Blue Water versus Fresh Water Diving

[trob09]

Hm, that does sound like an interesting dive....

If you don't look for it, you won't find it.

 

[Soggy]

Frankly, I was too miserable in Lake Travis to be able to concentrate on things like buoyancy!

That's part of your problem. Why were you miserable? Were you nervous, cold, uncomfortable?

Emergency skills...the most challenging blue water dives I have dealt with featured current and surge. Neither of these things are present in lake diving.

Emergency skills include air sharing, ascents, air-sharing ascents, shooting lift bags, valve drills, no-mask drills, etc, etc. If you can't do those near perfectly in a controlled environment, you aren't going to be able to do them well in more challenging ocean conditions.

Mudpuddle dives are what you make of them. It sounds like you didn't use the time to be productive.

 

[AevnsGrandpa]

All I have around me is quarries and low vis, and cold. Hey when I have 10-20' vis I'm thrilled.

First time I went to dive in Florida it was like I'm in heaven.

Did I think my learning and dives in quarries and such valuable, certainly! To me if all you do is warm, clear water diving, you've missed out on experiences you might need sometime.

2 cents worth,

Jeff

 

[DBailey]

So in Lake Travis, you sat there doing nothing because you were misearble? Personally, if I was ever that misearble, I would have thumbed the dive. If you are no enjoying it, then why do it?

Personally, I have been on dives that the visibility was so bad when we got to the site, we decided to just work on skills. Granted, it wasn't one of my most favorite dives, but we adapted to the poor conditions and made the dives productive. We essentially did all of the open water skills while hovering at 40 feet. It was a blast. After that we worked on resuce skills (both are rescue certified).

Not every dive is going to be ideal. Adapt and overcome the situation.

 

[bcsean]

cold, low vis, dark... Hey, that's just like the ocean out here. I still do the occasional lake dive around here. A change of scenery, and I go below where cliff jumpers go in the summer, find stuff at the bottom.

Also, it's a great way to rinse my gear thoroughly.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Not to mention some of the freshwater springs in FL... Clearer than quite a bit of our coastline alot of the times.

 

[Jester]

Don't forget......Any diving is better than NO diving!

 

[jbd]

Frankly, I was too miserable in Lake Travis to be able to concentrate on things like buoyancy!

If you have to concentrate on buoyancy control---you haven't mastered it yet.

 

[TwoBitTxn]

The more you dive the more comfortable you become in the water. If you were miserable in Travis you had the opportunity to learn that you were probably underprotected for the conditions. You can apply this directly to blue water diving.

I would suggest an attitude check, and I wonder if you asked a question that you are not willing to listen to the answers that are given.

If you hate Travis that much and only enjoy blue water diving, and you have already made up your mind, then stop diving Travis, save your money, and go blue water diving only.

TwoBit

 

[Don Burke]

I didn't find the experience of a dozen lake dives helped my buoyancy control one bit.

Frankly, I was too miserable in Lake Travis to be able to concentrate on things like buoyancy!

Does this mean you were too cold to learn on a dive and then repeated the same dive eleven times?

Hmmmmmmm I have to wonder about this. One cold dive triggers my "fix-it" reflex.