Here we are on the North Drop, in the waters off the British Virgin Islands. This 90″ clip is the final moments of a catch and release. It’s performed by a team who have caught plenty of fish, and do it as well as anyone on the drop.
If you are unable to view this video by clicking on the photo below, try this link to Vimeo.
I’ve taken to the skies with my latest advertising client. The global aeronautic company Embraer has picked a nice jumping Blue Marlin for their new ad campaign. This campaign features the Phenom 300. An executive jet that is unparalleled in it’s class – range 1,971 NM, max speed Mach 0.78, max operating altitude 45,000 feet, and an interior design by BMW designworksUSA. And you thought a fishing boat was a cool toy…
It’s that time of year already. Summer time in the caribbean and The Virgin Islands Game Fish Club is gearing up for their annual event – The 49th annual July Open Billfish Tournament. This world class event is always a blast and the fishing on the North Drop on the July moon can be fantastic. I’m flying down early to do some pre fishing and then will be covering the event start to finish. Hope to see you there.
UPDATE: I’m back from another great event! Nine boats signed up to fish and the weather was calm. The bite could have been better, but a good time was had by all. In the end, Black Gold won with five blue marlin releases and one white marlin. To see all of the photos from this event, click on the tournament logo below.
It’s a busy week for workstation maintenance in the office. Lot’s of updates and upgrades going on. It started with a single hard drive failure. For five years I’ve been spinning a Western Digital Raptor drive. It has been a solid workhorse as a OS X boot drive, although I would call it’s death premature. Lucky for me it failed slowly with some clicking and read/write issue. I was able to grab my /user folder with all my preferences before unplugging this drive for the last time. Perfect time to try out an SSD for a boot drive from OWC. Wow, what a difference in speed when opening and closing programs. No heat, no noise, blink, done. And then came the pull of Adobe’s newest software version of Photoshop CS6. Plenty of cool new features to play with. Although still plenty of bugs that have it crashing time after time when trying to save a simple single file. Dozens of crash reports later and Adobe informs me that it’s Apple’s fault. Hmmmm, I’m not convinced. I figured out a work around and also notice that at times CS6 is painfully slow performing some basic tasks. Since a new Mac Pro is not going to happen anytime soon for me (or ever happen if you believe Apple’s recent WWDC announcement). Time to switch back to CS5 and make this old CPU keep working for a few more years. But wait, maybe now is the time to upgrade video cards. My original NVIDA 7300 GT 256MB has been a fine card, but it isn’t Open CL capable and is a bit short on memory. So a switch to a Radeon 5770 1 GB card would give me loads of video memory and Open CL performance. This will also let me make to big switch from iMovie to Final Cut Pro. Oh the joy of new software and a few hundred hours of a learning curve.
I recently had the opportunity to shoot the newest boat to leave the shed at Weaver Boatworks – 80′ Islamar. This boat was going to be stopping in Palm Beach for a few days during it’s delivery to Puerto Rico for it’s new owner. I caught up with it one day in the boat yard for some interior work. And then the next morning offshore while Jim Weaver and the new owners took her out for a Marlin Magazine boat review. What an amazing boat. Weaver has again raised the bar for state of the art custom boatbuilding with this hull. Here is a boat review piece I put together. Thanks to Andy at Ocean Helicopters for the ride.
To see more still images of this incredible sport fisherman on my AquaPaparazzi.com photo web site, type “Weaver” in the keyword search box.
What do you get the guy who has everything? Well if you have a real good friend who thinks outside of the box, it’s easy. A client recently hired me to sneak up on his best friend and take his picture. Cool idea, makes a great gift. All the more special when your plan is to catch this guy by surprise with a group of his best friends out having fun. It took a few people on the inside to pull it off smoothly, but in the end this plan came together. The idea was to catch him when he least expects it… something like several miles offshore using a Robinson 44 as a tripod. Surprise! Thanks to Florida Coast to Coast Helicopters for the smooth ride.
