Ive gotta get smarter friends !!!!

[Lockout]

After a solid week of watching SHARK WEEK, Andyconda and I venture out to sea for a routine dive in the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. AS usual it is just him and I as some of our other diving companions suffer from abnormal ailments such as pancreitis (sp?) and excessive hemoraging in the ears, eyes, nose and throat. I will stop there because I did not and will not check any other of his orifaces.

1st dive, snapper everywhere. Were having a blast shooting fish after fish when I look up and coming right at me is an 8 to 10 foot bull shark. I manage to get the 12' trigger fish off my spear and push it out in front of me just as the beast closes the gap between us to 2 maybe 3 feet. With two bites the trigger is fish **** but the shark moves on. I am out a fish but I still have all my limbs so things are good. I look around, no Andyconda anywhere. Thoughts cross my mind...could he be fish ****? Who's gonna fix my pc when it breaks? I wonder what Candace will want to do with his truck? Well, anyway....I swim around and find him and point back toward where I believe the boat is. I can see this monster swimming in an out of site but steadily circling us. Surely Andy has caught a glimpse...Yeah right...Whack...Conda shoots another fish, however the shark appears to be gone. I notice the camera running so without hesitation follow his shot with one of my own (precision shot to the bean I might add) So we separate to wrestle our catches and string them up. Just then I notice a large grey Bull heading right for us. This thing is a man eater. If anyone has ever seen a Bull shark under water at close range you will understand. They got shoulders on them and the mouth is about 2 feet wide. I swim over to Andy, get his attention and point at the shark. This being the first real monster he had been close to, my fear was he would bolt to the surface but....not unsurprisingly he was calm cool and collected. Out comes his camera and he begins filming this thing while I get out the bang stick just in case.

Now everyone in the diving world knows, Sharks are not the dangerous man eaters we see in jaws but it is advisable to respect their ability to eat your stupid ass at will. When you see one, you stop spearfishing and head up slowly toward the surface keeping an eye on the shark. Were not that smart. We gotta get video. After a bit of footage and one pass within 1 - 2 feet I decide its time to get out of there so we start heading up. I arrive at our upline and start asending toward the surface. Shark still circling around us. Quick glance back, Conda is on my six and we are good. Thwaaaaaaaaccck!!! I turn around and Andy looks like a squirrel who just stole a peanut frantically reeling in and packing away yet another snapper which he shot right out in front of our new man eating shark buddy. Why you ask???? I find myself asking that very same question...Could his balls be larger than his brain??? or is he just straight up braindead??? Ya'll can decide... I later asked Andy did he want to stay on this site and dive again or do something a little more challenging like mess with sasquash or wrestle baby seals away from great white sharks? He never answered but I believe he is still trying to decide.

Anyway, the whole thing is caught on film which is one of my main reasons for starting this post. 1) Im recruiting for smarter friends. 2) Where is the video Conda????? You made us all watch that vid of you shoot a harmless defenseless little trigger fish for months. Here we have balls out shark footage and no video available....WTF.....Lets go with it!

PS - Rollout, you missed and incredible day of diving....It was a blast !

Oh and I missed the scrim cause i was passed out for close to 12 hours (sorry)

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

Well, I don't know what to say about the sanity of Conda... but damm I got to see that Video.. hes got to import it, then upload it to youtube


So far as the Scrim goes, we had a good turn out.. 17 of our own guys, and we didn't borrow any of the Sniper groups people :) sorry you could not make it. I don't know if I'd have made it to a scrim after a day like that.

[Chi_Townz]

damn, no kidding YD... after a day like like that, Id still be cleaning my drawers...

[LA_MERC_johncst]

all i can say is birds of a feather

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

all i can say is birds of a feather

All get stuffed in the same pillow case???

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

Where be the video?? Come on now cough it up.... Lets see this "Terror of the Deep".... :stick

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

did any of you watch Shark week? I watched most of it....I now want to go diving and grab onto a shark!!!!! W00T!!!!!!

I want to see the video too!

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Well, I can't contradict anything my boy said.
I realize that my ego outweighs my brain.
Balls are bigger than my brain.
Or simply "I never see the consquence, only the glory" (direct quote from my wife)
I agree it wasn't the smartest thing I ever did.
I look back on it now seeing the video I got and think. WTF were you thinking.

