A good dive?

[AfterDark]

Here in RI a good dive is when the wind is under 4 knots out of the north. No swells, 1 hour before high tide on a bright sunny day or a clear moonless night. The vis is 20', nobody is around all your gear works flawlessly, you don't need the emergency gear. The dive ends just before the ebb does all your gear is still attached and there's cold beer in the cooler.

 

[InTheDrink]

I've had two "bad dives" (maybe one. not sure).

The first one was when I was new and had temporarily disabled the "well this is ********** stupid" alert in my head because I was with with an instructor (even worse, he stayed on the boat and didn't actually get in the water).

Suffice it to say that an instructor is not sufficient reason to tell the voice in your head to shut up.

That's pretty cryptic. No clues to the actual event/incident?

The second one was when my buddy and I went diving on a beautiful, calm afternoon and while hanging out at the safety stop, I looked up ad thought "What are all those flashing lights on shore?"

There were no lights. It was lightning and it was just going nuts. There was so much lightning you could actually see with it.

It scared the hell out of me, but I'm not sure if it qualifies as a "bad dive".

A "good dive" is everything else.

Terry

That sounds like an AWESOME dive! (albeit scary)

 

[InTheDrink]

A good dive for me involves getting wet, and even the pool will make my grade doing drills/skills. If I'm learning I'm happy.

There are mediocre dives of course, the ones where you feel like you're learning nothing nor having much fun. But of course these dives can be changed into good dives with a little presence of mind (see above)

I've yet to have a bad dive. For me a bad dive would involve an accident and I'll die happy if I never get to know one.

J

 

[ligersandtions]

A good dive includes good buddies. Even if the conditions aren't the greatest, if we can communicate well, stay together, and laugh at how crappy things are, it's a good dive.

A dive with all the neatest critters and life in all the world is still a sucky dive if your buddy is a PITA....buddies who don't communicate well, don't share the same dive plan (e.g. they want to zoom around or be "same ocean buddies" or ignore the depth and run time), or are generally not fun people to dive with. That kind of a buddy can ruin even the nicest dive for me.

However, even the most boring site can be a ton of fun if you have a great buddy to share it with.

Obviously this isn't the same for every person....but for me, having the right friends to dive with makes a world of difference. The fact that they're all similarly trained and have the same mind-set makes it even better.

 

[InTheDrink]

A good dive includes good buddies. Even if the conditions aren't the greatest, if we can communicate well, stay together, and laugh at how crappy things are, it's a good dive.

A dive with all the neatest critters and life in all the world is still a sucky dive if your buddy is a PITA....buddies who don't communicate well, don't share the same dive plan (e.g. they want to zoom around or be "same ocean buddies" or ignore the depth and run time), or are generally not fun people to dive with. That kind of a buddy can ruin even the nicest dive for me.

However, even the most boring site can be a ton of fun if you have a great buddy to share it with.

Obviously this isn't the same for every person....but for me, having the right friends to dive with makes a world of difference. The fact that they're all similarly trained and have the same mind-set makes it even better.

I'll be damned if your sig isn't asking for trouble. I'm betting DIR people can be PITA buddies too. I'd put money on it. Maybe less chance, but any people *that* anal are going to get on your **** at some point

J

 

[ligersandtions]

I'll be damned if your sig isn't asking for trouble. I'm betting DIR people can be PITA buddies too. I'd put money on it. Maybe less chance, but any people *that* anal are going to get on your **** at some point

J

I've met DIR people who are PITA's....I don't dive with them. I've met DIR people who are absolutely fantastic people (both topside and underwater)....I do dive with them and love every moment of it. There are non-DIR people who are absouletly fantastic people (both topside and underwater)....I do dive with them and love every moment of it.

DIR or not....doesn't make a huge difference to me. A diver who's a PITA means a world of difference....means I won't be diving with that person!

 

[Web Monkey]

That's pretty cryptic. No clues to the actual event/incident?

It's a long story, which I didn't want to rehash (it's on SB somewhere, but I'm not sure where), but it happened shortly after I had been certified

In any case, one of my instructors sent me and my buddy down without changing tanks, and told us to run lines in opposite directions, then navigate back to the starting point and surface together.