The show has come and gone, so has the rain. Unlucky timing for all involved as a tropical blob sat on top of the show weekend forcing one of two days to be canceled. I went down to the beach for practice day and had a nice window of weather. Click the image below to see some highlights:
That’s the first thing that came to mind this afternoon while sitting in my house. It didn’t take long to connect the dots however. It is Fleet Week here in FLL. And that can mean only one thing. The aerial might of the US Military is in town and getting ready for the Air Show this weekend. It wasn’t thunder I was hearing, it was the sound of Freedom! We were treated to multiple fly overs by the US Air Force Thunderbirds at what seemed like tree top level. My neighborhood appears to be one of the turning points for part of their show. Incredible hardware, unforgettable sound. I was lucky enough to get to meet and photograph the team in their lair a few years ago…somewhere in the Nevada dessert. What a cool experience to see them in their house. Now I got to seem them in mine.
A pair of birds parked in the driveway – Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Fighting Falcon.
The team relaxing on the ground.
Polished and ready to rock – top speed 1,320 mph / 29,000 lbs of thrust
The entire flock.
That is one bad ass air pump.
Here is a fun little 10″ sec clip I shot while coming in from a great day of Sailfishing last week aboard the Keen M. Just a very familiar scene from a different perspective.
It’s so good to be back on the rock. I made the short hop from MIA to CUN this afternoon, and made sure I was at the dock at sundown to greet the fleet. I managed to catch the Qualifier pulling in late after a day of decent fishing and 14 releases. Pretty good action the last few days by most of the fleet has me anxious to get out on the bank in the morning. I’ll try and keep the Isla Mujeres fishing reports fresh…
Day 1 – Maiden voyage for the newest Paul Mann boat “Alina” today. The wind was blowing and the sails were biting. Ran about 20 miles to the fleet and set out. Lots of birds in the area, but not the conditions to catch the fish on top. Ended up trolling around until 4:30 with 13 releases for the day. Plenty of other fish seen in the spread and biting. Great day for a shake down cruise.
Day 2 – Today I rode along with Capt. Fin aboard the Qualifier. Breezy conditions this morning. We start fishing about 20 miles out. Did I mention it was rough? Decent action in the morning, gradually slowing down all day. Ended up with 10 released sails.
Day 3 – Back on the Alina today. Fishing was slow for us today…just one of those days when you wish you could take a mulligan.
Day 4 – Back on the Qualifier today. Still windy and complete cloud cover all day. We ran up to the North this morning to try and find some action. There was some birds and bait on top early, then it scattered and was hard to find. Most of our bites today were on the troll. Ended up catching 18. It wasn’t much better for the rest of the fleet.
It helps the numbers add up quickly when you can catch them four at a time.
Day 5 – Riding aboard the Billy Holten boat Haphazard for today’s action with Capt. Will. Mate Joey’s dad and some friends are the anglers. Still blowing and heavy clouds with rain. Salt spray galore. We did see some action on top and lots of birds. Managed to tag most of the fish we released.
Day 6 – Aboard the Keen M with Capt. Arch. One of the smaller boats in the fleet, but with a single angler it makes for the perfect platform for me to ride along and get some shots. The winds seems to have let up some at dawn and it continues to drop off all day long. Heavy sky early with our first hour of fishing spent in the rain. Once that passed it still looked threatening but somehow cleared out and made for a pretty day. Not many multiple hookups today, as expected with only one angler, but the action was steady all day.
Almost all our fish were caught under the birds and not trolling between bunches. What a show. I could spend hours watching these animals feeding on Sardines. An amazing display of flight. We ran well to the North and had plenty of room to work. The bite today was pretty good for the whole fleet. We ended up releasing in the low 20’s.
And what could be cooler than having a dock party dinner with Sir Richard Branson. Here he took a moment to pose with Anthony’s daughters and friends.
