Posts Tagged ‘Diving’

Lobster Mobsters Get Early Start on Mini Season

By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com

A Tampa man was charged Sunday with trying to get a three-day head start on lobster season in the Lower Keys. Leon A. Shabott, 46, faces misdemeanor conservation counts for taking 39 out-of-season lobster after Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers found him scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico, north of Cudjoe Key.

According to the FWC, Shabott was diving off a private boat between the Content Keys and Sawyer Keys around 2:30 p.m. As a patrol boat approached, the operator of the private boat reportedly gunned the engines — which FWC operators interpreted as a warning to the diver.

Officer Jimmy Johnson reported that the diver tried to swim away from the area underwater but was easily tracked by his bubbles. Shabott surfaced and was taken into custody. FWC Officer Seth Wingard donned snorkel gear to search the area, and recovered a bag containing 39 wrong lobster tails. Three of the tails were undersized.

Shabott was booked on singular counts of taking 39 out-of-season lobster, possession of wrung tails on the water, possession of three undersized lobster, and exceeding the recreational bag limit.

FWC spokesman Bobby Dube said divers at Indian Key Fill in Islamorada were charged with taking lobster out of season last weekend, after being observed by an officer in plain clothes. The suspects, from the Miami area, had only a few lobster and were cooperative, Dube said.

Lobster Mobster Caught Off Grassy Key

By KEVIN WADLOW

http://www.keysnet.com

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Fifteen lobster tails were seized as evidence Monday when state wildlife officers arrested a St. Augustine man spearfishing near Grassy Key. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers charged Bruce L. Beall, 39, with 19 misdemeanor counts of conservation violations.

FWC officers checked Beall when they saw him spearfishing in Gulf of Mexico waters north of Grass Key, FWC spokesman Bobby Dube said. It’s illegal to spear lobster, and to separate tails from the lobster body on the water. All the tails were undersized and taken in a closed season, Dube said.

If the lobster had been egg-bearing, “he’d have had the whole set” of possible crawfish violations, Dube noted. The incident was the most serious conservation violation reported from the Memorial Day weekend in the Keys, the officer said.

Lobster season is closed from April 1 to the sport-diving days the last Wednesday and Thursday in July.

More Lobster Mobsters Sentenced to Prison

By ADAM LINHARDT Citizen Staff

Two Bay Point men were sentenced to a year in prison on charges that they conspired to poach lobster, a judge ruled Monday, closing the last chapter on two illegal lobster harvesting cases that snared eight people.

John Buckheim, 23, and Nick Demauro, 24, both apologized to federal Judge James Lawrence King, their friends, family and wildlife officers.

“I acknowledge and take full responsibility for what I did,” Buckheim said. “I was young and stupid and I’m not implying that I’m old or wise now, only that I’m heading in the right direction. … I’m sorry for this major mistake and you won’t find me in this position again.”

Demauro told the judge he had “taken everything for granted.”

Both men pleaded guilty in October to harvesting lobsters by diving on illegal artificial habitats, called casitas, primarily in the Content Keys area north of Big Pine Key, from July 2008 through October 2008, according to court documents.

The judge granted U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald’s request to delay their prison sentence 100 days so both men can continue their work removing as many as 600 casitas from Florida Keys waters. The judge ordered both to surrender to corrections officials on May 12.

The judge also allowed both men to resume legal commercial fishing immediately upon their release from prison, despite the prosecutor’s recommendation that both be prohibited during the two years of supervision that is to follow their release.

Miami defense attorneys Bruce Alter and Steven Potolsky urged the judge to consider the defendants’ ages, their clean criminal histories and their desire to make amends as mitigating factors at sentencing, but the prosecutor was unmoved, painting the men as astute fishermen who knew the risks involved.

“These were not youths who stumbled into this,” the prosecutor told the judge, describing taped conversations between the two men, and the hundreds of casitas they fished.

Buckheim and Demauro worked for David and Denise Dreifort of Cudjoe Key at one time. The latter were sentenced in July for spearheading a large lobster poaching ring that involved four other people, in a separate but related case. David Dreifort was sentenced to 2¬½ years in prison in July. His wife was sentenced to seven months in prison. Prosecutors found thousands of lobsters at one of their homes on Lookdown Lane last year.

Buckheim and Demauro began their own illegal operation after their stint with the Dreiforts, and they sold lobster to a Stock Island seafood company in 32 separate incidents for a total of $45,974, records say. The company has not been charged in the case, the prosecutor said.

Both men were warned by David Dreifort to cease their operation after he was indicted, but they continued, the prosecutor said. Federal agents began visual and electronic surveillance of Buckheim and Demauro during the larger investigation that involved the Dreiforts, reports say.

Both pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement in which prosecutors dropped two charges that could have added at least 10 years to their sentences.

alinhardt@keysnews.com

Are You Ready For The Spiny Lobster Sport (Mini) Season?

Diving for lobster in Florida’s upcoming mini-season can be deadly, warns a leading dive-safety organization.

