Getting Bait for Sharks

Well, here we have to go spearfishing for barracudas; thing is, that my Blue Water experience in Cabo Verde, made me understand that the spearguns that we used back home (90 cm, 1.10 cm; compressed air 9o cm) woudn´t be enough for those clear waters and 1 rubber band woudn´t be enough to get some Wahoo´s or tuna, or any other pelagic.

In CV; 3 rubber bands; 1.30 wooden gun; that´s about enough:)

Usual 90 cm speargun that we use; 1 rubber band..

So this is what i have for starters...90 cm at most, with 2 rubber bands; will that be enough?...
B´s experience tells me that it´s more than enough; mine doens´t; since i´m up here, and B has a lot of exp. down here, i´ll just take his word for it.
Usually Barracudas are easy targets, since they do n not get intimidated by human presence;
one thing dough...i wanted to use the same process as we did on CV, to avoid Shark confrontation with our cathes; but it seems that here te Gulf stream is to strong, and isn´t very Keen on buoy´s; meaning that we´ll have to catch them, and bring it over to the surface, hand-held....

Work & more

Poney tanks: 93% O2

With S, around we were able to check almost all the equipment that we needed; as seen on the photos, there was as lot of cleaning, welding, electrical checks, etc.

Scrapping off contacts, insuring that these BR´s will be Good and Ready 2 Go!

Although i was expecting some sun tan, in this case i got some "iron tan"!

"Hurricane Alley": this bar/restaurant has an amazing collection of Sea related items hanging on the walls, sealing, etc; + Good food + pretty nice ... service:)
On one of the Ship Wrecks that we will be diving, it seems that there is a "small family" of Bull Sharks around; the biggest (female) has about that width on its dorso. (W has also been giving pretty nice descriptions of the current status of our dive spots.
Take a good look at W arms.. the BS with a dorso that wide, that it seems to keep local spearfishers away from trying to get some other fish from that wreck.

NITROX SDI certification

Done today.. next: Rebreather!

D, at Wetpleasures * was able to find the patience and time to get me up and running on this. Everybody is running at this point to get their gear ready for the project so..

* Yes Wetpleasures is a dive Shop & School, nothing more to it...:)

What´s NITROX? take a look->

Home cooked meal by the PT fellow

One thing that surely lacks here; great wine! There are several kinds of it, but it isn´t that easy to find and PT one´s;
Even so the bet on Woodbridge, wasn´t too bad.
The only store that had PT whine, had none (apparently) worth to try, and the prices aren´t very nice, anyway..

Note:
Talkin about wine, today got a nice suggestion/tip from a very nice waitress at the "Hurricane Alley"; a great place by the way (photos soon!)
Pinot Grigio - italian wine, dry as some of ours, pretty good; shame that they do serve it in glasses, instead of the whole bottle like we do!(PT)

Oh, and tonight with another team mate arrival, we ate Dolphinfish (Coryphaena equiselis); pretty good!

1st look at the Inlet

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This is one of the points where we may head out to Sea;

Funny that in these pictures we can really see the kind of current they have there; it seems like Foz and Rio Douro´s on a low tide. Hence float dive, and no anchor dive..they do have a point there:)
Everybody here seems to laugh about, anchor diving, as we do back there in PT. Here everybody goes with the flow (Gulf Stream).

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Another pleasant surprise, was the fact the pelicans are all over the place (as you may see on img.1) A lot of beautiful birds are all around this place.

Another curious thing, was the fact that you can actually see a lot of fish from the topside, just fighting the current. And those weren´t mullets!

Alcohol...

This is a sign on a parking lot, close to the Boynton Inlet... We´ll never see one of these signs in PT:)
No Alcohol on a parking lot?!:)

Last Few (First) Days

As the photos describe, these last days have been a lot of work; getting gear ready, boat ready, electronics ready, transmitters ready, scuba gear ready..:)

So we pass most of the time on working on this, or shopping for extra parts that may be missing, or needed.
Up to this point, no dives yet.

The wind made his apperance, the tempearature went down, and we´re hopping to dive by the end of the week.

Set up moorings with with transmitters (see that RV2 with the Danger Label).

The adaptation to the US breakfasts has been kind of hard:) At least for someone who was used light BK´s; a lot of eggs, panqueques, bacon..well pretty good to lower colesterol levels, or losing weight...

The coffee, well..it takes a few large cups to match an expresso...

This is the closest thing to an expresso, that we got on those drive-in´s; almost there...:)



Funny thing, that this week i was asked twice for ID when buying cigarretes or alcohol drinks..
Either i´ve gone younger since i got here, or they do get old pretty fast!
Here you must have 21 years old to get some of those items; their excuse, you seemed under 30..and?!... below 30 => >21..duh!..but ok; had them read out my Unv. card, to check my age; well, of course that PT must of seemed Chinese, and they just simply asked for the year of birth, since i don´t carry my Passport around.

But in an overall manner, people have been nice, always a "Good mornin", "Howdy" or "Have a nice day", with a smile.

Some of the people i really met so far, as S,and will be involved in this project in some way, we´re actually great! Hospitallity, helping out the best they can, teaching, advising.
The photo quality should improve as soon as i get my camera charger back; as for now, these have been taken with my mobile, therefore, cant ask much:)

1st day @ the US

Well, after about 13h flight with Air France or "Air Frog", finally got on the ground at MIA (Miami International Airport). Air Frog, lost one of my bags... with ALL my clothes in it, freediving fins, and most likely my dive computer. 3 days hanging with lended clothes on the first day and then we went up to a vintage store just to get some clothes to go around here. Let´s see i have a nice update on my stuff today! B, picked me up at the airport and then we went straight to D&M house; my first meal here was sushi, so i kind of think this will be a healthy stay:) At this point we´ve been working on the boat that will take us where we need to go diving, tagging and tracking. As B says, a lot of grease and sweat! On the 3rd day i finally got an espresso...or something like it:) From what my caffeine addiction says, i need about 3 cups of US usual coffee to get the same effect as 1 espresso down on Portugal. Just a matter of adaptation. Everything is going smoothly, except for "Air Frog"... nice wine and cheese over the flight, but there was no need to loose my bag...