What a snapper!

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Went spearfishing on the bottom of the Gulf again this weekend. Went out Sunday with LA_MERC_Rollout. Here's the story. It's a good one too. You'll smile, you'll cry, you'l laugh, and you'll panic. But in the end we're all still alive and not too much worse for the wear. Ok so I meet Chris around 7:20 in the morning. We go to Brians (E2) house to load up gear and the boat. We start the morning off right each with a Guiness. Load the boat and gear and we're off to the dive shop to get Chris's rental gear and some extra air tanks. Going pretty good so far. (Or so we thought). Get to the first boat launch and its packed. That's ok becuase B knows a super secret boat launch that requires a bad ass truck due to the steep angle and remoteness (poor condition), but I will have to say that someone put a nice peer on it. And since we're pulling the boat with my truck, we happen to have a bad ass truck. (This is so Jerry can ask me how bad ass and I can list the specs again, LOL). Any way. I get out and B is gonna back her in. No problem. He gets the boat in the water and as I grab the bow line so that when he unstraps us. Well to get the bow line I had to board teh vessel. Bad mistake. I forget I'm 6'4" 240 pounds of twisted steel and pure sex appeal. So when I get in the boat. She starts backing up. This whole time action jackson is in the back seat (super cab) of the truck. All I hear him say in a casual laid back voice is "Hey guys, FYI, the truck is moving" B rushes to the truck and stomps the breaks. Ok, so he reseats the E break and we get the boat off the trailer. All the gear is on board and off we go. We don't get too far and I realize in all our effort we managed to leave the dive shop without a regulator for Rollout. Oops, kinda hard to SCUBA dive if you don't have a reg. LOL. Luckily we're not to far from the dive shop and with the aid of modern technology (via cell phone) we call the dive shop and beg for them to meet us at the closes dock. As we pull up to the dock the dive shop guy (Chuck) is waving a bright pink snorkel in the air, wtf, no, we said reg, LOL. He got us, he had a reg which by the way had pink on it, lol. Ok, so now were going. Pensacola bay is pretty smooth. We travel out to the pass and it looks great. We stop at sand island and get our gear preped. As we head out into the Gulf we realize that as calm as it is we should take Rollout to the Oriskany. The Oriskany is a famous WWII air craft carrier (The one mentioned in top gun) that was sunk last year 24 miles out in the Gulf off the coast of Pensacola. Well after a good run out we get there. The usual parking lot full of boats are there. B thinking he owns the world drives right up in the middle of all the boats right between the 2 biggest dive charter boats as if to say "We've arrived". No sooner do we do that and all the guys from one of the charter boats start yelling at us. "What the hell are you guys doing", "Hey , Jack A^^, what are you doing", "Hey guys, you have to go", BOOM I'm in fight mode. Even as they were laughing and calling me by my name I didn't realize it was all the guys from the local dive shops that know us. LOL. I was getting rerady to board their vessel like a pirate and see how many I could take with me. LOL, by the way they had like 20 guys on their boat we had 3. One of which Chris was on the aft gunale sitting their thinking, wtf have I got myself in too. LOL. They tell us where the next free bouy is and I gear up and go under to tie us off to the Carrier. After some gear debacles Rollout and B finally join me inthe water. Being nice I decide to let Chris use my spear gun and I'll video him. Down we go. Wait, Chris is like most normal humans and has problems equalizing as fast as the freak of nature you ladies and gentlemen know as ANDYCONDA. We make it to 40 feet and I realize its taing us so long we're drifting away. This is not good considering we're in 220 feet deep water. I grab Chris and start dragging him down to the nearest down line. Soon after he hits me snatches my hand from him and violently shakes his head NO. Apparently I was dragging him down faster than his ears would let him, LOL, Sorry Chris. I motion lets go up. We surface and swim back to the boat so he can grab the down line to ease down. Ok, we're off again. It takes Chris 15 minutes to get to a depth of 120 feet but he makes it. He seems a little out of sorts but is doing ok. I grab a little video footage. I'll try to get that added ASAP, but you'll see in the video that Chris decided that being at almost 5 times atmospheric pressure 120 feet deep and handling a spear gun is too much for his first dive in 10 years and his first time in the ocean diving, lol. We don't ease you in to things around here, lol. B motions to follow him down close to teh flight deck to see if we can get video of him shooting a fish. All was going ok till I realized that we were headed into a mess of steel cables. hey B this might not be a good idea with a first time. I mean I'm all about popping a cherry right but damn, lol. I look back at Chris and thats when the video stops as I noticed a good stream of green ooze coming from his nose. Well for those of you tech minded peeps you'll know that since red is the shortest wave length in the visible light spectrum its the first to go away deep under water as water is much denser than air. I try to hide my shock that Chris is pouring blood from his nose. I motion we go up. I stay close and keep a sharp eye on the man. Acending slowly, I think too slowly for him but he didn't realize what I did. Get him topside and he seems ok. Sinus and ear problems aside he did great. BUT wait, I realize I've lost my high dollar under water camera. Damn it. Well I do have more air tanks and we didn't move around too much. I decide to go after it.................Continued next thread.

