d33ps1x:
I am wondering what you people consider a weak, strong and unmanagable current.
If you could include your location and typical dive type/conditions and perhaps a tale of unmanagable current as well that would be really interesting too.
Some good responses so far, but it goes to the point that all of our knowledge base is best as experiential.
You don't know what you don't know.
Until you've felt yourself on the surface drifting quickly away from the dive boat...
Until you've been holding onto a John Line (running from bow to stern) being mashed against the dive boat and other divers hanging on for dear life...
Until you've been going hand over hand using a "down line"
(connecting your dive boat to a dive site) and you look at your buddies "blowing" horizontal & straight out like a flag...
Until you've gotten over your Caribbean Coral no-touch bias and are hanging on for dear life to a piece of lava rock...
Until you've used a wrap-strap, knife, or a hook...
Until you've felt your second stage LP hose vibrate furiously in your mouth due to the liquid wind...
Until you look up and all of your drift dive buddies have quickly disappeared into the haze of the ocean currents...
Until on your drift dive you pick a different depth than your buddies and you all are uncontrollably split apart as quickly as the Blue Angels doing a Fleur-de-lis....
Until you are literaly tumbling through a chute in the coral and variously sinking and floating due to air bubbles in the water...
Until you understand how dive sites get names like "Elevator", "Heart Attack", "Gone", "Blink", "African Express", "Upside Downside", and "Washing Machine"...
Until you fly through "Gordon Rocks" and can avoid whumping into the Hammerheads and Mobulas while understanding the concept of "vertical currents"...
Until you're struggling for dear life and then you see a sea lion zooming up and down stream- who must be oblivious to all physical trauma that you are experiencing...
Until you have felt a current dragging you under an iceberg...
Until then, you are still collecting life experiences. If you're really lucky, you'll continue doing this for a couple of dives to come. Just got to keep learning.