Finally Back in the Water!!!

So Monday I finally got back in the water after being landlocked by the metaphorical bars of the UCSB midterm season. I also received constant phone calls from my mother telling me not to go into the "shark infested waters" that the SB coast has become... It was a school wide holiday and all classes were cancelled even though the actual holiday was the day before.

Noice Day!

The Swell had finally died down, and the water looked perfect. Clear day, no wind, the sun was out, and we were all so happy. Ben, Frank and I were the only Wots who made the journey. It was pretty hot outside, so we were all like, "How Cold could it be?!?!" We suit up on the beach, Ben, in full dive gear, frank in a wet suit and gloves, and then there was me. BOARD SHORTS, gloves, and a rash guard to protect me from what I thought wouldn't be that cold of water. We grab the guns and the backwards walk begins. Ben's in first, then frank, and then I'm still on the beach messin with the GoPro.

I hear ever so faintly.. "It's Cold! You should grab that hood...."

Do I listen? No.. The little voice in my head says, "It can't be that cold... Besides, the hood will constrict your neck, and that's no fun!" I was wrong. Ohhh so wrong. I finally feel the liquid ice submerge my feet and chills run up through my entire body and I immediately regret this decision. But I continue anyways. I go into a full paddle hoping my movements will warm up my body. Nope. I was literally frozen. not really. but still. My swim is going sooo slow, but then for some reason, i feel this heat burning inside of me and soon by entire body is warm again. I thought about what this could be, and I realized that I had mastered my Chakras from sub-zero meditation. My Chi was fueling by body's furnace and I was ready for battle.

Chi'd up from the feet up

After I warmed up, I finally got a chance to look at my surroundings. The water was so cleeean. Super clear and fresh. We had 10-15 feet of vis up top, and down below it opened up to around 20. We were exploring the wrecks, and we discovered structures that we had never seen before. We were so excited, it was like we just discovered the long lost Atlantis. There was this circular clearing, with a tower of kelp right in the middle where all the fishes seemed to congregate. It was like town hall for the fishes. I swear I saw a couple shops open, a nice checkers table where the old opal eye played, and a brothel filled with female sheepshead.

Started searching for some dinner; I was looking for scallops, but I have never seen them nor caught them in the wild, so I really had no idea what to look for or what to do. Long story short, I didn't get any. I did stumble along a nice sized brown Lingcod though:

Brained.

I see dis foo chillin under this ledge right,

I pull out my gat

I says, "Yo, what you reppin homie?"

He gives me dat stink eye

So you know what I do next?

I cock my gat to the side

Aim it horizontal like

and Pull dat TRIGGER.

Your done son. 

I bag dat sucka and keep on my way.

In the Meanwhile, Ben has been stalking calicos like hes playing Hardcore Black Ops with the Ghost Perk on. He bagged a pretty decent sized buddy, but it wasn't until the ride back that he bagged his personal best calico. This delectable treat that Ben brought down had seen many wars before. There was a big chunk taken out of his back that had been healed over. He was a seasoned vet. Battle was no stranger to him, but he had never met Big Ben on the battle field. He was also done..son.

Fancy Ben

Ben ang his Big O' Calico.

Frizz Spearin

The days slaughter.

Frank all day had just been searching for elusive swimmers with his pole spear. Though many dives past has he come up with lunch, this was the dive that convinced him that he must attain a gun. We will wait for Christmas, when Franks mom will deploy a spear gun into the hands of the warrior Frank. Then, the WOTS will be unstoppable.

              

                    Video Coming SOON!

Fish Tacos!

Being the avid Food Network watcher and professional eater that I am, I have developed a love for the culinary arts. This will be the first of many posts that will showcase the meals of the COTS.

CHEF OF THE SEA.

So this past Monday, I defrosted a couple Ling Cod fillets from the Ol' Frigidaire and heated up the Barbie!

Threw some EVOO down on some foil and then put the fillets on top. Seasoned the fillets up with some:

-Garlic Salt

-Black Pepper

-Chili Powder

-Mesquite BBQ rub

And then threw them on the grill for like 10 minutes or whenever they weren't blue anymore.

GRILLIN.

Then I sliced up some lemons, an Avocado, grilled up some corn tortillas, bought some pre-made coleslaw from Bert's, added some Mexi-cheese, and then some mango peach salsa on top. ARE YOU AWARE OF THE DANKNESS?!?! 

NOW YOU ARE.

The Spreaddd

The finished tacs

SUPER AWESOME.

So, Frizzle Frank and I went for a dive off the Goleta area on Thursday! The water was nice and warm, it was pretty flat, and there was no wind!

BUT....

the vis looked something like this...

Not even bueno at all.

So then I went home and finished editing this video from last weeks dive with Mark. CHYEAHH.

Head shot at 1:30!!!