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Ok, so I get a new tank and gear back up. B does the same to go with. Well like I said B is like Chris and most normal people he has to ease down as well. I tell him, Look, I want to try and save as much of these tanks of air as possible so do you mind if I go down without waiting. He says yeah. I dump all the air from my BC and plumit to the flight desk head down kicking. I go from 0 to 134 feet deep in mere seconds. Boom, I land on the flight deck. A quick scan and low and behold I see my camera 50 feet away laying on the flight deck like its wanting to take off into the wild blue yonder. I torpedo over to it snatch it up and proceed topside. The slowet part of my trip as I need to watch teh computer to make sure I acend at a safe rate. As I surface I notice B is at about the 30 foot mark with like 5 other people. Oh oh its the dive shop people with a vid camera. looks like their giving B a lecture about "Hey, Dude, where's your dive partner", LOL. I snatch him up and we go top side. Hot damn camera recovered let go some where we can kill fish. We load up and head to the YTD navy tenders. These are 2 Naval ships sunk in about 90 feet of water. When we get there and get setup we realize teh dive shop gave us 2 tanks without all the parts of the K valve. Damn it. So we only have 2 tanks and in a fit of fury tels Chris he can go with me. No word from me I had fish to kill. Since thsi tank was the one I used to retrieve my camera I only had 2000 pounds of air left. For those of you who don't know for aluminum 80's you start with 3000 pounds. So I'm already 1/3 low. I tell Chris look here's the down line coe down at your rate I'm going to the bottom to get dinner. I plummet to the depths and commence to slaughter as many red snapper as i can with my limited air. I get 3. one good sized one too. B is jealous but I take him to peg leg pete's and him a round of shots. Shots of top shelf Margarittas. That and all the other drinks we did its a wonder we all made it home safe. Well, I know this was a long post but one fun to type. I hope it was fun to read. here's the pics of the kills of the day.

[LA_MERC_Dragonlady[s]]

MMMMM put him (the fish that is) on the grill!!!! I love me some snapper...


Good thing you had pictures because you know men always say it's bigger then what it really is.... *talking about the fish guys not something else.. Your dirty ole farts*

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

Awesome!! I can't wait to hear what Rollout has to report! ha! Looking forward to the video!! Oh by the way, did Rollout ever get to shoot anything? Or did he just sit on the boat, drunk and bleeding from nearly every orfice?

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

MMMMM.......!!!! I love me some snapper...

We all heard it here first.





























Nice snapper Andy, nothing like the power cord I imagined..lol

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Wait till you see the video of Rollout on the Carrier. He was a little nervous (And righlty so) since we were decending 100+ feet into a blue abyss. On the way down he handed me the gun so he could manage his BC better. I followed him down and when we landed I picked up the camera to start shooting footage. He saw the camera and decided to take the spear gun and put up the good show. But when you see the footage you'll realize he didn't go far and wanted to give it back. The funny part is he took of upward away from me and I swam up and over his left. When he got kinda spooked, I think he saw the Barracuda I saw giving us the fly by, you can see in his eyes the look of relief when he pans around and finds me to give me the gun back, LOL. The man did bleed though. Between him and the fish,the boat was covered.

[LA_MERC_goose]

Shoot the fish Andy, not your dive partners! You ain't diving with me - DAMN! lol :D

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

Rollout lets hear your side of the FEAR err, Story... :stick and clear your PM box...

