HalcyonDaze
Contributor
Yesterday I was out on Lemon Drop and Juno with the Narcosis; sadly my GoPro's card got corrupted and it looks like I lost all my footage. 
I'm hoping someone else on the Narcosis ​got video. The lively stuff was at Lemon Drop; as soon as we got down I saw a large lionfish and impaled it on my short spear. Not having a bag, I was carrying it around until one of the other divers pointed out a second, smaller one a few minutes later. Well, I'd jammed the five-prong tip in there to the point where when I went to scrape the dead one off with my knife, the whole tip including the threaded end of the pole came off. About what I should expect from a cheap impulse purchase at a Key Largo discount shop. Guess if I ever go back to teaching college classes I have a new classroom pointer/swagger stick now.
As I was heading to get the spear tip back I heard someone yell; I turned around and saw a 5-6 foot lemon come up behind me, cut around, and then turn on the speared lionfish. Not wanting to get in the way I backed up and the lemon scarfed up the lionfish without any hesitation before swimming off and disappearing. Hope someone got that on camera; I was mega-peeved that my SD card lost that moment (including the audio of my Oh Crap reaction). Hope the shark spat that tip out. We saw a few throughout the dive passing through; at one point I stopped to take some still shots of a nurse shark under a ledge. Later I found out that while I was doing that there were three lemons buzzing my head that I never saw. The main group had some make close passes once they actually got to the Lemon Drop; we overestimated the current and I hit the bingo mark on air and bottom time before getting there.
Juno was less eventful; one of the other boats reported a tiger in the area but we only saw one reef shark before it made off with a spearfisher's stringer and some snappers. No turtles, but I did have a good opportunity to play with my new YS-01 strobe on the camera and get the settings down pat. Got some nicely lit shots of corals and small reef fish, as well as a hurried one of the reef shark and a nice shot of a big lizardfish camped out on the ledge.
Aside from the digital mishap with my SD card not a bad day; ~2-ft seas, near-negligible north current, water temp warming up into the mid/upper 70s in the water column (but still a little colder at the bottom), and viz not great at ~45-50 feet but it beat the crap out of the "good" 20-25 viz I had shore diving Laguna Beach in California last weekend. Don't even get me started on the "balmy" 59-degree water temp and the hike down from and back up to the car; I now remember why I moved back to South Florida. :cool2:
I'm hoping someone else on the Narcosis ​got video. The lively stuff was at Lemon Drop; as soon as we got down I saw a large lionfish and impaled it on my short spear. Not having a bag, I was carrying it around until one of the other divers pointed out a second, smaller one a few minutes later. Well, I'd jammed the five-prong tip in there to the point where when I went to scrape the dead one off with my knife, the whole tip including the threaded end of the pole came off. About what I should expect from a cheap impulse purchase at a Key Largo discount shop. Guess if I ever go back to teaching college classes I have a new classroom pointer/swagger stick now. As I was heading to get the spear tip back I heard someone yell; I turned around and saw a 5-6 foot lemon come up behind me, cut around, and then turn on the speared lionfish. Not wanting to get in the way I backed up and the lemon scarfed up the lionfish without any hesitation before swimming off and disappearing. Hope someone got that on camera; I was mega-peeved that my SD card lost that moment (including the audio of my Oh Crap reaction). Hope the shark spat that tip out. We saw a few throughout the dive passing through; at one point I stopped to take some still shots of a nurse shark under a ledge. Later I found out that while I was doing that there were three lemons buzzing my head that I never saw. The main group had some make close passes once they actually got to the Lemon Drop; we overestimated the current and I hit the bingo mark on air and bottom time before getting there.
Juno was less eventful; one of the other boats reported a tiger in the area but we only saw one reef shark before it made off with a spearfisher's stringer and some snappers. No turtles, but I did have a good opportunity to play with my new YS-01 strobe on the camera and get the settings down pat. Got some nicely lit shots of corals and small reef fish, as well as a hurried one of the reef shark and a nice shot of a big lizardfish camped out on the ledge.
Aside from the digital mishap with my SD card not a bad day; ~2-ft seas, near-negligible north current, water temp warming up into the mid/upper 70s in the water column (but still a little colder at the bottom), and viz not great at ~45-50 feet but it beat the crap out of the "good" 20-25 viz I had shore diving Laguna Beach in California last weekend. Don't even get me started on the "balmy" 59-degree water temp and the hike down from and back up to the car; I now remember why I moved back to South Florida. :cool2:
