Crew: JCAction, Topshotta, zds3488, with non-Spearboard members Mark Muskovie, and George Wright.

Food: Market research, and the results of focus-group studies have determined that the sole reason spearos go on overnight dive trips is because of the food served. Far be it for me to not react to developing trends in the dive charter boat industry. Dinner Friday consisted of ropa vieja, black beans/yellow rice, and cuban bread. For those "no habla espanol" types, ropa vieja is a seasoned shredded flank steak stew that is a signature Cuban dish. Dinner was followed by copious amounts of Cafe Bustelo, the Cuban version of Red Bull, consumed by JCAction,Topshotta, and myself.

Sea Conditions: Farm-pond calm Friday. Early Saturday morning it blew up to 15 knots with 2'-3' seas, and progressively laid back down to farm-pond by Saturday night. Vis ranged from 30'-60'. Current not a factor. Water temp. a very pleasant 78 degrees.

Diving/Fishing: Everyone opted for a single overnighter local trip upon hearing the weekend forecast that in hindsight was bogus. Out to the first ledge a little after 7PM where zds3488, Mark, and myself dropped down. Jim Zurbrick moved up a half mile to a rock pile, and dropped the other three guys on the boat. Our spot was loaded, and in the dark it was a nonstop shoot, string, reload scenario. I ended up with 3 gags, 1 red grouper, 5 hogs, and 2 mangos while zds and Mark did some damage as well. It was full blown night time when we surfaced, and thankfully Jim didn't have that heart attack by himself on the boat so we were picked up promptly . Just joking, Jim is in about as good shape as a 53 yr. old can be. Anchored on a spot 40 miles out, and managed a half dozen gags before they completely shut down around midnight.

Saturday we hit it hard. Rotating in group of two in three we dove from first light to dusk on rock piles, hard bottom, ledges, and wrecks. Local sized hogs were everywhere, and groupers from 6-20 lbs. were taken by all on almost every dive. The best dive for me was on one of our proven amberjack spots. Mark, zds3488, and myself dropped down into a swarm of big jacks. While zds scoured the wreck itself for grouper, Mark and I situated ourselves 50 feet away in the sand, proceeding into full Paleolithic mode. The pimp hand was strong, and by the time our tanks were low, dead aj's littered the bottom. Zack (zds348) even got into the action with a beautiful drop dead stone shot on a 25 lb-er. It took three guys to lift each one of our stringers into the boat. For what amounted to a 24 hour trip the fish box on the ride in was stacked deep. There was much wailing, and gnashing of teeth by the surviving fish in the Gulf over their departed comrades late Saturday night.

Random Thoughts

*JCAction is the new Jolly Rogers 2 snoring champion. Sawing logs? It was a Weyerhaeuser pine mill on double shift. Seriously though, the dude is a hard-core slinger, and had I a good time shooting the shit Cuban style with him. Looking forward to the return visit. Bring up the whole Miami Spearboard posse!

*zds3488 for his tender age is developing into a quite a shooter. He takes direction very well, and is getting more and more comfortable in the water. Damn, I wish I started spear fishing at 15! Keep it up dude, and soon your stringers will be smoking the people who cautioned me against taking you out.

*Solidified my position as champion belcher. One particularly violent post diet coke blast was registered by a seismology station in Northern Japan.


AJ Suarez