[Rollout]

OK, here's the story from the side of FEAR Wetz! I haven't dove since 1985, so a little longer than 20 years AGO, yeah I know I'm old, BUT so what!!! Andy and B have soo much fun I couldn't pass this up. The hilarity started at the boat slip as Andy decribed, I'm sitting in the back of the truck getting my gear bag and checking my blood sugar, I'm type 1 diabetic, no need to pass out during a dive. So as Capt'n B and Gilligan Andy start to "unload" the boat, I notice the water line moving toward the front tires at an un-natural rate, so I decide to mention it to the guys that the TRUCK IS SINKING!! B jumps from the trailer and jumps UP into Andy's unusually high truck cab and finally manages to get the brakes to work, all I can see is the 6 o'clock video footage of the three stooges that sank their truck trying to unload their boat!!! :) After about 5 minutes of laughing, Andy seemed to get a real kick out of me calming mentioning to the"guys" the truck was sinking, I'm beginning to wonder what I'm getting into. So we take off, and they realize on the way out of the bay that I would have a hard time breathing without the proper hardware, OK so that's strike two for the Skipper and Gilligan, but they managed to recover nicely from both, so maybe I'll come back alive. So after over an hour of ground pounding (bouncing in the single motor 2 stroke engine boat, what happens if that thing fails, mid you you can't see land or anybody at this point) we finally get to the dive spot. There are at least 50 divers, with thier large dive boats tied off to the bouys attached to the rig some 130 feet below. And all I hear is these guys just giving the Captn and Gilligan **** to get out of dodge and the such, so once again I'm wondering what the H.. am I doin' with these fools! But once again, it was all good and they even gave us some beer since we couldn't buy any due to it being a Sunday???

The day is awesome, not a cloud in the sky, the seas are flat, but the water at the top is 74, a little cold. After gearing up, I set on the boat edge trying to remember everything from 20 years ago and away I go overboard, YIKES, I hit the cold water and my body starts gasping for air. This is NOT a good thing when you are under water. Salty water rushed into my nose and throat, and I kick like a fool for the top in time to spit out my regulator and suck some fresh air. Not a good start to say the least, now I'm cold, almost drown getting in and there are 50 people watching, so I'm not feeling too confident, but I recover, put my mask on, look down and there is a HUGH fish that looks like a shark right below me!! I spit out my regulator again, suckin' air like a man just finishing a marathon. My first thought "you should have taken a refresher coarse you jack...!!" So after kind of calming down, Andy is my wingman and is ready to go. We start going down, my mask is leaking like a sive and won't seal on my face, so I spend the entire decent fighting a mask filling with water, using all my air to clear it and never feeling like I have enough air due to my glorious start, an accellerated heart rate, and breathing like a man at the end of a marathon. Then the ice pick in the ears pain started, I'm trying to get my ears to pop and Gilligan grabs my BC and starts dragging me to the bottom. I did the only reasonable thing at this point and ripped Andy's hand from my BC, gave him a "what the F... are you doing look" and pointed to my screaming ears and head that feels like it is going to explode. At this point, I've nearly drown, my ears are killing me, my wingmans trying to make my eardrumbs explode, I can't get enough air 'cause I'm constantly having to clear my mask. So Andy graciously takes me back to the top, we swim over to the down line and we head down again(130 feet mind you). So as I'm screwing with my mask and trying to hold the down line, Gilligan wants to hand me the speargun, I immediatelty hand it back, he doesn't know I feel like I'm drowning because of oxegen starvation based on this mask feasco. Down we go, and at about 70 feet we hit an Arctic thermal layer that sucks the air right out of me again, and we are only half way. Now I'm really thinking, this was not a good plan!!! But down we go, we FINALLY get to the boat an stand on a gun turrret, prtty cool. B is looking for fish, I'm starting to calm down and Andy starts filming. I finally let go of the rope deciding alls good, but there isn't anything to see and give the gun back to Andy, clearing a mask constantly and trying to hunt ISN't working for me. So we go down by the chains and low and behold we hit a Hawaiian thermal layer that is warmer than up top, and there are Amberjack all around. So being the noob, I'm pointing them out (like they can't see them) and wondering when the fools are going to shoot. Andy points out that although good sized, too small to shoot, damn. By this time I've sucked all my air and up we go. (Continued on next post)

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

Dude... You've got a set on you!!! Haven't dove in 20+ years, and you climb aboard Conda's floating-death-wish??!! :stick

Hold on, did I hear "single engine 2 stroke boat motor"? WTF? You wouldn't get me out 24 FEET let alone 24 miles off the coast with a single two stroke..

Jackson, really now tell the truth, how many times did you calculate the exact amount of life insurance you have enforce and whether or not it would be enough to support your family until your wife remarried after you bite-it open sea diving on the Oriskany? I bet at least twice.... :stick...

MORE DETAILS!!!

