I've had a few interesting dives lately, partly for going after it and partly for getting connected to the right people.
Last weekend I had the pleasure of diving with a member of our dive club who I hadn't dived with since the day he became a rescue diver. He has been involved in the local DIR scene for the last few years and I can say (after the fact) that he has learned a lot. Unbeknown to rest of the club he's secretly become a very competent buddy and he's learned to flirt around in the grey zone between recreational and technical diving without losing track of his safety. His challenge is making the next step and for me it was refreshing to dive with a "playful" buddy. On one of our dives we were swimming underneath a suspended platform. I lost sight of him for moment and turned around to see him upside down stuck on the bottom of the platform doing a hysterical "dancing on the ceiling" act. On the two dives after that we made a highly precise dive profile (minute for minute, metre for metre) which culminated in me getting "kissed" by an enormous carp (he wanted to suck on my regulator) and after that we made a small deco dive at 38 metres (his deepest ever -- his DIR masters are going to spank him for that). For me it was re-energizing to dive with him and he was breaking new ground. We both came away from that wanting more.
Yesterday's dive was also very interesting. My buddy and I went to a very infrequently dived spot. The only information I had about it was that it was about 15 metres deep and unpopular. I had also heard that the currents here can be so strong that you can dive from this spot to the next spot up (about 1.5km away) during the ebb. We decided to dive it in the full current to see if such a drift dive were possible, both in terms of the strength of the current as the visibility (always an issue here). We knew we were in for an adventure but we were up to it. We entered along side the break-water and swam the 200m out to the tip of the dam on the leeward side. We had planned on doing this underwater but once I realized that I couldn't see my knees we changed the plan and descended near the top of the dam. After descending (the bottom at the tip of the dam was 3.2 metres deep) we swam into the current (direction due south) for about 1/2 hour. We exceeded the 15 meters quoted in the dive-guide I have and ended up at 18 metres in an oyster bed. The general area we were diving was probably about 25 metres deep. We pushed on until 40 minutes and decided to turn around. We started drifting back and were pushing to the north when my gauges started show deeper depths. 18, 18.2, 18.5, 18.8, 19.2..... something wasn't right. We stopped and discussed it for a minute (nice to have a wetnotes) and decided to continue pushing to the east, having the impression that the tide had probably turned. Upon going to the east the depths started to reduce again. At about 65 minutes we were still at 17.5 metres and running out of NDL (we were set up for puddlestomping). I stopped my buddy and we ascended to 5 metres. Shipping traffic in this area is possible but we couldn't hear any boats. Once at five metres we continued on to the east in much milder conditions until we re-established contact with the bottom (about 75 minutes at this point). Once the bottom came up so did the current and it was really ripping. My buddy was crawling his way across the bottom and I was pushing my knife into the bottom and pulling my way back to the 3 metre zone. We understood from each other that surfacing too early would mean getting to shore a kilometre or more further away from the car. At 80 minutes my buddy was nearly out of air so he went on my long-hose (nice thing to have in these situations) and we continued on for a while longer. At about 85 minutes I was tired and I thought we were close so I thumbed the dive. Upon surfacing we saw that we were just left of the break-water on what was now the leeward side. We swam the short distance back to the dam and made our exit. In terms of current we discovered that (a) the current is very strong and (b) we can drift in it without losing track of each other. Next spring tide we intend to drift from this location to a spot about 3km further up where we're sure about identification of the exit point. He thinks it will take about an hour, i think it will take two hours at an average depth of 8 metres.
Recently (whatever that is) I've been challenging myself by making more complex technical nitrox dives (don't do this unless you have the training) but it's somehow very refreshing to see room to make complex and interesting dives within recreational boundaries. I guess the point of this post is to point out that there are lots of interesting dives that don't require you to go "longer or deeper" (something that internet forums seem to suggest as the baseline to define "challenging"). There is ample room to push boundaries with the recreational limits.
R..
Last weekend I had the pleasure of diving with a member of our dive club who I hadn't dived with since the day he became a rescue diver. He has been involved in the local DIR scene for the last few years and I can say (after the fact) that he has learned a lot. Unbeknown to rest of the club he's secretly become a very competent buddy and he's learned to flirt around in the grey zone between recreational and technical diving without losing track of his safety. His challenge is making the next step and for me it was refreshing to dive with a "playful" buddy. On one of our dives we were swimming underneath a suspended platform. I lost sight of him for moment and turned around to see him upside down stuck on the bottom of the platform doing a hysterical "dancing on the ceiling" act. On the two dives after that we made a highly precise dive profile (minute for minute, metre for metre) which culminated in me getting "kissed" by an enormous carp (he wanted to suck on my regulator) and after that we made a small deco dive at 38 metres (his deepest ever -- his DIR masters are going to spank him for that). For me it was re-energizing to dive with him and he was breaking new ground. We both came away from that wanting more.
Yesterday's dive was also very interesting. My buddy and I went to a very infrequently dived spot. The only information I had about it was that it was about 15 metres deep and unpopular. I had also heard that the currents here can be so strong that you can dive from this spot to the next spot up (about 1.5km away) during the ebb. We decided to dive it in the full current to see if such a drift dive were possible, both in terms of the strength of the current as the visibility (always an issue here). We knew we were in for an adventure but we were up to it. We entered along side the break-water and swam the 200m out to the tip of the dam on the leeward side. We had planned on doing this underwater but once I realized that I couldn't see my knees we changed the plan and descended near the top of the dam. After descending (the bottom at the tip of the dam was 3.2 metres deep) we swam into the current (direction due south) for about 1/2 hour. We exceeded the 15 meters quoted in the dive-guide I have and ended up at 18 metres in an oyster bed. The general area we were diving was probably about 25 metres deep. We pushed on until 40 minutes and decided to turn around. We started drifting back and were pushing to the north when my gauges started show deeper depths. 18, 18.2, 18.5, 18.8, 19.2..... something wasn't right. We stopped and discussed it for a minute (nice to have a wetnotes) and decided to continue pushing to the east, having the impression that the tide had probably turned. Upon going to the east the depths started to reduce again. At about 65 minutes we were still at 17.5 metres and running out of NDL (we were set up for puddlestomping). I stopped my buddy and we ascended to 5 metres. Shipping traffic in this area is possible but we couldn't hear any boats. Once at five metres we continued on to the east in much milder conditions until we re-established contact with the bottom (about 75 minutes at this point). Once the bottom came up so did the current and it was really ripping. My buddy was crawling his way across the bottom and I was pushing my knife into the bottom and pulling my way back to the 3 metre zone. We understood from each other that surfacing too early would mean getting to shore a kilometre or more further away from the car. At 80 minutes my buddy was nearly out of air so he went on my long-hose (nice thing to have in these situations) and we continued on for a while longer. At about 85 minutes I was tired and I thought we were close so I thumbed the dive. Upon surfacing we saw that we were just left of the break-water on what was now the leeward side. We swam the short distance back to the dam and made our exit. In terms of current we discovered that (a) the current is very strong and (b) we can drift in it without losing track of each other. Next spring tide we intend to drift from this location to a spot about 3km further up where we're sure about identification of the exit point. He thinks it will take about an hour, i think it will take two hours at an average depth of 8 metres.
Recently (whatever that is) I've been challenging myself by making more complex technical nitrox dives (don't do this unless you have the training) but it's somehow very refreshing to see room to make complex and interesting dives within recreational boundaries. I guess the point of this post is to point out that there are lots of interesting dives that don't require you to go "longer or deeper" (something that internet forums seem to suggest as the baseline to define "challenging"). There is ample room to push boundaries with the recreational limits.
R..
