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  • 2012
Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2012
Fri13Jan2012

Foreword 2012

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Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2012 | January 12, 2012 | Print
foreword

Well it's hard to believe but another year is in the books. 2011 definitely passed in the blink of an eye. I guess it's true what they say... time does go by faster as you get older. I think it's yet another application of Einstein's theory of relativity. I believe that it goes by faster as you get older because the amount of time that passes is shorter relative to your age. When you were 10, a year was 1/10th of your life. At 50, it's a mere 1/50th so relatively speaking it's a hell of a lot shorter time span so it seems to go by faster for us as we age. I think back to something  my Dad told me on my 32nd birthday, "Today you're half my age. From here on in, you get closer!".

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Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2012
Wed23May2012

May 23, 2012 - Always a bridesmaid...

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Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2012 | May 23, 2012 | Print
bitch, complain, sidelined, waiting, hating, sucks

It's hard to believe that I haven't had an opportunity to jump in the water since my last blog on Dec 30th of last year. That's right, so long ago that I can actually refer to it as "last year". That's because you're allowed to refer to past events as happening "last week", "a few weeks ago", "a month ago", and even "a few months ago", but when your're 5 months removed from something, it's time to give up the ghost and call it what it is... "last year." Which makes you realize that this year is almost half gone and you're still dry and all your slings are starting to dry rot.

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Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2012
Mon4Jun2012

June 1-3, 2012 - A bunch of a whole lot of nothin'...

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Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2012 | June 04, 2012 | Print
crappy weather, no viz, first weekend, 2012

 

Seas:
 2-3 feet (Sat)
 1-2 feet (Sun)		 Winds:
 10-15 S/SW (Sat)
 10 S-SE (Sun)		 Viz:
 10-15 feet (Sat)
 40-50 feet (Sun)		 Temp:
 82 F (Sat)
 82 F (Sun)

I had been looking forward to this weekend for months. My first weekend of diving and spearfishing since last December. Unfortunately it started going a little awry about a week ago when my wife gave me the news that she and my daughter wouldn't be coming along due to some last minute sports team issues. I'm not sure, but it seems that organized sports aren't really very organized... Since it would be a father-son weekend, I decided to take the day off and pick him up from school and take off early for a little bonding time on the boat before everybody else got to the campground later that evening.

 

 It started out well enough. After loading up an entire car trailer with survival necessities (you know, golf cart, paddleboat, jet ski... just the bare essentials) that a friend would bring down for me that evening, we were on our way by 12:30p and in a couple of hours we were pulling in to the campground with boat in tow. This unfortunately is where things got grim.

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Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2012
Wed20Jun2012

June 16-17, 2012 - What next?!?!

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Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2012 | June 20, 2012 | Print
broken a/c, electrical box, father's day
Seas:
2-3'		 Winds:
15-20 NE
dropping to 10-15 SE in the afternoon		 Viz:
30-35'		 Temp:
82F

"Third time's a charm", or so I thought... as I headed down for another shot at what would hopefully be my first "full" weekend of the Summer. With the boat in tow after working on it during the week to resolve fuel flow problems caused by the introduction of ethanol into our fuel supply (Thank you, big oil) I call ahead to have a friend turn on our A/C so temperatures are tolerable for our arrival. I get a call back a few minutes later letting me know that the A/C doesn't seem to be working. After a few minutes trying to do some telephonic troubleshooting, I decide whatever it is will have to await my arrival to get addressed, so in my usual devil-may-care way (NOT!) I sit back and start stewing the remainder of the drive.

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Bob Diaz - Wednesday, 08 February 2012 16:32

{sigplus link=goprohero2 index=1} {/sigplus}I finally jumped on the HD bandwagon and bought myself a Hero2 HD digital camera by GoPro. These little beauties have been around for quite a while now so hearing about them isn't exactly news. But since I finally got around to purchasing one for myself and it happens to be that the Hero2 is the biggest leap in performance that they've given these cameras since their launch, I figured I would put in my 2 cents worth.

