing. Among them are mullet, or so-iuy mullet, mackerel (both these fish are much larger here than in the Black Sea), redfin, several species of handsome, brightly coloured greenlings, and various flounders (in Peter the Great Gulf alone flounders are represented by 19 commercial species). Everywhere you can meet the pollock, a handsome big-eyed fish whose silvery colour takes on a coppery sheen after it is caught. Unfortunately, pollock is not very tasty. Salmon, unlike in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea, are few here, but chum salmon, pink salmon and masu salmon are nonetheless found in the Sea of Japan. Cod live off the shores of Sakhalin. There are sharks and rays in the Sea of Japan, about which one should repeat what has already been said about the Black Sea representatives of these fish. There are also many non-fish commercial species in this sea. First of all, the exquisite Chinese delicacy, the sea cucumber, then a number of molluscs: oysters, giant mussels, scallops, Mactra, cockles, rapa whelks and others. All this can be gathered without much difficulty at a depth of 3 - 8 m.
In beauty and variety the underwater landscapes of the Sea of Japan leave far behind everything that can be seen in the seas we have spoken of earlier. Kelp forests, thickets of Sargassum and the most varied red algae, coral-like colonies of calcareous algae and bryozoans. Among these forests, shrubs and meadows live a multitude of sea animals, whose variety is hard to describe in a short article. Suffice it to say that while the world ocean has just 34 orders of fish (not counting deep-sea ones), the Sea of Japan is home to representatives of 31 of those 34 orders.
Let us dwell on the dangers the spearfisher may encounter here. What comes to mind first, of course, are sharks and octopuses, familiar to us all since childhood from adventure novels. I must say, however, that in six years spent in the Far East I don't know of a single case of a diver or bather being attacked by them. But in the waters of the Sea of Japan there is an animal that is terrible for the spearfisher. It has neither teeth, nor tentacle-arms with suckers, nor even an impressive size. It is merely a small (4-5 cm in diameter) jellyfish called Gonionemus, or the "little cross". Indeed, a cross-shaped pattern can be made out on its almost colourless bell. While contact with larger jellyfish causes a burn that makes itself felt for several days, with Gonionemus things are immeasurably more serious. A bather or diver stung by the "little cross" falls ill with a serious disease affecting the nervous system that lasts two to three months, and a second sting usually leads to death. It is this little jellyfish that one should beware of more than octopuses and other "mysterious giants of the sea". Before going spearfishing, you need to find out from the local health authorities or from the Pacific Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography in Vladivostok whether a given area is currently safe with regard to Gonionemus. Bear in mind that coastal beds of eelgrass or Sargassum are the favourite habitat of the "little cross".
Also worth mentioning are the sea urchins, numerous in the shallows of this sea, whose spines can prick the hunter's unprotected feet until they bleed. These pricks, however, are harmless, since venomous spines occur only in tropical sea urchins. Amateur diving with masks or scuba gear, like spearfishing, has become very popular abroad. Many books, articles and films are being released about this sport, which is gaining many followers in our country too. One hopes that our industry will meet the wishes of sportsmen and start producing the equipment needed for underwater sports, so that this fascinating and healthy sport can develop successfully in our country as well.

Source: Almanac "Rybolov-Sportsmen", No. 10, 1958.