Sasquatch
06-17-2008, 11:00 AM
Had a really fun weekend. Brought my scuba-diving daughters with me for a Father's Day Weekend scuba diving- and trying to get some spearfishing in. Swampdogg brought Swamppuppy along, and Scotty had his son with him on his boat, so it was a bunch of proud dads diving with their kids.
We went out on Tortuga on Friday just for a shakedown cruise, as Swampdogg had just put in tank racks for us to try out. We went on the Liberty ship near the channel, which was green and thick with particulate. My old unease about wrecks came back with that dive as I swam along and faced piece after piece of structure that wasn't there two feet back. I tried to get to the sand, but instead found myself in a hole in the ship for lack of vis. I decided I'd wait for more productive diving later in the weekend and made it a short dive. I only saw a fat barracuda and some spadefish anyway. Temps were mid-70s, but vis was 10'.
We went out with Leroy of Discovery Diving on Saturday and he dropped us on beautiful structure, but it was light on fish. Not sure why they weren't there. Vis was nice at 35'. I found two grouper under a rock near the anchor, with my non-spearfishing daughter snapping pictures. We swam around a bit more, but didn't get any more fish. The other guys diving came back with a grunt (taken with the biggest Riffe bluewater gun I had seen- the fish had almost exploded). One thing I really like about Captain Leroy is that he loves to fish- and we ended up trolling during our surface interval and pulled in 1.5 kingfish. A shark had taken half of the first one. The second drop had about the same vis, but I didn't see much in the way of fish. I shot a small seabass, and then I got a nice-sized scamp. This time, however, the guy with the oversized gun got something a little more worthy- a 17# gag. Seas were dead calm- made for a great trip.
On Sunday we went out on Tortuga hoping for weather like Saturday. Seas were a little stouter, 2-3 feet. We went out to a spot we marked on Big 10, which is usually full of fish, but it was empty. Vis wasn't what we had recently either- only 20'. I was busy pointing out fish for Erin to shoot, trying to teach techniques, but it was hard to do under water. I got a flounder, while Erin came back with a grouper. When we came back up, the second group went down, another guy on the boat came back with a couple of decent grouper. We decided to motor around and look for another spot, and the action of the waves made everyone on the boat queasy or tired, so only three of us did the last drop. I cameback with a sheepshead and a grouper who made me use all my air getting him out from under a rock- but the advice from this board helped and I didn't give up and came back with a scraped up gag.
The weekend was a lot of fun- having the kids with us was a bonus, especialy on Father's Day.
We went out on Tortuga on Friday just for a shakedown cruise, as Swampdogg had just put in tank racks for us to try out. We went on the Liberty ship near the channel, which was green and thick with particulate. My old unease about wrecks came back with that dive as I swam along and faced piece after piece of structure that wasn't there two feet back. I tried to get to the sand, but instead found myself in a hole in the ship for lack of vis. I decided I'd wait for more productive diving later in the weekend and made it a short dive. I only saw a fat barracuda and some spadefish anyway. Temps were mid-70s, but vis was 10'.
We went out with Leroy of Discovery Diving on Saturday and he dropped us on beautiful structure, but it was light on fish. Not sure why they weren't there. Vis was nice at 35'. I found two grouper under a rock near the anchor, with my non-spearfishing daughter snapping pictures. We swam around a bit more, but didn't get any more fish. The other guys diving came back with a grunt (taken with the biggest Riffe bluewater gun I had seen- the fish had almost exploded). One thing I really like about Captain Leroy is that he loves to fish- and we ended up trolling during our surface interval and pulled in 1.5 kingfish. A shark had taken half of the first one. The second drop had about the same vis, but I didn't see much in the way of fish. I shot a small seabass, and then I got a nice-sized scamp. This time, however, the guy with the oversized gun got something a little more worthy- a 17# gag. Seas were dead calm- made for a great trip.
On Sunday we went out on Tortuga hoping for weather like Saturday. Seas were a little stouter, 2-3 feet. We went out to a spot we marked on Big 10, which is usually full of fish, but it was empty. Vis wasn't what we had recently either- only 20'. I was busy pointing out fish for Erin to shoot, trying to teach techniques, but it was hard to do under water. I got a flounder, while Erin came back with a grouper. When we came back up, the second group went down, another guy on the boat came back with a couple of decent grouper. We decided to motor around and look for another spot, and the action of the waves made everyone on the boat queasy or tired, so only three of us did the last drop. I cameback with a sheepshead and a grouper who made me use all my air getting him out from under a rock- but the advice from this board helped and I didn't give up and came back with a scraped up gag.
The weekend was a lot of fun- having the kids with us was a bonus, especialy on Father's Day.