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Bob Diaz - Sunday, 10 March 2013 12:57

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...

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Bob Diaz - Saturday, 30 January 2010 08:18

I finally bit the bullet and decided to sell my No-Ka-Oi. It had gotten next to no use in the time I had owned it and it seemed a shame to have it just sit there so I Ebay'd it. With the funds from that sale, I invested in a gun that is a little more multi-purpose (at least that is how I convinced myself to get it :). I was extremely torn among 3 choices. I was considering the Euro 120, 120x and 130. After a couple of weeks of deliberation and a lot of flip-flopping, I decided on the Euro 120....

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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...

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Bob Diaz - Thursday, 23 June 2011 16:49

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...

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.

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SpearBlog 2011

Bob Diaz - Monday, 30 May 2011 17:06

Seas: 3-5 feet Winds: 20-25 S/SE Viz: 20 feet Temp: 81 F The forecast for the long weekend was promising, at least for Saturday. S-SE winds at 5-10 knots with seas 1' inside the reef and only 1-3' outside the reef, phehomenal. The outlook wasn't as great for Sunday and Monday, but we hoped one good day would be enough and besides, we usually get the hell outta Dodge early on holidays to beat the traffic so Monday didn't even really count, so we were hopeful as we pulled in Friday night and I...

SpearBlog 2007

Bob Diaz - Sunday, 01 July 2007 01:26

Sat 6/23 Winds: East 5-10 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp: 82 F Viz: 20-25 ft Finally some weather worth diving for... The winds have laid down for about 4-5 days now and we are finally get back to business. The water is calm and a wonderful temperature too. We didn't catch a whole lot, but at least we got back in the water. Just the usual suspects today, black grouper and mangrove snapper. Still, it felt good to get back in the water after the last few weeks.

SpearBlog 2009

Bob Diaz - Sunday, 15 February 2009 00:00

Unfortunately, I have gotten a late start on the winter diving this year. I had two earlier opportunities to go diving this winter, but both were undermined by work responsibilities. What can I say, it pays the bills. Finally this past weekend (2/15/09), I was able to get out on a decent weather day to do some diving and (I thought) some spearfishing. Unfortunately we didn't have much luck this day (as evidenced by the total lack of pictures for this trip's catch. The day started out great...

SpearBlog 2009

Bob Diaz - Monday, 03 August 2009 01:00

Seas: 4-6 feet Winds: 15-20 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 25-50 feet After a week of East winds (and the wind was still blowing), the clean water finally got pushed far enough West so we could try to hit some of our spots in that general direction. We headed out with 5 divers that morning hoping to find that clean water we had heard about from other fishermen and we weren't disappointed. The clarity was absolutely amazing in many of our spots from 25-35 feet deep. Unfortunately, the numbers of fish...

SpearBlog 2008

Bob Diaz - Monday, 26 May 2008 01:10

Winds: 5-10 SSE Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 82F Viz: 20-25 feet The first full weekend of diving for the summer finally arrived and I was raring to go. We still had a little setup to do, but not enough to keep us from catching high tide. Unfortunately, while we were ready, the tide was not. The full moon (or waning full moon) was still wreaking havoc with the tide and its duration. We arrived at what we thought was the right time for the high tide only to end up swimming for an extra hour...

SpearBlog 2005

Bob Diaz - Monday, 15 August 2005 15:06

Winds: 0-5 Seas : Less than 1 foot Surf Temp : 87F Viz: 20-40 feet This was another very nice weekend for diving and spearfishing. The weather has been agreeable for a couple of weeks now, and now that I have some of my hearing returning (about 50%), I feel confident that I can begin to dive again. I didn't push it too hard this weekend, I just dove with my daughter piggyback and dove down a few times to get the feel of it and make sure I could easily equalize again. I was sorry I couldn't...