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!
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.
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...
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...
{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...
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...
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....
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...
Winds: 0-5 Variable Seas: Less than 2 feet Surf Temp: 84F Viz: 80-100 feet This is what I have been waiting for all summer long! This was without a doubt the best weekend in short term memory. We literally had no chop for as far as the eye could see. Water clarity once you were outside of Hawk Channel was easily 80 to 100 feet in any direction. We dove depths from 20-40 feet and there was no noticable change in the viz. The other thing we noticed was the uncanny number of Spanish Mackerel that...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSE Temp: 82 F Viz: 10 feet More of the same (or actually worse) with respect to the viz this week. We hit a couple of shallow spots at slack but found no fish, so we headed a little bit offshore to see if the water had cleared up since last week. To our dismay, we found the water conditions were probably about as bad as they were last Sunday. We were in 30 feet of water and diving 20-25 feet to get a clear view of the bottom. This first spot only had a few fish that...
Winds: 5-10 variable Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 73F Viz: 20-35 feet We decided to get an early start this year, and the weather shaped up for a few days so we went out on Saturday. We only went down for the day, but it turned out to be a good one. Things started out a little rough, but you know how it goes when you go out for the first time of the year. Practically everything went wrong. It started out with my forgetting the key to the lock hitch on my truck (I was supposed to tow the boat...
Seas: 2-5' Winds: 10-25 SSE Viz: 2-45' Temp: 83-87F Well, it's that time of year again. The time of year when people that don't normally dive will take a chance as well as the risk and jump in the ocean to look for those prized crustaceans, the Caribbean spiny lobster. This year's lobster season opened on Monday August 6th so it was really easy for a lot of people to just take a long weekend to see if they can grab a few lobsters. Almost as if following suit with the rest of the Summer, this...
I got an email from my brother in law and at first reading, I wasn't really sure why he sent it to me or why I should pay extra attention to it. The email had a link to an article on the FWC site about a Pompano and African Pompano video workshop that the FWC was scheduling. We don't get a lot of Permit family fish because they are protected in state waters and we don't do a lot of federal water spearfishing, so at first glance I thought, "Who cares..."