2017 Dive Stats and Highlights

[MaxBottomtime]

I'm in Arizona right now so I don't have my logbook, but through all the bad conditions and helping Merry recover from surgery for the first half of the year I still got in 101 dives including our annual British Columbia trip. These are my highlights of 2017;

 

[drrich2]

I'd love to rack up big numbers but I don't get to do that; historically I've been blessed to wrangle about 4 weeks off/year, a week at a time, spend one taking my wife & daughter on a cruise (wife loves cruises & I figure they enrich our 4-year old), one visiting my out-of-state parents, one a solo dive trip & one a 'scuba trip disguised as a family vacation' (wife's terminology).

For 2017, I was blessed with 15 dives in St. Croix (enjoyed it; the 'mission' was to explore not just St. Croix but the feasibility of spending 8 days on a Caribbean island, exploring it as a family and partaking of diving various places), 1 dive at Blue Heron Bridge in Florida (a bucket list thing, a bit confusing to execute as a first-timer but interesting and fun - plus the 1st time I've pulled a dive float) and 7 dives with Emerald Charter out of Jupiter, FL on a mission to dive with tiger sharks (which I did, as well as lemon, bull, silky and nurse sharks, & finally saw a loggerhead sea turtle on a dive!).

So, 23 dives for 2017. Didn't do any quarry dives last year. But in terms of broadening my experience, tiger sharks count for something, and so do Blue Heron Bridge and Frederiksted Pier. I hope to enjoy more dives in 2018, but I've no plans to do anything as adventurous as 2017.

Richard.

 

[Daved222269]

It looks like a lot of you had great a great year of diving! I was certified in April 2016 so 2017 was my first full year of diving. I am fortunate enough that my wife started diving too so we both had the bug, big time.

I think I had a great year. I am very blessed.

124 total dives
18- Cozumel
2- key largo (blown out rest of trip)
3- niagara river drift dives
8- great lakes wreck dives
25- Palau liveaboard
68- quarry

Completed wreck, deep, react right-rescue, master diver.

Started side mount diving

 

[Newdiv]

I gave it a strong effort, but a few of you had a lot more. I clocked in at 94

19 Cayman Brac
18 Cozumel
18 Maldives (Explorer Carpe Novo)
18 Florida (Key Largo)
21 Red Sea (Red Sea Aggressor)

 

[WinfieldNC]

I like this thread. It’s interesting to see the kinds of dives and numbers of other posters.

48 total dives for me in 2017 and I pushed hard to fit in that many. That’s about the most my budget and time would allow for. I think I could have squeezed in a few more if the NC seas would have cooperated but this year was extremely rough. It got to the point where I just booked whatever charter was available every weekend even if it was a site I didn’t have on my wish list, just hoping to get out to something.

Florida
8 Blue Heron Bridge
2 Riviera Beach charter
12 Key Largo and Tavernier

North Carolina
11 quaries
13 charters off the coast

South Carolina
2 charters

I did get to see my first seahorse and my first mantis shrimp, both at BHB. I also made it to the Normania for the first time, a wreck out of Wilmington, NC that I had to schedule 3 times before the conditions would let us get out. My girlfriend was able to join me on 36 of these which was great. (She also had a first for herself, a year without puking . That includes a couple of sites 38 miles offshore. I think she’s getting her sealegs.)

I was also actually was on a dive with @Dan_T , but I didn't realize it until after the fact. That would be the only new scubaboard poster that I dove with.

All in all, it was a great year. Hopefully 2018 will be just as good or better.

Win

 

[Dan]

I like this thread. It’s interesting to see the kinds of dives and numbers of other posters.

48 total dives for me in 2017 and I pushed hard to fit in that many. That’s about the most my budget and time would allow for. I think I could have squeezed in a few more if the NC seas would have cooperated but this year was extremely rough. It got to the point where I just booked whatever charter was available every weekend even if it was a site I didn’t have on my wish list, just hoping to get out to something.

Florida
8 Blue Heron Bridge
2 Riviera Beach charter
12 Key Largo and Tavernier

North Carolina
11 quaries
13 charters off the coast

South Carolina
2 charters

I did get to see my first seahorse and my first mantis shrimp, both at BHB. I also made it to the Normania for the first time, a wreck out of Wilmington, NC that I had to schedule 3 times before the conditions would let us get out. My girlfriend was able to join me on 36 of these which was great. (She also had a first for herself, a year without puking . That includes a couple of sites 38 miles offshore. I think she’s getting her sealegs.)

I was also actually was on a dive with @Dan_T , but I didn't realize it until after the fact. That would be the only new scubaboard poster that I dove with.

All in all, it was a great year. Hopefully 2018 will be just as good or better.

Win

I remember you kept the sand tiger shark from getting out of the wreck and gave me a few more seconds to video it. Thanks!

 

[Chavodel8en]

Geez, some of you all dive a lot, you should grow gills, it would be more convenient [green with jealousy].

15 dives total in 2017, all shore dives into the cool waters of Carmel or Monterey, CA- just missed listing a trip to the Maya Riviera in Dec. 2016, which had some nice highlights. And this year is the most dives Ive had since 2004 & 2005 when I was fairly new and still totally geeked on diving.

Most of these 2017 highlights will be fairly common for Monterey/Carmel divers (except maybe the first one), but here goes:
- Chasing humpbacks at Monastery Beach, surfacing within ~100 yards of 2 humpbacks who also popped up to the surface, detailed here Humpback Convention at Monastery today I also believe we reached Mono Lobo Wall on one of these dives
- sightings of my first wolf eel & leopard shark, both at Pt. Lobos
- first dives at Butterfly House - lots of work hauling gear down the goat path, but worth it for diving what someone described as "Yosemite underwater" - lots of boulders and valleys throughout
- generally getting more familiar with Pt. Lobos further afield, as far as Beto's Reef (where I saw the leopard shark)
- dropping 2 lbs of lead
- first successful cold water launching of a DSMB. After several failed attempts in 2016, including one keystone kops entanglement. Now it seems like old hat

I am feening for some warm water, Im hoping to get to Colombia (I know not scuba-central, but ive got in-laws there) later this year.

 

[birdman27]

My best year yet, but nothing extraordinary. The wife and I are now really just starting to get into it. We already have two trips planned this year and I would like to dive more of the local area as well.

34 total dives
17 in Fiji
15 in La Paz
2 in Lake Sonoma

The highlights for me were getting much more comfortable in the water and with my diving in general. Fiji was amazing, but I feel like I might have appreciated it more if I had a little more experience before I went. By the time La Paz rolled around I was feeling good and had a blast exploring and finding creatures I would have missed before. Octopus might be my new favorite thing to find. So neat.

I also had a couple of abalone diving sessions thrown in (I am going to miss that...)

 

[Marie13]

Geez, some of you all dive a lot, you should grow gills, it would be more convenient [green with jealousy].

I'm a Pisces. I just tell people I'm channeling my inner fish!

 

[Streydog]

57 dives in 2017
Highlights- Hit 100 dives last January, became an "advanced diver" in September. Getting more comfortable with each dive and having more fun.
38 dives in Cozumel
19 dives in Roatan.