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It didn't take me long to finish rigging up the 120 with a new reel and 2.2mm dyneema line. Unfortunately as of now (Apr 2009), I haven't had an opportunity to get into the blue water to put this new toy through its paces. I am definitely jones'ing to give it a try! I am also working on making my own flashers for use in blue water. I have been watching these being used on a few spearfishing shows and their reasoning seems sound for their success. They didn't seem too hard to make, so I decided...
{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.
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.
Over the winter I looked into and purchased a couple of sets of Reef Runner Gear's fin skins. I had contemplated having my own manufactured but when I came accross these, it just didn't seem worth the hassle. You can create your own custom design for a few bucks more and although you can run into some small snags when doing so (I'll elaborate later on), Jon from Reef Runner Gear is an awesome guy to work with and he will do everything he can to make things right.
This review is actually long overdue as I've had this mask for well over a year now and I honestly don't know why I hadn't done it before now. After trying multiple masks over several years (and several hundred dollars), some were good (Mystic, Star, Nano), and some were bad (Zero Cubed). Before this, I had actually decided upon the Cressi Nano as "the one". I thoroughly enjoyed the fit and volume of the Nano, but there were a couple of VERY minor issues with the fit. I'm convinced that the...
This past weekend, I finally got to go to The Blue Wild dive expo. After 3 years of everybody telling me about it and not being around to get to go to it, the stars finally aligned and I was able to check it out. Unfortunately, it meant missing out on 5-10mph winds and less than 1' seas inside the reef, but there were other reasons I couldn't get out this weekend, so I figured I would take advantage to check it out and possibly win something from the raffle to boot (I won't keep you in...
Seas: 1-3 feet Winds: 15-20 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 10-45 feet This weekend we tried to head out for some more of what we found last week and even though we did have some fun, we weren't able to find the schools of bigger fish that we were hoping for. We had to head very far east to find any visibility but when we jumped into the water in about 43 feet, we found some very nice diving for a while. We dove the area for about 45 minutes, but after only getting a single cero mackerel, we figured we...
Wind Seas Viz Temp E-SE 18-24mph 4-6' 5-15' 79F The excitement for grouper opening started a few weeks ago when my brother in law and I started discussing our plans. There was talk of scouting on Sunday and taking Monday through Wednesday off to maximize our time on the water. We would connect with our friends Lazaro and Chris and we were hopeful that we would have a good opening like last year. As usual, we talked timing, accommodations and weather forecasts. After talking about it for about...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 S Temp: 88 F Viz: 10-15 feet My advance apologies for the brevity of this week's blog. Just not in a very literary mood this week, I guess. Luckily, it was a short weekend due to the fact that Father's Day was Sunday and I tried to head back home early to spend it with mine. Unfortunately, some people who are apparently guaranteed employment at the public works in Monroe County decided it would be a good idea to close down northbound US1 on the 18 mile stretch from...
Winds: 5-15 West Seas: 2-4 Surf Temp: 81F Viz: 20-35 feet This weekend the winds finally laid down although not as much as the fishing report promise. The seas were still a little rough, but the viz finally opened up so we could chase some fish. The water was a little cold in depths over 25 feet, but very tolerable. Especially in light of the viz we were getting. The mangoes still haven't started to spawn offshore in droves, but they are starting to do so in smaller numbers. We were able to...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 S Temp: 82 F (drastic thermal clines) Viz: 25-30 feet Saturday had us up well before dawn as we decided to go out for dolphin first thing with the promise of extremely calm seas and next to no wind for a good part of the day. We were loaded up and on our way out of the marina just as the sun was rising. With 1-2 foot seas as far as the eye could see, we made excellent time heading out into the blue water. We decided to go out in our own boat because the seas were so...
Winds: 5-10 West Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 10-20 feet Another day of picture perfect weather that doesn't provide perfect conditions. It takes so much longer to clear up the after effects of some bad weather. We have only been able to dive with visibility in our shallower spots (15-20 ft). Luckily, we were able to shoot up some decent size mangoes in a shallow patch reef. After that, we got a little excited and thought that some of our deeper patch reefs might have cleared up....