I have two good passes the bullshark made on us on film. The second one where he charged right at me wanting my fish and until he got within a few feet and I flared up at him did he decide well maybe it's not worth the effort. But the point being I paid the man eater no attention other than two clips of video and continued to hunt and chum the water.

A direct quote from Lockout was
"I use to wonder about you Andy, now I wonder about you for all new reasons"

In teh video I can see Brian loading his power head (Shark Dart, which basicall a 357 bullet in a short case barrel that attaches to the end of the spear gun), Watching the video I thought, Damn what a good idea. LOL. Noooooooooooooo, Not my dumb ass, I shoe away the 10 foot man eater, then shoot a red snapper right out in front of him. Tempting fate.

It is neat to say I stared down a 10 foot man eater and didn't stain my drawers. I looked him dead in those big black coal like eyes at 2 to 3 feet away coming right at me and stood my ground. I AM THE GREATEST. I AM THE ALPHA, I AM THE OMEGA. If you ever get the chance to go out to sea 20 or so miles and dive down 120 feet to be circled by a 10 foot man eater (by the way if you watched shark week you'd know that the only shark more aggressive than the bullshark is the oceanic white tip). and stare him right back in the dead lifeless eye and stand your ground. you will know your worth. It is by far the best dive I've ever had.

A trip I will remeber for the rest of my life.

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

P.S. I too missed the scrim as I fell asleep for 16 hours. Looking at my dive log from my dive computer I see why. We made 3 dives all at 100+ feet (Well the 3rd dive max depth was only 96 feet but hey, we're splitting hairs). All 3 dives were at 25 minutes plus. That means even though we were breathing 28 to 30% nitrox we were highly loaded with Nitrogen. In fact after our second dive our dive computers were saying we were done at any depth below 80 feet. So what do we do. Well we've established that I'm no brain surgeon when it comes to man ego stuff so I reprogram my dive computer until it says we can go to 100 feet again. This was done by resetting the allowable partial pressure from the standard 1.4 partial pressure setting to 1.6 extreme partial pressure setting.
In fact B you need to download your dive computer and look at all the pretty colors it gives us. We were well beyond normal safe operating conditions. We were highly nitrogen loaded. Add the 5 beers I downed from the time we left the 3rd dive site until we loaded the boat makes Andy high as a kite. Remeber when we were driving home and you and I were finishing off the last beers from our case and you said, Wow I'm getting a buzz. It wasn't the beer. We suffered from very low O2 in our blood stream. Drinking like sailors compunded the issue. Don't let the guys at the dive shop get a hold of our computers. They will have a cow. Chuck will yell at us perfusely (spelling). The X Marine is already mad at us but this will give him more fuel.
GET OUT OF THE POOL ANDY will no longer be the worst he's yelled at me. LOL.

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

VIDEO!!! Dude, I want to see the fun you're describing!! Sounds like a blast!!!

[LA_MERC_Spark]

... that's just silly.. now... where's the vid!!

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

umm...video..and don't accidently delete it!

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

What software do you guys recommend to convert it from avi to a useable postable file? Plus I would love to add the Jaws music to it. Any ideas?

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

what, you cant import it from your camera as an MPEG. if you do that, you can then upload the file directly to youtube.

BTW, only import the parts you want to see, not the whole think, even if its 2 seperate clips.. it will still be cool to watch.

Or just upload the files to our FTP and I will take care of it for you.

[Lockout]

The data on the mig is incorrect....the logic in our dive computers was all together wrong...The United States Navy (guys who generated these standards) apparently are men of steel such as us cause....Im sitting here typing and according to them we should be pushin up daisies.


But as per the others : ANDY GET THE FN VIDEO UP BEFORE I BUST YOUR ASS! :shockwhor

[Chi_Townz]

Shoot, Post it the main page too!

That'll bring new recruit's!
Be like Andy!

Join LaMerc!

(and be shark bait):stick

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

OK guys. Movie file is huge. To big to upload. I need some software that I can convert to a postable video file. Also I can not access You Tube from work. Can someone get me something to clip the shark segments out and size it down and format to something like a gif file to post onthe forums. I'm watching the video and man is it erie since the water is merky green with low visibility and this 8 to 10 foot man eater comes right at me twice (That is twice that I know of).

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

P.S. Video file is currently in asf format.
It's a 6 minute 45 second video. the shark is recorded from 1:38 to 1:58 and then again (Closer better pass) at 4:20 to 4:35 seconds.

