Low viz Anxiety

[Lee Taylor]

Chris, I understand perfectly what you are feeling. I am mostly doing blue water these days but for many, many years I dove black water. I will describe what the river diving is like here. Take what you can use.

Here are some suggestions that have helped me personally while diving our local rivers. First off, take MORE THAN ENOUGH light including backups. The brighter the better. Take safety devices. Weight yourself HEAVY (people freak on this one but I don't care) Some areas I dive have a strong current and the weight helps considerably. Go down a line hand over hand if you can. If you must drop through the darkness, have ALL lights turned ON while descending. Hopefully you will land in smooth warm sand. Prepare mentally for landing in a large log jam full of vines, on the edge of a cliff, or on hard pan with a fast current running. Find a place on the bottom as quickly as possible and lay on your stomach. Get a grip on the bottom if the current is running. Use your dive knife or large screw driver or tool you brought for this circumstance. Continue laying on the bottom and GET adjusted. Stay on the bottom, on your stomach, as long as it takes to calm down. When anxious, use the purge button to take a very large lungful of air. Do this as many times as necessary and whenever necessary. The large shot of air into your lungs will have a tremendous calming effect.

If I can see 1-2 feet and hold to the bottom without the current moving me backwards, I continue the dive.

Whenever you feel creepy or anxious do as I described above. Lay on your stomach and use the purge button to take large lungfuls of air.

Where I dive we have to stay away from the edge because of alligators, so we work towards the center and ahead of the boat. Be careful not to back up under anything that could collapse. When the current is running stay off of the hard bottom, or you will get blown away. Stay in the sand and gravel.

When you are finished, listen VERY, VERY carefully for boats. Boats are EXTREMELY dangerous. We had a diver hit and killed a few years ago.

When you bail for the surface, continue listening for boats. Get to the surface as quickly as possible because of the current moving you downstream. Upon surfacing quickly position yourself in front of the boat so the current will move you to it.

Have fun and remember the "massive amounts of light", "laying on stomach on the bottom" and the "purge button" tricks.

ps: always take dive knife with serrated edge for sawing, poly line cutter (usually a notch in dive knife), and metal cutting shears (not expensive)

yours truly

 

[k ellis]

Low visibility diving is believed to be by many one of the best ways to master a great number of dive skills that would be benieficial to blue water diving. While less then 5 feet is generally not enjoyable it does help build your navigation skills as its very crucial here. Its also great for doing things that would result in silt outs too since there is no visibility to speak of anyway LOL.

Ive actually lifted items off the bottom that were buried in much which resulted in 0 inch visibility so yes it can be unnerving there by far. Just hang in there and youll do fine though!

 

[Chris Horn]

Well I really appreciate all of the advice on here so far. I haven't experienced any blue or clear water diving yet. I figured when I finally got to it would be a breeze though. As quickly as I can get a dry suit I would like to dive some of the local springs around here, that should be fun and good visibility. I definitely get to practice a lot of compass heading and following natural terrain (cliff edges and such). Its not going to run me off from diving, I have wanted to do this for way too long and I enjoy it way to much. I have dove our pond twice already just out of boredom and lack of time to go on a "real" dive. Its about 4 acres and about 14 feet at its deepest. It certainly allows me to work on silting and keeping out of weed tangles.

as far as this:
How about Big Snappers? Gave up golf ball diving as a kid, they were all over the golf ponds. Them and leeches, wasn't worth it!

Turtles freak me out, I like the idea of diving for the golf balls, but there just ain't no freaking way I'm doing that. LOL!

 

[k ellis]

LOL I dont blame you. I saw enough pictures of bad things in golf course ponds to run me off. LOL Plus all the chemicals they use out on the green drains into the pond

 

[gzscuba]

Hi Chris,
As others have said, you will quickly develop more confidence in your diving and better skills (particularly kicking without silting up) than divers not dealing with low vis. As an added bonus, you'll probably be more prepared for your first night dive. They're really fun at tropical destinations, but not so much in quarries. Really, diving a tropical destination will seem so comparatively easy, it'll be a true treat.

As for limits, generally, I won't dive if vis is less than about 5 ft - that means that I won't be able to see my buddy without being pretty much on top of them, and that's no fun.