One of the few usable clips from our outing for the opening of the Atlantic Grouper season 2017. Definitely demonstrates why you should always be checking your surroundings. Enjoy!
More things for you to see...
One of the few usable clips from our outing for the opening of the Atlantic Grouper season 2017. Definitely demonstrates why you should always be checking your surroundings. Enjoy!
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...
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...
{sigplus link=oculusr5 index=1} {/sigplus}Hot on the heels of my review of the GoPro Hero2, I felt I would be remiss if I didn't follow up with a review of the case that resolves the one (and only one in my opinion) flaw in the Hero2 design, it's underwater focus (or lack thereof) flaw. You see, as I wrote about in the Hero2 review the curved lens on the stock case creates a focus fallacy when shooting underwater. It's fairly common knowledge now, so if you want to read about it, you can check...
{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.
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...
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.
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 E Viz: 40-50 feet Temp: 80 F Well, the weather finally held up until I got down there and what weather it was this weekend! Saturday and Sunday had 5-10mph winds out of the West and a mild 1-2' seas as far as the eye could see. We only hoped that the change in the wind from the East last week to the West this week wouldn't wreak too much havoc with the fishing. We had heard that those that were dolphin fishing earlier in the week were having no luck in close and only...
Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 5-15 ESE Temp: 80 F Viz: 25-30 feet After missing out last weekend, this weekend had me pulling an all nighter at work on Friday, so I didn't pull into the keys until almost 10a Saturday morning on no sleep for 27 hours (but I wasn't going to miss out on another weekend). Luckily, I am pretty accustomed to the drive, so I probably only dozed off 2 or 3 times... tops :). About 5 minutes out of the campground, I got a call asking if I wanted my gear put on the boat in case...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 10-15 E/SE Viz: 15-25feet Temp: 82F The winds continued to to calm down today so we headed out to see if the viz had improved as well. We headed west today hitting some spots in about 25-35' hoping we could run into some more large mangroves. It was just 2 of us today (my brother in law and me) so the limit would only be 10.
Wind Seas Viz Temp N-NE 10-18mph 2-4' 30' 77F As 2017 was drawing to a close, I decided it was time to get back on the water and give it one last try before grouper season closed on January 1. With the Christmas break upon us, my kids were home and off from school, so we decided to make it a family day on the water (with the exception of my wife that was unfortunately at work today). Throw in my daughter's oldest friend for good measure, and we were off! The forecast wasn't exceptional, but...
Seas: 6-8 feet (Sat) 2-4 feet (Sun) Winds: 15-25 S/SE 10-15 E/SE Viz: 40 feet Temp: 84 F This was almost my second week without an update, but a very interesting thing happened this past week. I found out I have a fan (and no, not a facebook fan)! Don't worry, I won't let the celebrity of it all go to my head and anywhere you want to put my Internet Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will do (maybe somewhere between the Dancing Baby and iCarly :). Not wanting to disappoint my now growing...
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...