This sounded really dumb because I'd never split up with my buddy before and knew I wasn't supposed to, but figured "he's an instructor", so I did it anyway.

About a minute after I tied off my 350' OMS reel, and we split up, I had managed to get pretty much completely tangled in my line, and had half a tank of gas, no buddy and no cutting tools and the other end of my line was tied off on the bottom.

I started sucking gas like a hoover and was trying to figure out how to get untangled enough to ditch my stuff and surface before I ran out of gas.

Just then my buddy came back and untangled me. He thought it was ******* stupid also, and had come back for me.

That was the most valuable dive I was ever on. It got me to realize:

• If something is stupid, it's still stupid even if an instructor tells you 'it's OK'
• Never leave your buddy for any reason, no matter what
• Always carry cutting tools even if you've been to the site a bunch of times and think it's "safe"

Sorry to drift OT, but you asked.

Terry

 

[sabbath999]

Such as yesterday when myself and two others were kind of volunteered to buddy up with two new divers(one was on very first dive out of class and other could not remember how to assemble his gear). We couldn't let them buddy up alone. Sparing the details THEY had a good dive.

OK, let me tell you all the rest of the story. Myself and Biologic (my wife) were the two other divers.

We were not just at a site diving, we were at a treasure hunt with a $55 entry fee.

What gbray isn't telling you is that while the whistle was blowing for all the other divers to go a'hunting, he was calmly and patiently helping the diver who didn't know how to assemble his gear put together his equipment and then he was safety checking them. One fellow had just bought a reg set, didn't have any gauges to use or even an inflator hose for his BCD... gbray got out his spare parts and put together a rig the man could dive, no questions asked... he just took care of it. He checked out the equipment of both divers with a smile, calm and cool as you please.

gbray was originally going to take both of these guys out with him and do a quick drop down to the training platform and check them out to make sure they were safe enough to dive... my wife and I quickly swam over to a sunken car about 75 feet away, dropped down and cleaned it out of tokens that I was sure was going to be there, and swam back over to gbray, planning to help them all find their tokens as a group of divers (with the thought of keeping an eye on the noobs).

Turns out one of the fellows just couldn't get down, so we adopted him ourselves and waved bye bye to gbray and the other brand new diver so they could go off on their hunt.

Well, after about 35 minutes of adjustments (and adding 18 more pounds of lead...) we finally got it to where our new diver was able to get down... fortunately, we started our dive with a quick find of a token for him, and we were able to get in some bottom time and show him a few of the things in the quarry. gbray and his noob partner were also able to both have tokens (I am betting that gbray found both) and so we all ended up with a chance at the prizes.

He's probably going to give me a dirty look for posting this next time he sees me, but I was just really impressed by how far out of his way he went to make sure that others there had good dives.

He's known for being a really solid helpful diver for the noobs, and some of the "powers that be" asked him to take both of these guys out... not realizing, I am sure, that the second diver was extremely inexperienced as well.

Noobs need somebody to dive with as mentors, just like we did when we were noobs... both of these new divers were good, solid guys... they realized they were not "having a great start" that day but they were listening to what we were saying, they were keeping their heads when they had problems and they had excellent attitudes. You can tell how a person is going to be in their diving career by watching their eyes when they are having problems, and both of these guys were keeping calm and not letting things escalate out of control. I think both of them will be just fine with a bit more experience.

 

[ScubaSloan]

I would say getting wet, everyone returns safely and everyone ACTED safely. In the same vein as what gbray said, we may both return safely, but if I spend the entire dive worrying that an instabuddy is going to turn into a sand to surface missle, wander off, randomly penetrate a wreck when it is not in the dive plan etc that toes the line of a bad dive. Perhaps bad is the wrong term. Inconsiderate?

Edit: After reading sabbath's explanation it sounds like these guys had good intentions, not the guys/gals I am talking about.

 

[Deefstes]

For me a good dive is when I come back with everybody I set out with and I didn't pee in my suit

For me a dive is good when I come back with everybody I set out with and I did pee in my suit