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

LMFAO, well said Guys. LOL. I will have to give credit where credit is due. He did man up and he did go to around 130 feet. He bleed like a stuck pig which by the way Chris was probably the reason that 5 foot bullshark was after me on my superman free dive hunting for my camera. I downloaded my dive computer info. It reads every 30 seconds. On that second dive It drops straight from 0 to 137 in under 30 seconds. I spent about 30 seconds finding the camera and then being at 130 feet took me about 4 minutes to ascend back to the surface. I did untie the boat form the underwater buoy so that gave me some deco time at 30 feet.

[Rollout]

I do have to say Andy is frickin' Aquaman, no human being can decend like a rock like he does, the only thing slowing him down is not enough weight in his BC. If he had an anchor tied to him he could go straight to the bottom in 1 breath!!!

[LA_MERC_Dragonlady[s]]

We all heard it here first.




huh??

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

huh??

OK.... I will SEXplain... :)

For most men a snapper also references a part of the female anatomy.

When a statement is made in reference to a Snapper... In this case...
indicates an oxymoron... meaning the statement "I like me some snapper" refers to

1. A fish in the ocean ... Which most of us know you were referring to; And

2. The part of the female Anatomy that most men... and some women, have a preference to.

Thus... the statement "I like me some Snapper" is found to be funny for people with their minds in the gutter...

which as you know.. is very common around here.

(The DOG has spoken)

[LA_MERC_Dragonlady[s]]

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

NOT ME I DON"T SWING THAT WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

blahhhhhh........

Thanks for the Sex ED talk YD!!!

[Rollout]

OK, so Andy checks my gauge sees I'm at 1000 psi and signals to go up, but he keeps looking at me and giving me the "are you OK" sign. I'm wondering what's up, because at this point, I'm warm, my ears don't hurt, there are big fish around, and we're going UP :) Yes Wetz, I was HIGHLY concerned going down I was going to drown, I just never felt I had enough air, my lungs were scream go up man, go up!!!! I was not in a frame of mind to shoot, ALL I could think about was AIR, GIVE ME SOME AIR PLEASE!!!!! So we SLOWLY , VERY SLOWLY go up, and Andy is holding on to me for dear life (that's why he lost the camera, protecting his wing man, throwing med packs and keeping the defibulator close), since as he described later, I saw ALL this blood and thought you were going to pass out. Seems my sinus passage wasn't too happy about this depth. Anyway we get to the top, and I spit to clear my throat (which is sucking in as much air as humanly possible, thanking God I'm alive and top side :)) a big glob of blood goes flying out. I spit again, same thing, Andy calmly states "yeah you were bleeding down there but I didn't want to panic you". Let me tranlate this for you from Andy's brain, "you might pass out, but I think I can kill me a big one and still revive you with 3 seconds left or so, so I'm not screwing up the rest of my dive because you're a noob". We get out and Aquaman states he dropped his camera saving me, and we need to try and retrieve it. B explodes, cause we are going to waste 5 tanks on a deep dive with no fish. But goes anyway to be Andy's wing man. Andy is at the bottom when B gets to around 40 feet, and the dive instruct is signallin to B where is your buddy, he points down. The dive instructor signals to B to hook up with Andy, B knowing there is no friggin' way he can get to Andy, shrugs off the dive instructor , who by the way is filming this and the shark which has moved into the area, then Aquaman reappears from the Abysis, grabs B and heds up. I've barely got my gear off when Aquaman springs out of the water announcing I got it!!! **** I couldn't have changed my air tank as fast as he went down, snagged it, came up got B and untied the boat. It WAS superhuman stuff, all you divers, think hard about what he pulled off.

We leave for the next sight, with B vowing NEVER to come back to this shi- hole. Andy and I were staying quiet and laughing behind his back at his tyrade. We get to the next sight after a 30 minute ground pound, we start to gear up and not one, but two of the last three tanks are FUBAR! I'm fully dressed, and Andy is 90%. B the boat owner, who just spent $150 on gas and air is not able to dive and goes into a rampage. I being the trooper that I am offer to let him take my tank. He startes throw f-bombs everywhere, along with assorted hardware items (it looked like it was going to be much safer in the water) and says no you go, that's all Andy and I needed to hear so overboard we went. What B was really saying was "no you go and if you two are lucky, I'll still be hear when you sorry SOBs come back up, but hey, we didn't come ALL this far not to dive, right B :) Sorry mate!!!!

