Story time!
I was flipping through my log book just now.
Let me preface this with a question:
A) How many dives did it take you before you finally didn't have that "oh god" moment during the initial descent?
And what finally caused you to get over it?
Or in the case of you water babies out there:
B) At what dive did you finally have your first "oh god" moment?
And what caused it?
For me it was Dive 31 before my first "oh god" moment; I was 8 months into my dive career. Here we were, snapped into a trapeze for some Blue Water Scientific Dive training. Visibility was about 6inches.....between each Chrysaora fuscescens - Sea Nettle jellyfish. We were boat diving close to Sand City's Embassy Suite's Hotel in Monterey Bay, California.
Blue Water Sci Diving
Pacific Sea Nettle
The 8 of us were all at 40ft dangling off 5ft lines trailing to one point; attached to a trapeze, attached to a boat. Basically floating targets in a Chrysaora shooting gallery with some fun swell added into the mix.
Bottom was 80ft below us, no reef, no reference (other than the jellies), and great Monterey Bay, CA viz.
20ft of lateral murky viz, so you could see all the hundreds of jellies coming right at you!
Every fin kick, every bubble, every spazzy movement of a diver would spin 10 or so jellies onto a new collision course.
It was about 10mins into the dive when my buddy palmed a jelly away, into my face.
And that was my dual dive moment of first jelly sting and first "oh god we have 40 more minutes of this, I-am-going-to-DIE!!!!". :crazyeye:
I was flipping through my log book just now.
Let me preface this with a question:
A) How many dives did it take you before you finally didn't have that "oh god" moment during the initial descent?
And what finally caused you to get over it?
Or in the case of you water babies out there:
B) At what dive did you finally have your first "oh god" moment?
And what caused it?
For me it was Dive 31 before my first "oh god" moment; I was 8 months into my dive career. Here we were, snapped into a trapeze for some Blue Water Scientific Dive training. Visibility was about 6inches.....between each Chrysaora fuscescens - Sea Nettle jellyfish. We were boat diving close to Sand City's Embassy Suite's Hotel in Monterey Bay, California.
Blue Water Sci Diving
Pacific Sea Nettle
The 8 of us were all at 40ft dangling off 5ft lines trailing to one point; attached to a trapeze, attached to a boat. Basically floating targets in a Chrysaora shooting gallery with some fun swell added into the mix.
Bottom was 80ft below us, no reef, no reference (other than the jellies), and great Monterey Bay, CA viz.
20ft of lateral murky viz, so you could see all the hundreds of jellies coming right at you!
Every fin kick, every bubble, every spazzy movement of a diver would spin 10 or so jellies onto a new collision course.
It was about 10mins into the dive when my buddy palmed a jelly away, into my face.
And that was my dual dive moment of first jelly sting and first "oh god we have 40 more minutes of this, I-am-going-to-DIE!!!!". :crazyeye: