What was I thinking!!!
First dive for us in 55 ft., visibility limited to 15-20 ft max, plenty of undersized gags and some hogs, finally ran across a red grouper and stoned him, of which I was rather proud of myself
Anyway he measured out at just under 22 inches, shortly after a decent hog made a showing and he also found my stringer. Second dive, the infamous "what a rookie mistake" dive, as so named by my loving wife :blinking: was at 45 feet, the area we marked had very little life or structure, seeing some small gags and snapper heading off West I followed them to an area of very nice relief and a ton of gags, all of course 18-20 inches, with about 1300 psi left I finally spotted a nice gag (27 inches), took aim as he was turning and fleeing and shot him through the gills, he immediately started to spin and gyrate to shake the spear, I slid my arm through my band (as usual) and raced over to secure the fish as he almost was free of the shaft. Well, as soon as I had him secured I could not feel my gun tugging at my arm or banging me on the head, looked up and there it was heading for the surface. So, having had that happen once or twice over the years I wasn't panicked, just pissed, strung my gag and headed for the surface to retrieve my gun. This is where I made my mistake, during my dive I knew I was a distance West of the boat and had planned at the end to work my way back before ascending. Being extremely irratated with myself what I forgot was the change in current direction during our dive, so when I came up and didn't immediately see my gun, I started to swim in the direction the current had been, if I turned around it was likely within 20 feet behind me. I gave up rather quickly because of my distance from the boat and the rough water conditions, it just didn't seem smart to swim away from the stern of the boat.
Well, that's my story, sad one I know, but I did make it safely back to the boat, my sympathy goes out to the family of the diver that apparently did not this past weekend.