Posted by Curt Billings on March 25, 2000 at 07:25:06:
In Reply to: closing day posted by Richard Bensen on March 24, 2000 at 10:20:00:
I also was on the Peace dive boat www.peaceboat.com "Animals Trip" for the last two days of Lobster season, March 21/22, 2000. For
any of you not sure when the season ended, it is the Wed. following the 15th of March. Some boat schedules had it wrong and called the
season over a week earlier. It is a good idea to know the rules yourself so you do not miss out on some diving opportunities.
The forecasted swell conditions were looking nasty, triple scale on the swell model, on Monday and it was double scale when we got
back. The Santa Anna's were blowing hard in the East valleys. We were not sure if the winds would help or make the seas more
confused. That night we joked that we would be diving breakwater for the two day trip that was intended to go to Nic. After a lumpy
ride out we awoke to a beautiful sunny day at Talcott Shoals, Santa Rosa Island. The second day we moved a bit westerly to
Brockaway. Forget what you saw on the swell model for those days, we were there in 5' swells and 50 deg water!
The bugs were out of their holes in most cases and were easy grabs. They were however spread out with some distance in between. On
some shallow dives I saw visions of the bugs of San Clemente Island. There were layers of shorts stacked 3 high and 15 feet across in
crevices.
The Peace "Animal Trip" is a high intensity, hard core lobster grabbing, loud mouth bragging, and highly competitive trip. We did 9
dives on Tuesday, 5 on Wednesday, with 15 minute gate times in between. A 15 second gate time was all that was necessary. This ain't
no sissy boat trip, this is an Animal trip! It was limited to 24 divers, food and air included for $225. The food and crew are, as always,
outstanding. Several of us limited out, several were close. A total of 150 bugs were bagged, up to 9 #'s. 3/4's of my catch was
between 2-1/2 lbs. to 6 lbs.
If you like these high energy diving trips, the Peace has a couple of Animals trips scheduled throughout the season, they are definitely
worth the price of admission. Outside of lobster season the Peace has a high intensity Halibut hunt in June. Don't miss out, because you
stayed home reading the BBS.