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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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  • International Underwater Spearfishing Association

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SpearViews

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...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Saturday, 30 January 2010 08:16

Throughout my relatively short history in spearfishing (as of this writing), I have only used a few different spearguns. Now obviously, my opinion in this matter is not one of extreme trial and error. Mostly it consists of recommendations made to me by those I spearfish with along with some of my own common sense. In the beginning (early 1990's), I used one of my brother-in-law's extra guns. Specifically, a 38" Arbalette. Now this gun had already seen finer days by the time I started using it....

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Wednesday, 21 December 2011 15:51

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...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Monday, 26 July 2010 15:11

This year at The Blue Wild I was fortunate enough to meet Mike Hickey. I know of Mike from his appearances on Speargun Hunter on the Outdoor Channel with Sheri Daye. Mike was orginally a guest on the show and in later seasons participated as an underwater videographer. Mike is the USA distributor for FreeDivers ( FreeDivers USA ) spearfishing equipment. I came across his booth and after a great conversation about spearfishing, we started discussing the rising cost of spearshafts specifically....

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Thursday, 11 February 2010 20:57

Believe it or not my latest addition to my spearguns is not one for shooting fish (well at least not shooting to kill them). But it hopefully will help others watch online what I love to do underwater. I have made a camera mount for my Riffe Euro guns. This mount will fit on any Euro that has the reel inserts (basically all of them). It was terribly simple to make. The only fairly tricky part was putting together the actual mount screw for the camera tripod mount itself.

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 2006

Bob Diaz - Sunday, 30 July 2006 15:14

Winds: 5-15 South Seas: 3-4 feet Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 20-35 feet This weekend we finally started to find some cleaner water without having to go too far offshore. For the past few weeks, the real clean water was unfortunately a little deeper than we are accustomed to diving. But over the past week, it seems as though the blue water has moved in a little closer to shore and started to give us a break on viz. We were actually able to spot and follow most of our prey without having to commit to...

SpearBlog 2006

Bob Diaz - Sunday, 04 June 2006 15:10

Winds: 5-10 South Seas: 1-2 feet (maximum) Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 25-40 feet Another beautiful weekend in paradise. The winds were mild and the temperatures hot! We dove some of our preferred patch reefs this weekend. We knew it was still a little early to catch those large mangroves we love so much, but we just couldn't resist. We only took a few, but they were choice! We even got a couple of nice mackerels. As long as you arrived before the tide line, the water was pretty clear... green,...

SpearBlog 2008

Bob Diaz - Monday, 19 May 2008 01:09

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...

SpearBlog 2011

Bob Diaz - Monday, 03 January 2011 14:17

Once again, another year has gone by altogether too quickly. Unfortunately for me, I didn't get an opportunity to dive in December before the grouper closure on January 1. The winds picked up the week before Christmas and didn't let up (actually haven't let up) so December came and went and January showed up without my being able to bag that last grouper of the winter. I guess I'm just going to have to wait until May 1 st to land that next big one! I only hope that I am able to dive a little...

SpearBlog 2017

Bob Diaz - Saturday, 30 December 2017 00:01

Wind Seas Viz Temp N-NE 10-18mph 2-4' 30' 77F As 2017 was drawing to a close, I decided it was time to get back on the water and give it one last try before grouper season closed on January 1. With the Christmas break upon us, my kids were home and off from school, so we decided to make it a family day on the water (with the exception of my wife that was unfortunately at work today). Throw in my daughter's oldest friend for good measure, and we were off! The forecast wasn't exceptional, but...

SpearBlog 2014

Bob Diaz - Monday, 14 July 2014 17:00

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...