Another long overdue edit, but what can I say? Life continues to get in the way of my hobbies...
More things for you to see...
Another long overdue edit, but what can I say? Life continues to get in the way of my hobbies...
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.
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.
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...
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...
Over the 4th of July holiday I was able to break in my hawaiian sling made by HawaiianSling.net (Ray Uppstrom). I had purchased this quite some time ago in preparation for a trip to the Bahamas and I finally got to try it out in the waters around Cat Cay, South Bimini. This isn't your normal hawaiian sling. The design is completely unique and interesting in its approach compared to traditional slings. This sling is much more akin to a bow and arrow than it is to a regular sling and it looks...
Wind Seas Viz Temp ESE 5mph 1' 40' 85F After almost another week of typical Florida Summer weather with afternoon thunder storms a possibilty on any given day, the wind started to lay down around Wednesday and the forecast really started to shape up for the weekend with calls for 5-8mph winds out of the SE and less than 1 foot seas. Of course my typical cynicism kept me thinking that at any minute (most likely on Friday afternoon) the forecast would flip from optimal to abysmal and we would be...
Winds: 5 SE Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: 79F Viz: 30-40 feet Today was a beautiful day for diving in Miami. Unfortunately, the fish didn't seem to agree with us. The water was crystal clear all the way to Soldier Key, but we just didn't find the fish. We shot a couple, but we didn't really run into the numbers we are accustomed to. All in all, still a great day of diving.
Seas: 1-3 feet Winds: 5-15 ESE Temp: 80 F Viz: 40-50 feet offshore To say that I was looking forward to this weekend after the past few we have had would seem totally redundant. The last couple of weekends have been abysmal at best. But luckily for me, this weekend has let me make up for the past few (from a spearfishing perspective) and this blog will have me at my usual loquacious self with a little more verbal ammunition than I have had recently. Like last week, I want to talk about the...
Winds: 10-15 SE Seas: 2-4 feet (sloppy) Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 25-30 feet On Saturday we started out like we normally do, procrastinating about where to make the first dive. We headed out to one of our reliable spots and were able to get into a couple of decent sized mangroves before they thinned out and we moved on. From there we decided to head to a spot that has recently been a little active with bull sharks. Little did we know how active it had become. In the first 45 minutes of the dive...
Preface : This is a particularly long blog that I wrote for reasons of personal recollection and has very little spearfishing content. What can I say? Ownership has it’s privileges. My first crossing to Bimini, Cat Cay to be specific, and what a day we pick to do it. After planning and weather watching for the past few weeks (quite the exercise in futility as it turns out), hoping for a smooth crossing, prayers were answered, unfortunately they must have been someone else’s prayers because I...
Winds: 10-15 SSW Seas: 2-3 feet Surf Temp: +/- 82F Viz: 20-25 feet First weekend back and it was both hard work and fun. It took us a little longer than usual to setup this weekend because we went back to our old campground this year and we are on somewhat smaller sites compared to last year. We did prevail however and got all setup with a little time left for a dive on Saturday. We headed out looking for clean water because we knew that we had missed the tide. Things didn't look too promising...