How low of a visibility can you stand?

[mtg]

I'm curious to see what other divers think about bad visibility. Two questions:
1) At what visibility level do you no longer enjoy the dive?
2) At what visibility level do you start to feel claustrophobic?

If I have 10 feet or better I can enjoy the dive, and if the visibility is less than about 2' I start to feel uncomfortable, especially at deeper depths.

I think all dives are good, some are just better .

Worst visibility - went down the anchor line to the wreck, reached the point where the line turned to chain and thought 'what the f@$*!". Was the first one down, so I stopped to let my buddy know that the end of the line was '?'. During the course of this attempted communication I suddenly realized the wreck itself was about a foot in front of me, and then realized we were between the two stacks! Disquieting, yes, but more from it just being unexpected. After that we re-oriented ourselves and crept around as close to the wreck as possible. There was abit of a current as well. An instructor doing OW cert actually lost his student it was so bad, but all went as it should - surface and check

On the surface we all griped about the vis and then cheerfully jumped back in for another dive (during which we lost one diver of the pair my buddy and I went down with). So had to look around for him and then surface early to check.

So is bad ever really bad? I'm sure there are occasions when the DM should just call the dive, this may have been border line. But I was happy to be out there to challenge my skills, and know that I rose to the occasion.

 

[mtg]

I'm curious to see what other divers think about bad visibility. Two questions:
1) At what visibility level do you no longer enjoy the dive?
2) At what visibility level do you start to feel claustrophobic?

If I have 10 feet or better I can enjoy the dive, and if the visibility is less than about 2' I start to feel uncomfortable, especially at deeper depths.

Just thought of my night certification dive. We actually went into a cavern of sorts and turned off all the lights for a few minutes. I had some trepidation, but it was really cool! Very zen, actually...

I think it is important to rethink your senses when diving. We are already cut off from most of the ones we usually rely on (sound, and to some extent, touch, plus spatial orientation/gravity) that it is natural to focus on the one that remains sharp (vision) and be uncomfortable if that one is compromised. Instead, I think you should really focus on the senses that are not so sharp. Maintain a sense of up and down and feel for changes in current or water temp. But most importantly, don't let unexpected input (or lack thereof) freak you out.

 

[pipedope]

Good vis = I can see something.
Great vis = I can see things before I can touch them.

For fun sport diving I like to have great vis of 4 feet or more as I can scan to find more interesting things to look at.

For many working dives it was better when it was completely black. That way there is no distraction of anything other than the job at hand and my eyes were not trying to focus on nothing giving me a headache.

I didn't have any trouble going up an 18 inch pipe in zero vis water so claustrophobia is not really a problem.