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.