It has been quite a while since my last video post so check out my latest video in the video gallery.
I hope to get out and get some new footage on my Hero3 soon!
Enjoy!
More things for you to see...
It has been quite a while since my last video post so check out my latest video in the video gallery.
I hope to get out and get some new footage on my Hero3 soon!
Enjoy!
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.
After trying and being disappointed by the Omer Zero Cubed mask last year, I picked up a couple of other masks ( Mares Star and Sporasub Mystic ) that fit fairly well and did not disappoint, but were not the perfect fit I've been looking for in a low volume freediving mask so I didn't feel overly compelled to write a spearview about them. In defense of these masks, they are both low volume masks that are relatively inexpensive so for the money they are great purchases. Of these two, the...
This year at The Blue Wild I was fortunate enough to meet Mike Hickey. I know of Mike from his appearances on Speargun Hunter on the Outdoor Channel with Sheri Daye. Mike was orginally a guest on the show and in later seasons participated as an underwater videographer. Mike is the USA distributor for FreeDivers ( FreeDivers USA ) spearfishing equipment. I came across his booth and after a great conversation about spearfishing, we started discussing the rising cost of spearshafts specifically....
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...
Believe it or not my latest addition to my spearguns is not one for shooting fish (well at least not shooting to kill them). But it hopefully will help others watch online what I love to do underwater. I have made a camera mount for my Riffe Euro guns. This mount will fit on any Euro that has the reel inserts (basically all of them). It was terribly simple to make. The only fairly tricky part was putting together the actual mount screw for the camera tripod mount itself.
Seas: 2-4' Winds: 10-20 ESE Viz: 45-50' Temp: 81F So we head down this weekend without too much in the expectation department since it had been raining with 20-40 mph winds almost incessantly the entire week. While at work on Thursday, I take a quick glance at the forecast to see there was still a small craft advisory in effect and a call for 2-4' seas on Sat increasing to 3-5 on Sunday. Heading home from work Friday in what seemed like my umpteenth torrential downpour this week, I'm not too...
Unfortunately, right after starting this conditions journal, I have experienced a small setback. I am suffering from an inner ear problem which currently prohibits me from spearfishing. I will probably be out of commission for a couple of weeks (at least). But I guess it's worth it. I'm pretty stone cold deaf in my right ear, and the ringing is enfuriating. Hopefully I will be back in the water soon.
I'm not going to lie to you, I got a little lazy and didn't track any of my weather stats this weekend. Diving, cleaning fish and cooking start to take their toll on you and you get to the point where all you want to do is get some sleep instead of being responsible and entering your blog. Then again, I probably tell more people about our goings-on these weekends than actually read them here... Opening day of lobster season! What a madhouse!!! The really interesting part (and by interesting, I...
Winds: 0-5 Seas: Less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 87F Viz: 50-100 feet If I had to pick a weekend to be able to begin diving again, this was it (I figure somewhere around 70% of my hearing has returned)! There was literally no wind and minimal seas to deal with. The viz was absolutely incredible, as we were moving at 35 mph and spotting fish as we passed over different patch reefs. We had an incredible time of it. The only downside was an inadequacy in the headcount department. We limited out on...
I am still pretty much out of commission. My hearing has returned (most of it anyway), and most of the ringing is gone. I did get to go out this weekend. Unfortunately, I was only driving. But the conditions were as follows: The winds were gusting up to 35 MPH, and storms kept moving up from Key West through the lower and middle keys. It didn't make for a nice weekend for the land lubbers, but you could see bottom from the boat in water as deep as 25-26 feet. Considering the storms, the water...
Winds: 30 east Seas: 5-8 feet Surf Temp: ?F Viz: 0 feet Unfortunately, even the weather people have to get one right every once in a while. This weekend was everything just as advertised. The winds were howling at about 25-30 mph from the east which made it for very rough going for those brave few that even attempted to get on the water this weekend. We ended up breaking out some frozen fish and lobster and cooking up a big meal for everyone. While the company was great, the fishing was...