Philippe Virgili is a French/ Italian born diver. A native from the French Riviera. He did his first steps in spearfishing as a little boy in the Mediterranean Sea . He has been hunting  the coasts of South of France, Italy, Corsica and Sicily on and off  for several years... It's well known that one needs a good  understanding of fish behaviour  if you plan to catch fish there, which is usually deep, clever and distrustful . His favorite  Mediterranean capture is the Gilthead Seabream, a pretty tasty fish which needs patience and cunning during a long hunt.

For the last fifteen years Philippe has been doing many diving trips to several "hot diving spots" of the Blue Planet and he has a weakness for some destinations:
He has been going to Cuba for the last few years, about twenty five spearfishing trips. Mainly to the North East coast in the Archipelago de Camagüey  and to the South West coast in the Archipelago de Los Canarreos. Among the great variety of the Caribbean reef fish, the "Atlantic Cubera" (Cuban Snapper) is his favorite fish.  Cubera Snapper are probably the most difficult to spearfish, and are a rare capture. This giant of the snapper family  is also present along the Pacific coast from Mexico to Panama, but they are usually smaller there.

Living in a virtual isolation from the outside world  Philippe's Cuban colleagues are very glad to exchange information with foreign visitors. Still, to communicate you have to be confident in order to win their trust. Most Cubans are destitute, each trip gives us an opportunity to provide them with gear and technical advice, and some friendly help to people scraping hard each day to improve the everyday situation.

Philippe has also been making regular trips to the United States of America  which has an incredible variety of coasts spanning three oceans. Philippe has been hunting in Maine, North Carolina, Rhodes island, Florida and California. The most amazing place he dived was  Palos Verde, definitively one of the best Los Angeles spots for seabass hunting.

Philippe has also been doing about 3 trips a year to Costa Rica during the dry season. Philippe recons the best spot to spearfish is located off the Pacific Coast in the Nicoya province . There you can find billfish in abundance and magnificent blue-water fish like Dorado and Wahoo. In 2009 Philippe organized  a Costa Rican Blue Water Hunting Open which had divers coming from many countries, they joined the guest divers Sheri Daye from Florida and Roberto Reyes from Puerto Rico. Just after this competition Philippe caught an amazing 55,8 kg Pacific sailfish.

South Africa is in his opinion one of the top world countries in spearfishing and diving because you can witness the amazing underwater world of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Philippe had several  opportunities to dive during the "sardine run" and to freedive with tiger sharks in particular. There are very few spots  that you can view tiger sharks:  a southern reef off Aliwal Shoal is one of the only known spots where the diver can interact with one of the top apex predators, without a cage, close up and personal. Last year off Cape Town, Philippe smashed the Longfin Tuna (albacore) record with a 30,94 kg fish.

For the last two years Philippe has been pioneering Atlantic bluefin hunting off the Morocco Atlantic coast and in the Gibraltar Straight. He'll be there again in spring 2011. Philippe has been freediving since 2006 among Atlantic giant bluefin tuna, the toughest of all big game fish to fight and land, off the East Coast of Canada. The action usually takes  place far off the coast, if you spot by chance a "herring" run at the time tuna are hunting fiercely close to the surface in the school. Freediving very close to these massive fish in the open sea is a thrilling experience.

Spearfishing all over the blue Planet gives you the opportunity to freedive with different sea mammals. Philippe's best adventure took place in 2004 off the New Zealand coast,  back from a spearfishing trip to Three King Islands. They got to freedive for about an hour with a killer whale pack and had incredible interactions with these apex predators. An unbelievable and exceptional meeting Philippe will never forget.

Phillippe is also an avid underwater vidiographer and runs his own production company called www.SpearFishingMotion.com