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SpearViews Over the weekend of March 27 th & 28 th I took the Level 1 Freediving course offered by FII (Freediving Instructors International) at their Headquarters in Pompano Beach FL. FII was started by Martin Stepanek, a multiple time freediving world record holder. The Level 1 curriculum is taught over a 2 day course. The first day is classroom and pool based and spans almost 9 hours. This course is designed for beginning freedivers and is supposed to get novice divers to a depth of 66 feet.
SpearViews Over the 4th of July holiday I was able to break in my hawaiian sling made by HawaiianSling.net (Ray Uppstrom). I had purchased this quite some time ago in preparation for a trip to the Bahamas and I finally got to try it out in the waters around Cat Cay, South Bimini. This isn't your normal hawaiian sling. The design is completely unique and interesting in its approach compared to traditional slings. This sling is much more akin to a bow and arrow than it is to a regular sling and it looks...
SpearViews Throughout my relatively short history in spearfishing (as of this writing), I have only used a few different spearguns. Now obviously, my opinion in this matter is not one of extreme trial and error. Mostly it consists of recommendations made to me by those I spearfish with along with some of my own common sense. In the beginning (early 1990's), I used one of my brother-in-law's extra guns. Specifically, a 38" Arbalette. Now this gun had already seen finer days by the time I started using it....
SpearViews {sigplus link=goprohero2 index=1} {/sigplus}I finally jumped on the HD bandwagon and bought myself a Hero2 HD digital camera by GoPro. These little beauties have been around for quite a while now so hearing about them isn't exactly news. But since I finally got around to purchasing one for myself and it happens to be that the Hero2 is the biggest leap in performance that they've given these cameras since their launch, I figured I would put in my 2 cents worth.
SpearViews The summer had been busier than I would have liked this year and I honestly hadn't had as many opportunities to post much less given much thought to writing a new SpearView, but after having time to really reconsider, I realized that I had actually had multiple opportunities to try out new equipment this year (not all of it successfully). Further to that point, when I took the PFI Freediver course back in March I had decided to invest in a new mask and ended up deciding on the Omer Zero Cubed...
SpearViews Back in March of 2010 I enrolled in and completed the FII Level One freediving course . I was extremely happy with the course content and the outcome (check out the SpearView ). Unfortunately for me, I'm not a professional freediver, so as with many people, life gets in the way and complicated which in turn keeps you from building a true regimen that reinforces all the good behavior learned in the course. Needless to say, I forgot some of the basics, fell back into many of my old bad habits...
SpearBlog 2012 Seas: 2-3' Winds: 15-20 NE dropping to 10-15 SE in the afternoon Viz: 30-35' Temp: 82F "Third time's a charm", or so I thought... as I headed down for another shot at what would hopefully be my first "full" weekend of the Summer. With the boat in tow after working on it during the week to resolve fuel flow problems caused by the introduction of ethanol into our fuel supply (Thank you, big oil) I call ahead to have a friend turn on our A/C so temperatures are tolerable for our arrival. I get a...
SpearBlog 2010 Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 E/SE Viz: 35-40 feet Temp: 85 F This past week was Lobster mini season and even though I did not participate, I did have some friends that took their perennial vacation to hunt those highly coveted bugs. According to their accounts, there were a lot less hunters in the water this year. But luckily for those that were willing to take the time to do it, there were plenty of lobsters to be had by all. We had been observing a huge population of lobsters in every nook and...
SpearBlog 2009 Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 10 feet Today we headed out with the whole family (families) in tow because the seas have been so calm. We headed out around 10a with a plan to be back close to home in time for high slack tide. Our goal was to hit some offshore spots for snapper and hopefully head back closer to home for some hogfish and hopefully grouper. Unfortunately, I am sure we are all familiar with the best laid plans of mice and men and what happens to them. Anyway, we...
SpearBlog 2006 Winds: 10-20 East Seas: 3-5 feet Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 5-10 feet Saturday was not too much fun. The seas were extra sloppy and the viz was not what I would like to see, even on the worst days. It didn't stop us from shooting our fill of mangroves, but it wasn't without it's effort. One of the spots we hit was only about 18-20 feet deep and we couldn't see the bottom much less the fish. We've gotten used to shooting in the low viz but its still difficult to do. You have to pick out the best of...
SpearBlog 2007 Winds: SE 5 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp: 86 F Viz: 20-25 ft We had some very good weather this weekend (although the lack of wind does tend to make it extremely hot). We were able to easily head out for some diving and spearfishing without getting tossed around too much. Unfortunately we weren't seeing the same size mangroves that we were running into last weekend. That, and upon cleaning our catch from the first day, we noticed that a lot of the fish were no longer carrying roe. As long as they...
SpearBlog 2011 Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 10-15 S/SW Viz: 30 feet Temp: 79 F SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE! Finally a weekend that wasn't under the guise of some kind of work, whether paycheck related or otherwise. Of course it wasn't all honeymoon for me either, at least not at the start. I get a call from a friend Friday afternoon who asks me why we aren't down in the keys shooting fish when we're getting MMS messages from my brother in law with pictures of his 16lb Black Grouper while we're both at work (way to rub...
