|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Things that are supposed to happen...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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...
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.
{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...
I finally bit the bullet and decided to sell my No-Ka-Oi. It had gotten next to no use in the time I had owned it and it seemed a shame to have it just sit there so I Ebay'd it. With the funds from that sale, I invested in a gun that is a little more multi-purpose (at least that is how I convinced myself to get it :). I was extremely torn among 3 choices. I was considering the Euro 120, 120x and 130. After a couple of weeks of deliberation and a lot of flip-flopping, I decided on the Euro 120....
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....
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: 20-45' Temp: 78F It was a little upsetting for me to realize as I sat down to compose this week's blog that I hadn't even gotten around to composing my usual "Foreward" blog at the beginning of this year. It was even sadder for me to think that it was because I hadn't been in the water since December 26. So in efforts to combat my sadness and keep up my word count on my blogs (like anyone else is counting - or even reading) this one turned out a little long...
Winds: 5-10 variable (except for Monday) Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 85F Viz: 15-25 feet Definitely better than our typical Memorial Day weekend weather. While Memorial Day is usually a pretty rainy weekend, this year the rainfall was confined to inland showers, and left us pretty much alone. The viz wasn't what we would have liked, but at least the weather was agreeable.
Wind Seas Viz Temp 10-25 ENE/Variable 3-4' 5-15' 78F In South Florida, probably one of the most anticipated and planned spearfishing outings (aside from those that take you to major global destinations) is the trip we make on or about May 1 of each year for the re-opening of Grouper season. It doesn't always fall on a weekend but when it does (like this year), the planning begins early. The season closure has barely taken effect on January 1, and we already start talking about how many grouper...
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...
I am very excited to have another year of spearfishing and freediving just about ready to begin. Last year we were able to get a couple of winter dives in with some pretty decent results , so we hope to do even more of that this winter. As soon as the weather permits, we will be donning our wetsuits and jumping in for some fun getting back into shape for the summer ahead.
Unbenknownst to us, this would be our final weekend in the keys for this summer! Saturday allowed us to pick up quite a few bugs to stock our freezers, and it was a good thing too, because Hurricane (at least it was at that time) Ernesto had other things in mind for us. Once we got back from gathering yet a few more bugs on Sunday, we got the word about Hurricane Ernesto. After the two storms we experienced last year we decided to turn tail and get the heck out of Dodge. We made the decision...