Sat10Feb2007

Feb 10, 2007

Information
Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2007 | February 10, 2007

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 down).  Then we realized we had no lights on the trailer. After checking a few connections, we found that the lights had pretty much corroded off over winter months. So its off to Super WalMart at 6:30am to find some lights (this of course after our master plan to be on the road by 6:00am fell through). I decided to take advantage and head back home to get the missing key, since I was waiting for the new lights anyway.

 

We met back up after the lights were purchased. We proceeded to install the lights and then they didn't work right!! After checking everything under the sun, we found a false ground was the culprit. After fixing that, we were able to get on the road by 8:00am. Not bad considering everything we had accomplished.

Luckily after that, the day went pretty much as planned. We were on the boat at the dock by 10:30am and off we went. We could have arrived about an hour earlier to take more advantage of the tide (or lack thereof), but we were able to jump in and shoot a few mangoes and a couple of groupers too. We headed out to some patch reefs in about 35 feet of water, but found no life. It was just as well, cause we were really just killing time to the next tide.

By the time we got back, the tide was just starting to slack off. After about an hour of work, it got easy and then we ran into the mangoes we had been looking for all morning long. Unfortunately, we were not able to take all the big ones we saw, because we reached our limit. But suffice it to say that what we saw will have us going back for more the first weekend the winds lay down for a couple of days.

All this, and NO SHARKS! I kept looking around for them, but luckily we had a day without encounters. Here's to winter dives in Marathon. Hope we get to go some more before the water warms up too much (since my new freedive suit kept me as snug as a bug in a rug :).