Sunset Dive

Been way to busy with midterms to write about the epicness that occured a week ago TO THIS DAY. The midterm was tough, but I got through it, so now I can BLOG. Anyways before the ocean off the coast of SB turned into the mushroom soup that it was today when I went for a swim, it was crystal clear mushroom soup before you add ANYTHING. Soup-er nice. (hehe) but seriously. After class last Tuesday, I get this call from Mark, captain of the Jolly Jumbuck.

"Hey Doug!" he says to me.
"Hey Mark!" I says back.

And then this whole convo goes into stage about how we should go diving, but the Jumbuck's got a cold, so hes out. So we decide on the Ye Ole Fashioned shore dive from the goodland. It's about 4:20 when we were finally suiting up, and by suiting up, I mean putting on my board shorts. The days are getting shorter and the tide was getting lower so we bust out and take a dip. We drop our faces into the drink and all I can see is EPICNESS. Sand fo dayyysss. We swim around, play with a couple bat rays, dig for doubloons (didn't find any), and then we get to the SPOT. The kelp was standing tall and the bugs were RIPE for the picking! Mark was in full bug hunting mode, and I was in that "I wanna shoot things" mode. So I had my trusty GAT out fully rigged with the GoPro. The vis was incredible. I could see bugs waving their hands in the water from 30 feet up. I was reel. (hehe) Take a few looksies around the kelp, and its just Rock city, Rock Rock city. Tons of em, all different shapes and colours. Opies by the dozen, and perch for dayzz. But I was not hunting them tonight. No. I was looking for a different type of monster. One more elusive, one more keen. One with a color so blue, the sky would be jealous. The LINGCOD. or honestly anything pretty big and ugly looking.

I'm doing my thing, searching in the most deepest crevices; my eyes peeled for the elusive monster, whilst also keeping my perifs on the red creepy crawlys that taste oh so wonderful dipped in a pot o butter. But THEN I look in this HOLE, and I see these eyes. Eyes so deep, it was like peering into the soul of Paul Watson. I pointed my gun at the Megalodon's fat head, and pulled the TRIG. WHAP! Nailed um! Pulled that spear out of the hole and that beast was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Blue as could be. Strung him up and then dove for more.

Mark in the meantime was pulling up shorty after shorty, so I decided to try my luck. I dropped the gat and stuck my hands in some holes. I pulled up one red, that was close, so I let him swim. My next grab was SOOO close, but to no avail, I was duped yet again. Mark pulled up one legal and bagged him, but then I just went back into "I wanna shoot things" mode. It was getting dark now, no more sunlight. The flashlights were our only hope in protecting our faces from rock to face collision. I see the faint outline of the blue beasts' counterpart, so I shoot its brain out. BAGGED.

I am now freezing my balls off, and Mark too has had enough, although as soon as we get out, he wants nothing more than to get back in. We take a couple snapshots and start to swim. I reach for my snorkel....

"WHERE'S MY DAMN SNORKEL?!?!" shouts Doug.

It slipped away into the dark abyss. Forever lost to Poseidon's kingdom. I count my losses and backstroke back to the beach.
It's Late-ish and I have some things to do, so I'm not trying to cook these fishes up right now. We stop by our local favourite CAL TACOOO! Mmmmm char burger with jack. DANK. I gave one of my lings to Alex, the best chef in town cause he's a straight up G, and makes the best lunches at Sandpiper GC, my place of business. And then we call it a night. Great Dive, Great Fish, Great Everything. Now back to homework....

This was Instagrammed.

LOBSTER HEAD!

DOUBLE LING MADNESS

Just SO raw.

Saturday's Quickie

Saturday the 6th, four of us did a real quick dive off the Goleta coast just for some fun and fish. Ben and i brought out the guns, Frank brought out the pole spear and Zak brought out his trusty bag for some BUG HUNTIN!!!Yeeeehaw! The vis was fairly decent; about 6-10 up top and then down under it went as far as 20 or so in some spots. the water was pretty warm, and the sun was out, perfect morning for a dive! the swell wasn't too bad either and the wind wasn't blowing as i hard as the reports were saying. There were a bunch of commercial boats out so we had to throw some hands up to make sure they didn't take us out. Still an awesome dive.

Started out pretty slow, not too many big fish around. Lots of rocks, opies and perch, LOTS of perch. Still a bunch of bugs around too, all up in those cracks but I was just trying to bag some fish for a BBQ later that day. Saw one nice cab, but he got away before i could pull the trigger. There were a few Calicos out, one big guy i missed, but then i took my vengeance out on another one. Ben came out big! He shot a nice BLLLUEEEE lingcod right in the face and almost ripped his head off. I saw a pretty big sheepshead down there too. In the video, its right around 3:40. It was a short dive, but still super fun!

I finally got the GoPro all mounted up to my gun so look forward to some good videos coming! Here's oone from Saturday.

