Glad you're alright Dan. I have yet to get a helmet, but I will now. I force my kids to wear them although we never wore them growing up.
On another note, your story telling is great. Tell us more about this "grappling" history of yours.
C
Glad you're alright Dan. I have yet to get a helmet, but I will now. I force my kids to wear them although we never wore them growing up.
On another note, your story telling is great. Tell us more about this "grappling" history of yours.
C
Chuck those are some awesome shots! I'm headed back to Clearwater/Seminole to visit the folks and hopefully get out next week. If you need a dive buddy and are headed out, shoot me a PM. I'll be back around Tuesday onwards for about a week or so.
Possibly next wednesday. Been working shallow in state waters for Gags before they are shut down forever.
C
Is the viz like that all the way to the bottom or does it get hazy? I might have to trailer the boat to Clearwater and kill one of those 100lb+ Cuberas!
Wintertime top to bottom.
Summer usually hazy either in middle or on bottom. Sometimes top to bottom out deep.
C
The AJ was 30lb.
I was using a 9ft Sea Stinger carbon fiber spear with the Sea Stinger slip tip.
Cam brought a new Riffe polespear and it was nice. And I had my Lance Ohara but not with a slip tip.
I was testing some polespears and landed my first AJ with a polespear.
More pics. Deep bluewater wreck diving is very exciting, definitely my favorite diving right now.
I took Cam Kirkconnell and Dave out 2 weeks ago to try our luck on some medium depth wrecks (60-90fsw) looking for Cobia. None home, we got some AJs and mangos. Dave saw a large school of permit, of course he had just shot a mango when they cruised by. And Cam shot and lost a 100+ lb Cubera. He has a low res video posted on his blog of the encounter. Then we came in to some ledges and shot some hogfish.
Here are some pics. I went and bought a new Canon SD940 for HD video next time.
It's not open yet. We see it offshore 20miles outside of Clearwater just getting fully rigged.
C
Edge fiberglass, DiveR fiberglass, or Pursuit CF.
My brother has Sz14 feet. He's currently using Mares footpocket in size 45-46.
C
Spadefish? Or human tar tar!
Wong 50" GR Hybrid midhandle - lightly used, says ASALTWEAPON engrsved on side - retail $779
Like new old version Aimrite reel with brand new yellow line, with built in threaded retainers - retail $93
4 shafts (2 new, 2 with light use), 2- 5/16th/57 inch, 2- 9/32nd/57 inch - retail $40-60 each
Pictures below. Local pickup preferred, otherwise buyer pays for shipping (2 packages, a tube for the gun and shafts; and a box for the reel and handle)
New retail price - $1072
Asking - $700.
email offers/questions to cldomson(at)hotmail.com
To clear up for guys who may not understand the mouth piece thing; the Riffe stable snorkel accepts the same mouth piece as a scuba regulator. A few years ago I thought that was a great idea, since sometimes the mouth piece gets bitten through and the snorkel gets trashed. In this case you can just replace the mouthpiece. But I found the scuba mouthpiece to be too big, requiring me to keep my mouth open too wide. One of my criteria for a good snorkel is a small mouthpiece, one that will fit with my mouth being slightly open in as close a position to neutral as possible. This way I don't have to spend any energy keeping the snorkel in my mouth. It really adds up throughout a 6-8 hour day of diving. I find the scuba mouthpiece is definitely not the best for this. Combined with the pull out effect caused by the accordion shape of this snorkel's tube I think it's more exertion for the mouth than necessary.
Riff stable snorkel.
Dan, I agree. I removed the original mouthpiece and installed a custom fitted Sea Cure mouth piece. It is in my top ten greatest inventions for spearfishing/scuba diving. Once custom fitted, like I mentioned before, the mouthpiece sticks to your teeth from the surface tension and requires ZERO effort or strain to keep it in your mouth.
And it can be trimmed as small as you like with sharp scissors or a razor blade. Here are a few examples:
I have to respectfully disagree with you guys. I hate clearing the snorkel, especially on rough days. I tried the simple OMER/Cressi one and hated it.
And I find I bite down hard on a regular mouthpiece and get a headache after a day of diving.
I use a SeaCure mouthpiece on all my scuba regs and it works awesome. So I bought a Riffe Stable and put the SeaCure on it. It hands down beats all the other snorkels I've tried. It suctions to my teeth so I dont bite down with any force, it clears easily IF any water gets in.
I've been out in 5 footers with whitecaps breaking over my head with the Stable, and almost never need to purge water from it. It is the driest snorkel I've ever used.
I buy the same snorkel from AQA now for $36 and add a $28 mouthpiece. For the comfort and dryness its worth ever penny. I've had the same one for 2 years, and carry an identical backup with a backup mask too/
C
<59 - don't dive, until I get a 7mm Pursuit top :@
60-70 - 5mm open cell top with hood and pants bottom
70-76 - 3mm closed cell top with hood(usually off) and pants bottom
over 76 - rashguard long sleeve top and board shorts
In theory it sounds logical to try and breath it in.
In practice, when pulling a fish to the surface, being real stoked on that, looking up, pulling......swimming harder....really?
Uh, yes. I do it every dive, whether I pull the trigger or not. I spoke to Mike and he said YES, it does affect your PO2 on ascent and every little bit may be the difference between blacking out or not.
C
It seems to me that the majority of the air in your mask was in there on the surface or was blown in during the first 33' of descent. The O2 content should be close to 20-21%. Obviously the total volume depends on the mask volume and total depth.
I know that PFI teaches it in the class and all the competition freedivers "sniff it back" as Kirk says.
So I assume it is a good thing, and should help maintain or even increase PO2 levels during ascent. The variable I'm not sure of as discussed earlier is the dead space. I.e. is the air youre sniffing back making past your trachea and mainstem bronchi into your alveoli? I dont know. I would assume on deep dives where you have to grouper call to get air up from your lungs to clear your mask, it will make it all the way back down.
This could all probably be answered definitively by Kirk Krack. I'll have Mike ask him at their next course.
I do it and it feels like it helps a lot. And that's on 50' dives.
Charlie
GR and I shot down for calm seas and warm(er) waters to catch the full moon Wahoo run. Well, no Wahoo even sighted.
We had 72 degree water, 1' seas, and 50ft vis. Vis was top to bottom on the reef in 50ft out towards the Marquesas.
We dove blue water most of the day, and hit the sub wreck too. The sharks were thick as thieves, and the blackfin tuna and bonita were loving the live bait.
I ended up landing a luck long shot on a racing football, my first ever. And the tuna tataki was AWESOME.
GR shot his usual cobia, yellowjack and BIG mutton.
No Wahoo. I videoed a small sailfish, and we swam for a minute with a 300-400lb blue Marlin.
It was nice to be warm in a 5mm/3mm combo.