SpearBlogs

Things I want to tell you about...

Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2009
Mon31Aug2009

August 29-30, 2009

Information
Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2009 | August 31, 2009 | Print

Seas: 1-2 feet
Winds: 5-10 SSW
Temp: 84-87 F
Viz: 70-80 feet
We headed out Saturday morning with 6 divers on the boat. More than usual for us, but we had a couple of friends visiting in addition to our usual crew. We headed out to see if any fish had moved in to some of the spots that had been relatively empty over the past week or two. As we headed out, we were very encouraged by the clarity of the water and how it appeared to be getting even cleaner as we headed further out from shore. By the time we got to our first spot, the water appeared crystalline and everyone was excited to jump in and see what they would see (and shoot). As we have recently, we would find some spots holding large numbers of small snapper that we didn't really want to shoot with an occasional brute rolling through that would hopefully give us a shot.

After bagging a couple of fish at our first spot, we moved on (from #25 to #19 and #16) to find more of the same type of activity at each spot. We would jump in spot (and hopefully shoot) the couple of brutes swimming around the reef and then move on. Our last stop for the morning was at #36 and as with all the other spots we had hit so far, the water was absolutely beautiful. Since we figured we weren't going to be staying out much longer we decided to swim as much of this reef as possible taking advantage of the clean water to hopefully find new ledges and nooks fish may be using for shelter. We ended up bagging quite a few sizable mangroves and started to head back home to call it a day.

Sunday, we decided to head out to Sombrero Lighthouse and have some fun with the family seeing as the water had been so clean on Saturday. The seas were less that 1 foot this morning and as we headed towards the lghthouse we were noticing that the water was actually cleaner than the beautiful water we had on Saturday. On Saturday we were seeing about 40-50 feet of viz. Today we were thinking it was easily cleaner than that. We jumped in at the lighthouse, swam around with the kids and shot some more underwater pics and videos before deciding to see if we could jump in and catch a couple more fish before heading back home (and subsequently back to reality). As we made way from the lighthouse in a westerly direction, we were running over 50 feet of water and spotting every blade of grass on the bottom along the way. We decided to jump in on a spot that we had marked recently to see if we had any luck there. This spot is in 45-50 feet of water and the bottom appeared as though you could almost touch it from the surface. As I dove, I would look around for my nephew and brother in law and there were times they had to be close to 100 feet away from me and I could spot them clearly.

It was so clean that as we were spearfishing, the kids were following me around on the surface and observing every move I made on the bottom. It really gave them a chance to get a different insight to the sport their dad spends so much time enjoying. I was very happy to have them be excited as they watched from the surface wihle we dove, stalked and caught our underwater quarry. Unfortunately, soon enough it was time to start making our way home as there was still a fair amount of work to do before leaving and tomorrow is a school day (for the kids, not me :).

Old Spearblogs

Video Spotlight

Gallery Spotlight

Popular Videos

Weblink Spotlight

  • Mako Spearguns

Spearviews

Spearviews

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Saturday, 28 September 2013 18:22

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...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Saturday, 30 January 2010 08:23

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...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Monday, 09 June 2014 16:50

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.

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Sunday, 28 March 2010 18:32

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.

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Thursday, 20 April 2017 01:50

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...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Sunday, 12 February 2012 23:29

{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...

Spearblogs

Spearblogs

SpearBlog 2007

Bob Diaz - Saturday, 12 May 2007 01:22

Winds: 5-10 south Seas: less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 78F Viz: 25 feet As far as the above water weather, it would have been hard to do much better than this weekend. The winds were next to non-existent and we experienced seas of less than a foot up to 7 miles out and could see it was flat as far as the eye could see. It definitely made for a quick trip out to any of our spots offshore. The only real issue was the haze from the brush fires in the Everglades that made the entire sky look like we...

SpearBlog 2015

Bob Diaz - Wednesday, 06 May 2015 13:30

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...

SpearBlog 2011

Bob Diaz - Tuesday, 12 July 2011 14:35

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...

SpearBlog 2018

Bob Diaz - Friday, 15 June 2018 02:18

Some things are just worth doing again and again. For us, that thing is our annual Pirate Trip to Grand Cay. For 4 years now, we've been lucky enough to be able to pull off epic annual trips to the Bahamas for the sole purpose of spearfishing. Our first trip was to South Andros , and as epic as that trip was, since venturing out to Grand Cay on our second trip, we keep getting drawn back. Maybe it's the accessibility, maybe it's the environment, maybe it's just a great time! Sometimes, the...

SpearBlog 2009

Bob Diaz - Thursday, 09 July 2009 01:00

Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 10 feet Today we headed out with the whole family (families) in tow because the seas have been so calm. We headed out around 10a with a plan to be back close to home in time for high slack tide. Our goal was to hit some offshore spots for snapper and hopefully head back closer to home for some hogfish and hopefully grouper. Unfortunately, I am sure we are all familiar with the best laid plans of mice and men and what happens to them. Anyway, we...

SpearBlog 2009

Bob Diaz - Sunday, 12 July 2009 01:00

Seas: 3-5 feet Winds: 15-20 E Temp: 85 F Viz: 10-15 feet Even though we arose to considerably more wind than the past few days, we decided to head out anyway and see if we could bag our limit of snappers from one of our closer spots (seeing as we knew what the seas would be like). Only the two of us were up to the challenge of driving and diving the higher seas that we knew we would be in for. So we get to our spot with only 10 to shoot due to our lack of friend or family participation in this...