Things that are supposed to happen...
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...
After trying and being disappointed by the Omer Zero Cubed mask last year, I picked up a couple of other masks ( Mares Star and Sporasub Mystic ) that fit fairly well and did not disappoint, but were not the perfect fit I've been looking for in a low volume freediving mask so I didn't feel overly compelled to write a spearview about them. In defense of these masks, they are both low volume masks that are relatively inexpensive so for the money they are great purchases. Of these two, the...
{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...
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 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.
I realized recently that I had overlooked the fact that I had purchased and used some new SpearGear at the beginning of the Summer of 2011 and hadn't gotten around to posting about it (here or in SpearGear). This article is going to be one that definitely crosses over between SpearViews and SpearGear because of the fact that I do own it but I definitely think it's worthy of a review as well. In the end, SpearViews won the coin toss deciding where I would put the article (especially after I...
Seas: 1-3(am) 3-5(pm) Winds: 10-20 ENE (am) 20-25 ENE (pm) Viz: 30-50' Temp: 81F This week's forecast was calling for a fairly typical Memorial Day weekend, rainy and windy. But what were the chances that those charlatan voodoo witch doctors (more commonly known as meteorologists) would get it right this week? I've lost count of the number of times the meteorological evangelists promised wonderfully light winds and calm seas only for me to make the hike and arrive to find weather conditions...
Seas: 2-3 feet Winds: 5-10 SW Temp: 82 F Viz: 10-15 feet This was a real good news/bad news weekend which sort of makes it a fitting sequel to last weekend. Fact is, the viz was even worse this weekend and it got worse from Saturday to Sunday as well. We headed out Saturday for a late morning patch reef dive so we could kill time until the 4:30p high slack tide, hoping it would be clean. We headed to a spot that had been productive recently in about 30 feet of water. Upon getting there we...
Seas: 2-3 feet Winds: 15 E/SE Viz: 15-25feet Temp: 82F Well the winds finally laid down enough for us to give it another shot. We've been dealing with 3-5' seas inside the reef for 4 days now and when we haven't been getting the crap beat out of us by the seas, we've been pretty much bored to death. You can only make ice trips so many times before it becomes old hat. So even though we got a late start we head out to see if we can find some clean water. The seas didn't seem to be much more than...
Winds: Northeast 5-15 Seas: Choppy, 2-4 inside the reef, 5-7 outside the reef Surf Temp: +/- 85F Viz: 10-15 feet At least we were able to salvage Sunday out of this weekend. Saturday afternoon wasn't too bad, but the boat didn't want to cooperate, so we spent most of our afternoon working on it. It rained most of Saturday and well into the night. Sunday, we awoke to clear blue skies and calmer (not calm) seas. We headed out for a morning dive, and came back with a small catch that had a couple...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 5-10 SSE 1-3' 25-55' 85F Many times I get asked the question, "How many fish have you lost to sharks?" and I always find it interesting how people that don't dive or spearfish frequently automatically associate what we do with sharks and attacks and how they typically believe that these are some kind of single threat. The truth is that although I have been buzzed by sharks and even surrrounded by sharks, historically, I have lost countless fish to barracuda while losses to...
Well, thanks to Tropical Storm Cindy and Hurricane Dennis, my vacation this year pretty much sucked! Not only did the weather not cooperate, but I also had a congested ear which kept me from diving 2 of those few days that were actually worthwhile. Basically, the only day we shot anything worth mentioning, was the day they announced the mandatory evacuations for visitors. I won't even mention the actual conditions, because they were abysmal. The winds were kicking about 10-20 (depending on the...