Catherine’s Mom is visiting and although we hadn’t planned on it we ended up out on the water. Catherine and she were going to go kayaking but the less then 5 knot winds allowed me to convince them otherwise. I was kind of skeptical on what the water would look like but when we got out there it was incredibly blue. On the reef line you could clearly see the coral and the fish swimming around. I dove all day while Catherine and her mom ran the boat. On the way out they watched flying fish and other bait jumping around, and also saw a free jumping sailfish.
While we were diving some other boats acted pretty strangely, one guy idled right up to us. Catherine kept telling him to get away we have a dive flag and a diver but he appeared to ignore her. Once he got right up to us, he then started asking me questions. It was kind of tense because without announcing his intentions he kind of seemed like an idiot who just didn’t understand what a dive flag means. In the end he just wanted to know where the big schools of permit are, so I told him the best I could and he took off. We also had a boat run up and anchor right next to us , in the path of our drift and then get mad that we were too near their chum slick. Ironic that he was probably closer then he should have been to a boat displaying a dive flag anyway.
Outside of the interactions with people the day was incredible. The vis was close to 80 feet almost all day and I had an incredible day of basically diving solo. The yellow jacks were everywhere, the horse eye jacks that were around last week disappeared, the cero mackerel were huge but not numerous. I only shot two ceros but one weighted 14.35# and the other was 8#. I missed a chance at a kingfish that was 50+ pounds, I also saw free swinging sail fish, which was awesome. Huge schools of bonito, false albacore or whatever they are, some of which looked close 20#, surrounded me several times but but I could not hit one. I got to rig up a shaft with a double wrap for these conditions, I think it would have made a big difference.
I followed a 25# cubera on the bottom in 50 feet of water for awhile. I think that cubera snapper in general almost try to drown freedivers. They swim along just out of range, so you keep telling yourself if I just follow him a little longer… but in the end they don’t give you a shot. I shot one 15# horseye jack and “Big Boy”, this monster jewfish that lives at this one spot I dive inhaled him, and then ran under a ledge. I put everything I had into it and pulled the spear out of his mouth.
On the way in we saw dolphins playing in the harbor, so we stopped and watched them from a distance.
This day had to be one of the best on the water I have ever had, If I had gotten that huge king I would have ranked it up there with day I swam with huge schools of wahoo.
So was the cero a world record??? That’s SWEET! Getting ready for May 1st here…water is a tad cool still but it should be worth it.
You really caught the blueness of the water. So, a world record cero isn’t enough – gotta have that huge king too? Sheese!