How do you judge VIZ

[dumpsterDiver]

I answered "how far I can see hand signals" but that's really only true in "low viz" situations. In blue water, viz is just how far I can see things, period. If I'm at 70 feet and I can see the boat (and know it's a boat) for example, then viz is 70+ feet. If I'm 20 feet away and I can see my buddy is there but can't see what he's doing specifically, viz is <20 feet.

this is not correct. Looking upward with the sun shining can allow you to see a boat on the surface much further than "the visibility".

Generally visibility is referenced to mean horizontal unless otherwise stated. i estimate visbility as the distance I can reasonably clearly see a diver. In 70 ft visibility, i can sometimes see the sun shining on the surfce from 170 ft depth

 

[fire_diver]

I go by when I just start to make out something in front of me. If I had to go by something like seeing "clearly" or seeing handsigns, I would have to judge most of diving as only a few feet. I can typically start to see that something (such as an airplane or bus) is in front of me around 15-20 feet away.

 

[fdog]

When the dark blob becomes resolvable as a person.


All the best, James

 

[TSandM]

I consider "visibility" to be as far as I can recognize a diver as a diver (which can depend on what gear they're using!). And although I use numbers, they're a little arbitrary. If we can swim a body's length apart and be very clear to each other, and perhaps see some things on either side, I call the viz about 20 feet (which is GOOD). If I feel as though we need to stay closer together, and I don't recognize objects until I'm a few feet away from them, I call it 8 to 10. If it's much worse than that, I call the dive

 

[Garrobo]

Good, fair, bad.

 

[merxlin]

4 categories: Great, where did the boat go, where did my buddy go, and where did my hands go.

 

[tstormdiver]

The quarry I frequently dive in has different objects of different lengths. For instance There is a 20ft long horizontal culvert pipe. If I can see form 1 end of it to the other, then I know vis is at least 20ft. Same as with the 65' yacht & other things.

 

[Sas]

Me and my buddy have done experiments where we have a reel marked off and one of us reels it out until we reach the edge of the viz and see how it matches with our guess. Without fail we always underestimate the visibility. Night is very difficult in particular as you can see a lot further than normal with lights (we use lights at night as what to measure by). One night I would have put the visibility at about 20m and our reel ran out at 32m and the lights were still very visible.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Since I dive in dark low visibility conditions most of the time I judge it by how far I can see an object just before it's disapears completely. If I judged vis by when something just starts to diminish then It would only be a few feet.
We have to take what we can get around here.

 

[Kingpatzer]

I just have a few categories:

crystal clear
good
average
poor
braille