When you're NOT good...

You have to work hard. And, deal with adverse conditions, etc.

The water in the gulf seems to stay cold for a long time. On the east coast, with the gulf stream nearby, our water is usually pretty warm. At least warm enough to dive comfortably with a 3mm wet suit. Not so over where the fossils abound. But, week after week of daydreaming about the tooth littered bottom tends to make water in the 60's seem somewhat hospitable if not enticing. So I booked a dive with Florida West Scuba and found a few nice smaller megs including the one with the white bourlette pictured. I stayed the next day and did a couple beach dives where I found some really nice small teeth and a chunk of what would have been my best meg ever had it been whole(pictured below). Went home after that and hugged my boat as I had forgotten how horrible beach dives were.

Life went on as usual, except for the picture etched in my mind of what that meg tooth could have been if I only could have found it a few million years earlier. Then, like all of us probably, I started considering the possible fact that perhaps there was another like it out there with my name on it. So, I went back the next weekend with my boat after considering for a split second another beach dive. I sent rivrdigr a e mail and he was in for a tank or two and at the last minute my buddy Jeff said he would meet me over there. See, rivrdigr and Jeff are GOOD. Rivrdigr does one dive and not only grabs a 4"+ "as good as they get from there" meg tooth BUT stabs his lunch (see his report) before exiting the frigid toothing grounds. Jeff grabs another (I don't even know how many he has found now) 5 inch plus whole meg and a assortment of "less desirables". I found two hand fulls of the stuff you see for sale at fossil shows for $1 per hand full, and I was pretty happy, until I saw what they found...and the freakin' fish!

Of course, they had no reason to continue the pain and anguish of diving in 60 degree water so I was soon on my own. I found some cool stuff however, including my biggest Mako yet and about a dozen 2 to 3 inch megs. The daydreams are starting again already so I expect I will be back soon and hopefully with as good company.