Slinging off the Hatch (Steinhatchee for those in the know) is so hot right now that you best have asbestos fireprooofing material in your wetsuit!!

Crew
The lovable pain in the ass Cmdr. James H. Zurbrick, and the egomaniacal narcissist (according to some FS Forum moderators) Capt. AJ Suarez.

Guests
zds3488, Reef Raider, Crapshooter, MarkZ, Kitefisherman, and Fishkilla. Much love to my jigga' Fishkilla who filmed the "Jolly Rogers 2 Experience", and will soon I'm sure have some tidbits for you to see.

Food
OK, the running joke of overemphasizing food has pretty much run it's course. We got hungry, we ate mass quantities, there were no leftovers. Props to Kitefisherman though who brought some kick-ass smoked fish dip, and bread pudding with rum glaze that was the bomb. Financial Advise can count his lucky stars that Kite is not interested in getting into the overnight charter business because he would lose his Gulf of Mexico Iron Chef champion hat in about two microseconds flat.

Sea Conditions
Friday was as flat as the EKG's of the fish in the box Sunday night. Saturday was 2' dropping out in the late PM, and picking up hard early Sunday morning. Solid 4'-5' Sunday, but the JR2 ran strong through the slop at full speed. Try that on your "go-fast" boat! Vis has dropped out from last week, but averaged a very shoot able 30'. Water temps holding at 73 degrees, still comfortable in a 3 mil. suit (butch up Nancy-boy!!)

Spear Fishing
Submerge, sling, slay, string, repeat. Holy shit!! What can I say? This was the kind of trip that makes all the early mornings, late evenings, rough seas, fatigue, discomfort, and BS all worthwhile.

From Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon we dove on rock piles in ?' water on a ? degree heading from the Hatch, and could not miss. Everyone brought up great stringers of gags, red grouper, hogs, along with a few mangos, and aj's. After much convincing to Jim Zurbrick who argued that you never leave fish to find fish (which is true), we began steaming west around 2 PM Sat. to check out some marquee dive sites in deeper water. What a good decision it was.

Halfway to our spot, the bottom machine lit up like a Christmas tree. Jimmy Z sent Kite, MarkZ, and myself down to check it out. I've been diving since I was 21 (turned 37 last week), and I can honestly say that I was unprepared for the sight I was about to behold. All along the exposed limestone pothole riddled bottom covered with sea fans were large groupers, hundreds of them!!!!. They were swimming like maniacs in all directions as we let loose a hailstorm of steel for half an hour. I surfaced babbling like a backwoods Pentecostal minister speaking in tongues for everyone to get their dive gear on ASAP... after of course, the two people it took to lift my stringer got in on the deck. The other five guys back dove immediately, and came back with similar experiences and stringers.

We were now close to our two day eight man grouper bag limit when Jim smiled, and starting punching in a GPS number different than where we were originally headed to. Seems like one of the commercial hook and line guys owed him a favor so he busted out a wreck that has never been dove on. Fishkilla, Kite, and myself were up to bat so we descended into the 6PM gloom surrounded by a spiraling swarm of gigantic jack crevalle's. The bottom was moving with fish, here we go again! The wreck was very broken up from what we were able to make of it, and was crawling with big mangos, bigger gags, brownsnouter inshore hogs (weird for a wreck), and a couple of sea turtles going at it porno-style. I laughed when I saw Fishkilla', who was planning just filming this dive, throw his very expensive camera to the seabed as if it was an empty McDonald's bag, and begin slinging mad steel. We all filled nice stringers, Fishkilla' eclipsed my 22# gag with a 23#er, and Kite lost an estimated 40# class gag. That was all she wrote, 80 grouper, a legal eight man double recreational bag limit less than 30 hours into the trip.

We anchored on the Devil's Ledge Sat. night (rumor has it that a 17' great white shark had been long lined there a few years back ). Some monster mangos were caught for those that had the energy left to hold a rod. Sunday greeted us with rough seas as we figured out who was going to dive. The Devil's Ledge is a 10' high ledge running a couple hundred feet long which has it's entire ledge wall face as a giant u/w spring opening. Earlier in the year we took a tech-diving crew from Advanced Diver magazine for an exploration into the spring cave. They reported that it went back several hundred feet, and ended in a maze of passageways at 165 fsw. Since everyone wanted to check it out, we went against the JR2 norm of 2-3 divers per spot, and sent everybody down except for Jim and zds3488. Those that got to the cave rim first scored on some nice mangos, while everyone else went to town on the many amberjack swimming around including myself getting my ass kicked by a 36#er. In my excitement it seems as if I forgot my Spear One shot placement theory. We surfaced with the remainder of our 8 man double rec aj bag.

Sure enough, the next spot which was the SM-I Tower was loaded with nice jacks, and gags. It took all we had to not sling on the ten pound plus gags swimming lazily around us as we put a dent into our mango limit with some bar jacks thrown in for good measure. Last spot was a nearby wreck. Whereas everyone was gung-ho earlier in the morning, most everyone had cashed in their chips. The only takers were Kite, and myself so down we go again only to be greeted by more damn gags! Luckily it was lit up with mangos also so we took a few before the desire to not shoot a spear gun (is that possible?) overwhelmed us. Pointed the bow towards the Hatch, steamed for the beach, and started cleaning the disaster area previously known as the JR2.

Sea Rescue
As has been already posted, we assisted a sailboat in distress Sunday in between all our dives. Apparently they left St. Marks in the Panhandle intending to sail to Tampa Bay, and onward to the Bahamas with a cheap handheld VHF, a VERY cheap GPS, no life raft, less than 100' anchor rope, and little basic sailing experience by their own admittance . They were very lucky that we were nearby when they called Mayday because the NE corner of the Gulf is pretty much a no-man's land. Looks like they lost all electrical power, couldn't start the motor, and couldn't put up their sail in the rough seas. They spent all Saturday night in the wave troughs bailing water out of the boat. We towed them into the wind (after Gulf Rescue Rangers Fishkilla, and myself swam over the towline. They later called us that their sail had shredded in the wind so we had to then standby with them until the USCG had a chopper in the air, and a nearby cutter lock them on radar.

A great trip with lots of laughs, and camaraderie. It would have been just as fun even if we had gotten only half the fish. No, really . Pictures coming soon, I'm sure the other guys will weigh in with their spin of the trip. I'm out like trout, standing by.

Slaytistics
Grouper (mostly gags)=80 Double Rec Bag, c'mon!!
Hogfish=63.
Mango Snapper=86
Amberjack=16 Double Rec Bag Fo' Shizzel!
King Mack=1
Almaco Jacks=28
Triggerfish=plenty
Sheephead=1. Slain by Fishkilla! When sheepshead children have nightmares at night it's because they think Fishkilla' is hiding under the bed.

AJ Suarez