I am beyond excited to have purchased a new kayak, from which I will be free dive spearfishing. It is a Hobie Odyssey, 14' tandem yak, that I purchased from Nautical Ventures in Ft. Lauderdale (I talked them into a $100 off, no tax deal to get it out the door for $28 less than the before tax price, by telling them that a company in NY was going to ship it to me free without tax. Normally, they are $1,300 before tax, so I got it home for $1,272 - sweet. Would have been around $1,400, otherwise). I live in Miami and will, gratefully, be launching this bad boy either tomorrow or the next day, off of Key Biscayne (Bill Baggs State Park) with my Cuban spearo sensei aboard. I took the kayak out on a test run in Biscayne Bay with 1.5' swells and it handled beautifully. I feel that it is the perfect balance between width (stability) and length (tracking), amongst other attributes. I will update this thread with the results of my first kayak spearfishing endeavor in a few days.
I have been accumulating all the "essentials" for the past few weeks, including, but not limited to: 100 ft. float line, West Marine clear dry bag; Plano dry box; 3 lb. Hobie anchor; safety kit with first aid, glow sticks, flares, and whistles; large dive flag zip-tied to an 8 ft. PVC pole that fits snugly into one of the built-in fishing rod holders on the back of the kayak; reflective tape for the paddles; paddle leashes; and even neoprene paddle grips for added comfort during those long trips that I know will happen, soon. Not to mention, I just recently acquired a Riffe Mid-Handle Hawaiian (50") with a double flopper shaft with a mid-shaft repositioning notch and a reel with 200 lb. mono, as well as a Riffe Terminator spearfishing knife, some Riffe free diver fins, and a custom WetWear wetsuit (manufactured in Hollywood, FL by local company, "WetWear").
As you may have inferred, thus far, I have been on a warpath for the last few weeks. Now, it is the day before the first battle (fish battle - I'm going to win, undoubtedly). I know it may seem utterly ridiculous to some, the amount of money I have put into all of this, but one thing that I have learned from being a life-long musician, in terms of buying gear, is that 99% of the time, with proper research and due diligence - you get exactly what you pay for. I should add that all of my purchases were cold calculated decisions that were backed up with days upon days of various forms of research and that nothing I purchased was purchased without some sort of discount (either through my Cuban spearo sensei's dive shop connect, or through my ultra frugal sense of jewish heritage - much love to my jews). Also, the sale of my old Native Watercraft 12' fishing kayak supplemented, greatly, the purchase of my new Hobie Odyssey.
With all that being said, I just wanted, for the sake of fun, to share with you all some pictures of my yak and speargun. Does anybody else use Hobie Kayaks? If so, which Hobie do you use? Another member on this forum posted about the Humminbird 385 kayak combo fish finder/GPS; I was checking that out and it looks pretty legit (better be for ~$500). I was thinking about getting some sort of mountable GPS/fish finder system at some point in the future. But, until then, I will simply be using my iPhone 5 as a GPS tool in a "Case Marine" waterproof case (check out these cases, if you haven't) with the Navionics app, along with some weather, tide, wind, and beach cam apps. The only thing, that I can think of, that I haven't fully ironed out is my fish storage. I was thinking about getting the Surf to Summit 24" bow-mountable kayak fish bag, but until I decide to go that route I was just going to bungee down one of my old clunky, junky coolers to see how they work, first. For large fish, I was planning on bringing a couple of large black contractor trash bags and some bungee, or rope, to close the bag(s) off and then slide into the hull of the yak via one of the three hatches.
As a side note, I am working on a periscope design for quick viewing of underwater structures from the comfort of the kayak - it came to me in a dream. I will post pictures of the periscope soon; I am planning on executing my idea for the prototype tomorrow. By and large, I feel like I'm ready for this war and it's finally the eve before battle. However, if anybody has anything they would like to suggest, or if you would like to discuss any particulars, I welcome all feedback, critique, and general correspondence.
Much Love, Even More Fish,
Jake
Telekinetic Walrus