nolatom
Contributor
Okay, this was not a dive that I (a weekend-type rec. diver) planned to make, but genius me managed to lose his prescription glasses overboard at the end of a sail, in the marina slip. So I knew where they were. A few dips in my shorts with swim goggles yielded nothing except swirls of mud, and me out of breath after feeling around for about 10 seconds.
So the next day I went out with scuba gear. Sort of, since what I had handy was a 30 cf pony at home. I put it on my jacket BC and tried to figure out the weighting with no wetsuit but need to stay on the bottom for the search, so what would be "slightly overweighted". A friend tipped me off about dropping a weighted line in where I thought the glasses would be, as a reference point. My wife came along as my (nondiving) dive-tender, with a folding chair and umbrella against the midday sun.
Vis was about 2 feet on the surface and zero at depth. Once I started pawing the fluffy silt, it was "less than zero". Though only 8 feet down, it felt like more, and the weighted line was crucial in keeping me oriented, it was amazingly easy to get off-line and out of position without knowing which way to go to correct it. I could not read my compass, even up next to my mask. Flashlight was absolutely useless. Finally, after two or three brief surfacing/reorienting breaks, and repositioning the line a little farther forward, success!! There they were, just as I was losing hope.
Total "run time", ha ha, was 16 minutes, max depth 8 feet.
What I learned:
I suck at freediving.
Ponies work as primary tank but (duh) psi goes down faster (3300 in, 1600 out).
That weighted line as a reference point is vital.
Be a little heavy to work on the bottom--7 pounds was perfect, neutral would've been about 4 I guess.
Zero vis is zero vis. You will get lost even when you are where you're supposed to be. You (meaning me) have to surface to read gauges. The water is light brown, brown, or black depending on whether you're under a boat or pier, even at midday.
There's lots of nondescript junk in a marina, don't snag on it. Use it as a datum point if convenient.
I have a lot of respect for those who dive muck, and for commercial divers who have to work around all this mucky silt and various obstructions. I do not plan to do it as a recreational dive though. Nor do i want to clean boat bottoms in-water for profit.
Put one of those keeper strings on your expensive glasses, you dummy.
And this "scuba diving" is still cool, even in crappy conditions. This dive way more than paid for itself.
So can I log a 16-minute, 8-foot dive?? Ha ha.
So the next day I went out with scuba gear. Sort of, since what I had handy was a 30 cf pony at home. I put it on my jacket BC and tried to figure out the weighting with no wetsuit but need to stay on the bottom for the search, so what would be "slightly overweighted". A friend tipped me off about dropping a weighted line in where I thought the glasses would be, as a reference point. My wife came along as my (nondiving) dive-tender, with a folding chair and umbrella against the midday sun.
Vis was about 2 feet on the surface and zero at depth. Once I started pawing the fluffy silt, it was "less than zero". Though only 8 feet down, it felt like more, and the weighted line was crucial in keeping me oriented, it was amazingly easy to get off-line and out of position without knowing which way to go to correct it. I could not read my compass, even up next to my mask. Flashlight was absolutely useless. Finally, after two or three brief surfacing/reorienting breaks, and repositioning the line a little farther forward, success!! There they were, just as I was losing hope.
Total "run time", ha ha, was 16 minutes, max depth 8 feet.
What I learned:
I suck at freediving.
Ponies work as primary tank but (duh) psi goes down faster (3300 in, 1600 out).
That weighted line as a reference point is vital.
Be a little heavy to work on the bottom--7 pounds was perfect, neutral would've been about 4 I guess.
Zero vis is zero vis. You will get lost even when you are where you're supposed to be. You (meaning me) have to surface to read gauges. The water is light brown, brown, or black depending on whether you're under a boat or pier, even at midday.
There's lots of nondescript junk in a marina, don't snag on it. Use it as a datum point if convenient.
I have a lot of respect for those who dive muck, and for commercial divers who have to work around all this mucky silt and various obstructions. I do not plan to do it as a recreational dive though. Nor do i want to clean boat bottoms in-water for profit.
Put one of those keeper strings on your expensive glasses, you dummy.
And this "scuba diving" is still cool, even in crappy conditions. This dive way more than paid for itself.
So can I log a 16-minute, 8-foot dive?? Ha ha.