“Divers get excited and rush to dive without preparation, and most of them are out of shape,” said Petar Denoble, a physician who serves as senior research director for the Divers Alert Network. ”They underestimate the level of exercise required for diving, particularly lobster diving,” said Denoble, author of a recent report published in DAN’s Alert Diver magazine. The past four years have seen 14 divers die during Florida’s annual two-day mini-season — 10 of them in Florida Keys waters, the leading destination for lobster hunters.

In contrast, only six divers died while hunting lobster statewide in the regular eight-month lobster season in the same 2005-08 period. This year’s lobster sport-diving season arrives July 29 and 30.

“Why the higher percentage of deaths in the two-day preseason? Our best guess is that mini-season may be the time many divers take their first plunge of the year,” Denoble wrote. “Or they’ve made relatively few dives thus far and haven’t gotten up to speed on their skills and conditioning…. The underwater chase, frequent ascents and many repetitive dives over the two-day season can take a toll, even on the most experienced divers.” He pointed out that most of the mini-season deaths can be traced to heart problems in divers in their late 40s and older.

There was no evidence that air embolisms, typically responsible for about a third of all diving deaths, caused any of the 20 lobster-related deaths that DAN staff studied. Denoble called that finding “interesting,” but cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from the relatively small number of case studies.

After three divers died in Monroe County waters during the 2005 mini-season, authorities called for increased caution. All three were out-of-county residents; the youngest was 49.

But the 2006 season was even deadlier, with four fatalities.

There were two lobster diving deaths in the Keys last year, after one death in 2007.

Many of the deaths could be linked to those with known medical problems, or who had undiagnosed conditions.

A lobster-season safety campaign was launched this spring to warn divers to check their equipment and be aware of physical demands. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association and DAN prepared the program.

“People who live a sedentary lifestyle must assume they are out of shape,” Denoble said. “Divers may try to chase lobster the same way they did it when they were 25. But at 50, it doesn’t work that way any more.”

Denoble recommended that older divers have regular checkups, and exercise throughout the year.

“Get prepared. You cannot go out and play a game without practice,” he said. “This is your game, and you need to win.”

An estimated 30,000 divers go out for lobster in a typical mini-season, with about 60 percent of them planning to do it in the Keys.

Women Getaways in the Florida Keys

With scores of recreational activities that cater to women, the Keys are a perfect destination for women-only getaways or solo adventures. Each area in the island chain that stretches from Key Largo to Key West offers its own one-of-a-kind attractions. And while the Keys have a Caribbean appeal, they’re actually all American — no passport is required and English is the native tongue. A selection of girls’ getaway activities is listed here, but in reality the possibilities are as diverse and intriguing as the island chain itself. Underwater Stress Relief Just beneath the tip of mainland Florida lies Key Largo, the northernmost of the Florida Keys. There, women seeking renewal beneath the sea can plunge 25 feet to discover the statue of Christ of the Abyss at Key Largo Dry Rocks. This nine-foot-tall bronze statute rises so close to the surface that it can be seen by snorkelers as well as divers.

Key Largo is known as the scuba diving capital of the world, but it also offers a way to experience North America’s only living coral reef without getting wet. Sail aboard the Key Largo Princess, a 70-foot, glass-bottom, 129-passenger yacht to view the exciting underwater world of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the only undersea park in the United States. The Key Largo Princess is located at the Holiday Inn Docks off U.S. Highway 1 at mile marker (MM) 100.

Islamorada, just down U.S. 1 from Key Largo, offers a wide variety of fine restaurants and day spas for sybaritic pampering. For women seeking an all-over tan, the tanning bed can be the large forward couch on Two Chicks Charters’ 26-foot Leisure Cat. The smooth-riding boat accommodates up to six people for an eco-tour to experience the natural beauty of the mangrove islands, an underwater treasure hunt, or a sunset on Florida Bay. Catch the boat at Worldwide Sportsman Bayside Marina, MM 81.5 in Islamorada. Read more…

Diving With Goliath Groupers

Goliath groupers gather annually in spawning aggregations at offshore reefs and wreck sites throughout the Caribbean and parts of Florida. During filming for Americas Underwater Treasures, a two-hour PBS special documenting all the U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries as part of the Ocean Adventures series, Jean-Michel, Fabien and Celine Cousteau witness a congregation of these enormous fish. Dive under the waves with them in this short film and discover the goliath grouper.

Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society

Florida Key’s Sea Base: 30 Years of Adventure

By ROBERT SILK Free Press Staff

ISLAMORADA — In the late 1970s, Sam Wampler was tasked with finding a home base for a new Boy Scouts of America program that provided adventures on the high seas for scouts from around the country.

Wampler, at the time the camping director for the Boy Scouts’ Miami region, found the spot he was looking for in 1980 on the site of a rundown hotel at the southwest tip of Lower Matecumbe.

Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand scouts later, Florida Sea Base has become a staple of the Boy Scouts of America and a key player in the economic life of Lower Matecumbe Key and surrounding islands.

“We are literally influencing families across this nation,” said Keith Douglass, the Sea Base facilities director.