So both of us put on our mask look down from the surface and low and behold the mother friggin' snapper load is right under us in a HUGE fish ball, it was Jac Coast **** baby, we look back up at B just to tell him "oh my God you should see all the fish down here!!!!. B asks me if I want the spear gun, but I said no due to the last dives fiasco (my loss I should have said yes this time)Andy says his goodbye's, once again thinking, I'm not wasting my dive on you noobs and away he goes. I swim over to the anchor line and start decending at a human rate, and am SWARMMED by a school of snapper 80 - 100, about 12 - 15 inches big who decided they were going to checkout this thing coimn g down at a SLOW rate. I had to litterally push them aside to keep decending and used the rope to cut a circle through them. Man it was awesome, as I cleared the school I look down and see Andy shoot on of the average sized snapper, but by the time I got all the way down he had already gone elsewhere to kill the BIGONE. So I'm on the bottom fish all around, and I have no weapon, but the thought of going up, getting the gun and going back through the ear pain was just too much, so I played scuba diver until it was time to come up, found a knife on the bottom for my son, someone dropped a nice winchest filet knife. We go up and Andy is grinnin' ear from ear, and can't wait to pose with the lunker!! Great fish Andy, we pop open a beer, cheers to all and away we went to Peg Leg Pete's.

This your classic Pensacola Bay side bar, pull up, tie off your boat, and toast a few with your mates! Great day, I'm hooked, the rest of you Mercs need to get on down here sometime and try it out, great fun for all!!! We left hangin' from the boat a hoopin' and a hollerin' all the way back to the truck evertime the sea spray blasted us:)

[LA_MERC_goose]

MY dive instructor / father-in-law dives like Andy; toss the anchor and ride it to the bottom. I'm not that fast - ears popping. It's a human thing, you wouldn't understand. :D

We've got a black water dive coming up - I'm not going to make this one though; too cold and I'm working the Darlington race. I'll trade pit road on Darlington race weekend for diving for one weekend. Two ... now that's stretching it a bit.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

lol at first glance, I thought this was the continuation of sweetz thread...

[SweetGirL]

lol at first glance, I thought this was the continuation of sweetz thread...

http://www.myspacesmilies.com/smilies/innocent0006.gif

http://www.myspacesmilies.com/smilies/innocent0009.gif i r an angel

[LA_MERC_RPSNIPER]

Nice fish and one hell of a story. I have only made one ocean dive so far, Stingray City in the Caymans. Have been looking for a good spot to dive in the gulf that is close enough for like a weekend trip. Have any good spots that might be in that range Andy?

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Wuzzup Henry. Lots of good spots depending on your desires. If your not spear fishing and just want to sight see, then I recommend makeing the little bit longer drive to Pensacola and charting a boat to the Oriskany. For sight seeing its about the best. Now if your going spear fishing then you have many options. I have some GPS points from Florida to Louisiana of various sunken cargo ships, barges, planes, tanks, etc. You also have a ton of oil rigs from Alabama over to Louisiana that are excelent spots for scuba spear fishing. Maybe we can scrounge up enough to rent a dive charter out of Pensacola. James and Robby have shown interest, I have a couple of guys from work, Goose has mentioned a Gulf dive weekend trip and with you and your bunch we'd have a good party. I personally know the dive charter boat called H20 below and is used by the dive shop that certified me. If you ever plan a trip or have questions let me know. In little less than a year from being certified I have over 50 plus dives at an average depth of 110 feet with a max of 137 feet and have slayed tons of fish in the Gulf. Its great stuff.

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

I'm not that fast - ears popping. It's a human thing, you wouldn't understand.

LOL, That kills me, LOL. I have yet to dive with someone that can keep up. I can literally dump the air from my BC and nose down and kick fast (with split fins thats fast too). Like I said. My dive computer said I went from 0 to 137 feet deep in under 30 seconds

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

Hows the video coming? Any ETA?

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

I'm leaving for Cancun tonight so I won't be back until late late Sunday night. It'll be next week before I get it loaded up.

[Big_ch33se]

Nicely laid out for her :)

[LA_MERC_RPSNIPER]

I would love to get together for a group dive. I only have an open water cert. so I am limited on depth. Have been thinking about getting my advance water cert. but would like to get into it a little more before I do. That is why I was looking for a spot for weekend diving. A place I could go on my weekend off to get a couple of dives in. Then once I have a few dives under my belt look into getting my advance open water and maybe buying some gear of my own.

[Rollout]

I only have an open water cert, from over 20 years ago, why do you think this story was so funny:) They were dying laughing at the old man, come on out and play the waters fine mate!!!