Diving tomorrow, need some help

jsquaredFL · Mar 20, 2008

Hey everyone,
My wife and I are going to hopefully be going out diving tomorrow in pompano. It's her first open water dives (about 12 in springs though) and I was hoping to find out two things.

1-where to get some surf reports so I can find out what the wave heights are like out where we will be diving.

2- an opinion of how much is too much when it comes to wave height. When I started diving I was younger and stupider and just followed whatever the captain said. He said dive, I dove (stupid, i know). Anyways, I got this quick report from wunderground.com but it is brief and not too good in terms of reliability i think. their website forecasts change too often for my tastes.

Tonight
Northeast winds 15 to 20 knots. Near shore...seas 4 to 6 feet. In the Gulf Stream...seas 4 to 6 feet building to 6 to 8 feet after midnight. Intracoastal waters choppy in exposed areas. Slight chance of showers in the evening.
Friday
East winds 15 to 20 knots. Seas 5 to 7 feet. Intracoastal waters choppy in exposed areas. Slight chance of showers through the day.
Friday Night
East winds 15 to 20 knots becoming 10 to 15 knots after midnight. Seas 3 to 5 feet. Intracoastal waters choppy in exposed areas. Chance of showers.
Saturday
Southeast winds 5 to 10 knots becoming south 10 to 15 knots in the afternoon. Seas 2 feet or less. Intracoastal waters a light chop. Chance of showers.
Saturday Night
Southwest winds 5 to 10 knots. Seas 2 feet or less. Intracoastal waters a light chop. Slight chance of showers.

Would the seas on Friday be too much for her first open water dives or is that about standard and normal?

Thanks everyone. I'll be on my phone checking here whenever I get the chance over the weekend

OBXDIVEGUY · Mar 20, 2008

Saturday looks like the best bet. The last thing you want to do is make it an uncomfortable experience her first time out. With the blows we've had all week, I'd expect the viz to be a little messed up and it'll take a few days to settle back down.

Scubaguy62 · Mar 20, 2008

This is the National Weather Service forecast site for South Florida.

National Weather Service Marine Forecast

jsquaredFL · Mar 20, 2008

OBXDIVEGUY:
Saturday looks like the best bet. The last thing you want to do is make it an uncomfortable experience her first time out. With the blows we've had all week, I'd expect the viz to be a little messed up and it'll take a few days to settle back down.

Yeah, thats what I was thinking. When I called I was told Sunday would be like glass out there, but we'll see. I really want to get in a night dive, but now with the vis being horrible if it is that bad.

Scubaguy62:
This is the National Weather Service forecast site for South Florida.

National Weather Service Marine Forecast

Thank you, that link will be very helpful.

deepstops · Mar 20, 2008

Here's a webcam of the beach just a few miles north in Boca Raton.
It gives the wind speed and direction as well. Words to live by here: west is best (if the wind is coming from the SW, W, or NW, it's diveable)

Boca Raton South Beach Park

Jupiter31 · Mar 20, 2008

The problem is the forecasters have never been able to come up with a real accurate "near shore" forecast; where most diving takes place - I've seen the forecast call for 4 - 6 and its been closer to 2 - 3 where we were diving

That said, its been really blowing all week - agree with the comment on viz likely being messed up - also agree that Saturday looks like your best day

jsquaredFL · Mar 25, 2008

Thanks everyone for the help. As predicted by everyone here, the Friday dives were scrubbed, boat didn't even leave the dock. Saturday the first dive went well, vis was about 50' or so, so nothing terrible, the current was incredibly strong though. Then it started raining like crazy (typical Florida rain drops of about 1/2 gallon of water per drop) weren't even more than a mile off shore and we couldn't even make out the horizon at all. So that was it for Saturday, and then Sunday we had to head back home so we wanted to go in the morning, but it was still raining. So in the end, we were in the pompano/ft. lauderdale area for 4 days and got in one dive..............ouch.

Hopefully we can go back in two weekends and try it again

thanks again everyone for your help.

Tom Winters · Mar 25, 2008

jsquaredFL:
...When I started diving I was younger and stupider and just followed whatever the captain said. He said dive, I dove (stupid, i know).

Ah, whoa here pardner. Whenever I put divers inthe water with, "Dive, dive, dive...", anyone who was still in the boat listening to the "-ve" in the third dive while still passing gas with their with their gear in the boat invariably missed the drop and had a lousy dive.
Choose your captains carefully, and trust their drop calls. You will have had all the timely warnings necessary to gear up and even get that snorkel in your mouth.
When the good captains I listen to these days tell me, "Dive, dive...", I have no idea what they are saying after that.
Conversely, I hear "Down!" and I don't answer with, "Why?"
Learn whom you can trust and listen to 'em.
Good luck with the diving.

jsquaredFL · Mar 25, 2008

Tom Winters:
Ah, whoa here pardner. Whenever I put divers inthe water with, "Dive, dive, dive...", anyone who was still in the boat listening to the "-ve" in the third dive while still passing gas with their with their gear in the boat invariably missed the drop and had a lousy dive.
Choose your captains carefully, and trust their drop calls. You will have had all the timely warnings necessary to gear up and even get that snorkel in your mouth.
When the good captains I listen to these days tell me, "Dive, dive...", I have no idea what they are saying after that.
Conversely, I hear "Down!" and I don't answer with, "Why?"
Learn whom you can trust and listen to 'em.
Good luck with the diving.

I'm definitely relearning which captains to trust, sometimes its hard with so many operators to choose from, you may be missing out on the great ones and not even know. Back then if I was on the boat with my gear on standing over the water, I was going the second the captain says the first dive.

I should have phrased it better, but I dove when weather may have been moving in but the captain said we should go anyways, despite my better thoughts about the encroaching storms. I later learned that sometimes the captain doesn't get paid if the trip doesn't go, I was just too young to care. Besides, I was immortal, why did it bother me

Got lucky a few times, almost lost a friend one of the less lucky times.

Diving tomorrow, need some help

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