Florida Sea Base won’t officially turn 30 until this summer. But on Monday the Lower Matecumbe institution was scheduled to hold its birthday party early to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.

Wampler passed away seven years ago, but wife Sharon remembers that first year, when she guesses 1,000 to 2,000 scouts visited the base.

According to local lore, during the summer of 1980 Sea Base staff had to fend off patrons of the old Toll Gate Inn, who were unaware that the former brothel and seedy watering hole had been converted into a place that could safely be called, well, more wholesome.

Over time those Tollgate customers disappeared entirely and Sea Base flourished. New dormitories were built, as well as an administrative building and conference center. In 1982 the scouts acquired the 105-acre Munson Island off Big Pine Key. Then in 2001 the scouts opened the Brinton Environmental Center on Summerland Key.

All are used in the various Sea Base adventures programs, which include multi-day sails, dive training, fishing excursions and primitive camping on Munson.

According to Sea Base officials, today more than 10,000 scouts a year descend upon the Lower Matecumbe locale, which is one of only three High Adventure bases run by the Boy Scouts of America.

Douglass says all those people mean big dollars to the local community. The scouts often visit local attractions like Theater of the Sea and the Florida Keys History of Diving Museum. If their families come for a visit they stay at local lodges. And Sea Base does a lot of its buying locally.

“We spent over $30,000 in bait alone just last year and that’s all local,” Douglass said.

Meanwhile, Sharon Wampler says she can’t believe how big the Sea Base program has grown over the past 30 years.

“Sam is up there just laughing at the whole thing, happy about it,” she said.

rsilk@keysnews.com

5 Great Florida Keys Hotels You Don’t Want to Miss

By Gail Nettles

Florida Keys hotels rank among the worlds finest when it comes to style, design, value for money. The quality customer service welcomes you and attends to your every need during your stay. There is something for everyone here, whether you are after glitz and glamor or just quality at affordable prices.

So, where to stay in this tropical paradise? Here is a hand-picked selection of what is available for you to enjoy.

Ocean Pointe Suites at Key Largo
This resort sits in the middle of 60 acres of mangrove forest and it has some lovely nature trails in the grounds, which appeal to both children and adults. It has its own small private beach, perfect if you want to keep a close on the little ones. The suites are of a high standard and generous size.

The Mariner’s Resort Villas & Marina, Key Largo
The Mariner’s has an oceanfront position and offers gated security. It is close to some of the award winning restaurants on the island, but you can also cook up your own tasty barbecue on one of the many grills that are located around the resort for you to use. The lagoon style swimming pool here is the largest in the Florida Keys.

Banana Bay Resort & Marina, Marathon
The Banana Bay hotel is located on the sunset gulf side of Marathon. It is situated amid beautifully maintained tropical gardens, which are home to a great variety of birds. You can see and hear these colourful birds singing during the day. They offer a delicious complimentary breakfast, every morning by the pool.

The Southernmost in Key West
The Southernmost is a lovely small quite hotel, but is located slap bang in the middle of Key West old town on Duval Street. You could not be more immersed in Key West life. The hotel is a great base to explore the old town. Even though it is centre town, the hotel does have two small pools. If you really want to get down with locals then staying here will give you a genuine Key experience.

Casa Marina Resort & Beach Club, Key West
The Casa Marina is one of the original Florida Keys hotels and one of the greats. It is listed on the Register for Historic Places and offers something special and different. There isn’t anything that this hotel does not have. A fine grand dining room, bars overlooking the ocean and the rooms are simply stunning.

You Know Where to Stay — Here’s What to Do! Now that you know some places you can stay in the Florida Keys, what about finding things to do? There are beaches, parks, attractions and diving, to name just a few. Did you know that scuba diving Key Largo is totally awesome? And what about those Key West beaches! And shopping! And more!

There lots and lots to do in the Florida Keys, and here’s some free information (not to mention neat photos) to get you started on your Florida Keys vacation. Come on down! We’d love to have you visit.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gail_Nettles

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Job Listing – Undersea Research Diver in Key Largo

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9 Inch Lionfish Captured on Key Largo Elbow Reef

Any doubt about the prevalence of lionfish in Florida Keys waters ended July 5. The largest lionfish yet captured in the Keys — 9 inches total length — was netted at The Elbow Reef off Key Largo. It was the eighth exotic lionfish taken in Keys waters since the first capture in January, an average of better than one a month.

“This was the largest Keys fish so far, and certainly reproductively capable,” said Lad Akins, special projects director at the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. “We’re getting lionfish sightings with more frequency,” said Karrie Carnes, information officer for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

A response team formed by the sanctuary and REEF headed to The Elbow after the big lionfish was spotted around 11 a.m. July 5 by Quiescence Diving Services instructor Chelyn Shaw. Quiescence staff volunteered a boat and crew.

“At 3:30 p.m. the fish was located in exactly the same location as reported,” Akins said. “The fish was first noted resting upside down under a ledge, but during the removal dive it was found hovering over the sand bottom under the ledge, hunting.” It took divers just eight minutes to find and net the fish, the most efficient capture yet, Carnes said. Read more…