I want to clip out those segments 20 seconds first pass then 15 seconds second pass and make a decent giff file. Then make a smaller avatar with it.

ANy help guys?

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

what size is the original file?

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

102 megs.

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

It may take some time, but you can upload a file that size from home. just use filezilla, and if it stops in the middle of the file start it again latter, when Filezilla ask you if you want to resume the upload tell it yes,, it will pick up where it left off... once the file is there I will D/L'ed it and see what I can do with it.

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

WHERE IS THIS F'N VIDEO DAMMIT?

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

This would go a lot quicker if one of you guys would get me or find an AVF to GIF converter.

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

I'm with rook....where the hell is htis f'n video!!!

[LA_MERC_johncst]

video video video video video v i d e o V I D E O V I D E O

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

*Yawn... Toe-Tapping *Wetz checks his watch... *Yawn... :stick

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Ok, Here you go. The file converters I've found (trial versions) all add some crap text lines to the convereted video so if someone has or knows a better software, pleasse share. BUT, here's one of the passes the 8 to 10 foot bull shark made to me trying to get the bloddy fish straped to my body. Here fishy fishy.

Rez is low and colors are changed to gray scale for file size compression, but its a start. Remeber its no HD discovery shark week video, but rather me at 125 feet deep 22 miles out in person up close.

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

cool! At least now you have proof to one of your famed stories...lol

I'm surprised you can see that much that far down.

[LA_MERC_Wetzny]

No wonder Barnacle Boy Shi0t himself, that thing is definitely cruising for a meal!!!! It looks very aggressive!.. Good video BTW!

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

Looks like an overgrown bullhead.What is the problem?:stick

Sweet vid do0d. Keep 'em coming.

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

Actually Al the visibilty is great at 125 feet. That day the particulate matter in the water was heavy and it limited visibility to about 30 feet. Some days we get visibility of 100 feet plus. I hate the clip is in gray scale. The green merky look of the emerald coast gulf gives this video a speacial erieness. That gif file is pretty choppy to. I'm still working on cleaning it up.

P.S. Yes he was definately seeing how close he could get and was eyeing my stringer of fish. But all in all the video does it no justice from actually being there. One of the coolest things I've ever experienced. I bet that bull shark had a 4 to 5 inch bite radius. I don't know about you but an 8 to 10 inch chomp any where on my person would leave a mark.

[Rollout]

Damn, that SOB was moving fast, not like on shark week when they cruised in slow to investigate, that SOB was serious!!!

[Rollout]

ALSO, LOOK AT ALL THE SANDWICH MEAT SWIMMING AROUND, LOOKS LIKE IT WAS A GREAT ADVENTURE. WHERE DID YOU DIVE? THE TWINS AREN'T THAT DEEP.

[LA_MERC_Andyconda]

It's amazing how fast a creature of that size can coast through the water.

[Lockout]

OVERGROWN bullhead....rook theres room on the boat for one more and we'd love to have you brother.....all you gotta do is grow a sack and paddle on down....Hell we will even video you petting the next one... Let me know what week you want to give it a try...

Disclaimer: Andyconda and Lockout are not responsible for any injuries or ailments suffer direct or indirectly as a result of high partial pressures and rapture of the deep. In otherwords, If your pancreis (sp) explodes or you get ate by a BULLHEAD it is not our fault. Oh and bring beer....lots of beer

[Lockout]

Rollout it was a new place 1.74 miles from the twins....Actually inside of them. By twins I assume you mean the Navy boats? Actually, you are correct. Good observation. That is strange considering they are further out.

The shark actually cruised in really slow on his first few passes. Im telling you, if you think he looked intimidating in the video, you gotta see them up close and personal. Im with Andy, I love it. Words can't describe the rush. It had been a long while since I had had an encounter and I was worried what Andy would do when we finally got a big one close. He did good. I was wondering how he would handle it and he did great. The fact that he bowed up and stayed down showed me he has major nad.....they never scared me but everyone I have dove with in the past wanted to run....It was cool to stay down there and watch...Definately one of my more favorite dive days all the way around. Ive never had a boring one yet !

[Chi_Townz]

Andy, you defiantly have to put the hole thing up!

Awesome stuff.... Oh, wait, burn some copies and sell em...lol