CHYEAH.

The Lobster Opener

The day finally came! Saturday was the Opener for bugg season so of course, we had to go out. All the WOTS went their separate ways, Ben went with Romo, and Marco to the islands, Zak, Kai, and Frank beach dove and I took the boat out with my bro and his bud. 

We anchored the boat in a nice spot, that wasn't infested with a million traps so we could dive in some peace. The water was relatively warm so no wet suit for me. (like everyday) and the vis was pretty good in most spots. Super nice dive, there were a BUNCH of bugs peaking out of their homes and a reel good amount of reef fish. The few I was able to wrangle out were just under legal so I came out bugless, but after about an hour, I just decided to grab the gun and get some lunch before the MAC MILLER show. I shot a nice size ling and an 18' Cabezon. The Cab made some Noice tacos along with a couple rocks. We're taking out the yak manana so hopefully we can grab a couple bugs for a surf and turf tommorow night.

THE LING.

The Last Day of Summer

Yesterday, Wednesday the 25th, was the last day of summer vacation for us UCSB kids so we knew we had to do something AWESOME. We turned down hiking, and going everywhere else, so the day was turning out to be a day full of nothing until frank mentioned he wanted to go swimming at the RecCen. But then I told him it was super packed cause everyone just got back, and there were freshmen for days all up in it, but then i mentioned lets just go swimming in the ocean. AND WE WERE DOWN. Next up was deciding where. Sands? no. How about *******?? YESSSS! Should we bring the spears?? WHY NOT?!?! And then we were off. It was late in the day, so we weren't expecting much, but we just wanted to get WET, and enjoy the last day of summer. As we were walking to the spot, I was looking at the water to get a gauge on how clear it may be and I had this feeling it was gonna be amazing.

Ben and Alina had to run back home to grab some gear so Frank and I just started the mission alone. We geared up and started the backwards walk. We left the GoPro with our gear just because we didn't want to carry it. (MISTAKE). Before we even put our masks on, we look down at the water and we can see our feet from chest high surf, then we put them on and dunk our heads.... BOOM. Poseidon was smiling down on the Warriors of the Sea because the vis was absolutely amazing. It was the best I had ever seen away from the islands. It was honestly like diving in the tropics. Frank and I immediately started shouting and celebrating through our snorkels! In about 10 feet of water I already started seeing calico bass! Frank dove with his pole spear and sleighed his first one!

We swam out a little deeper, and started cruising around the kelp. I was looking for flats and big calico, but I kept missing high with my shots... idk why. Started searching in the rocks for cabs and lings but instead of those I just see bugs for days! they were just chillin like nothing was going on! Two more days Two more days...

We go a bit further to a depth around 40 ft or so (can still see the bottom) to look for bigger fish. I pop up out of the water, and I hear Ben shouting my name. "Doug! I need the Stringer!" I look over, and he's holding this massive Megalodon of a lingcod above his head. YEAHHH!! We string up the blue beauty and then he tells me where they're at. A couple dives later I see this beautifully patterned brown ling chillin right under me, I chase her for a sec and then BOOM! HEADSHOT! It was great. But then, as I was stringing her up, I managed to drop my spear tip and shaft... Soo if anyone finds a tip.. pm me. =] I did get the shaft back.

WOTS OUT

 Frizzle Frank

 Big Ben

 Douggie B

WOTS CREW

First Post

I've been meaning to document my adventures through the Kingdom of the Fish for sometime now, but now I finally have a bit of time to do it. I got into the whole diving and spearfishing thing at the beginning of the summer after consistent badgering from my roommate Ben, but I immediately fell in love after i speared my first fish. 

Living in Santa Barbara is amazing. I get to dive everyday I want and then go to school later if I have some time. Just kidding, but seriously.. 

The Story of my first fish isn't very exciting at all, but it is what began the journey of the Warriors of the Sea. I had gone diving a few times but never fished or really got into it, but then early this summer I went with my best bud Ben and it changed my life. I picked up a 4 ft JBL pole spear with a paralyzer tip for 30 bucks from a buddy who was moving back to New Mexico and swam out to a nice kelpy area north of Santa Barbara. I was using an old U.S. Divers snorkel, mask and fin set that my mom bought me a costco a while back, but i didn't care because I could breathe and swim. The vis was about 15ft, so it was nice for my first dive. I dove down a few times and realized I couldn't hold my breath nearly as long as expected, but took some looks anyways. After about a half hour I saw my first rock fish, it looked big enough, so I pulled the band back, pointed, and let go. My spear went straight through the body and I heard a sound I can never forget. I was stoked! I swam back up and yelled through my snorkel and almost let the fish wiggle off. But i stabbed it in the head and bagged it, and I was on my way to Glory!!!!

My first two:

YEEEEEE!!!!!