Bad vis. How bad is too bad?

[DevonDiver]

I agree with String - too subjective.

I think that visibility, as a safety factor, has to be judged relatively to the usual visibility conditions that the diver is trained and experienced diving in.

When I dived in the UK, low viz was common and all of the divers were prepared for those circumstances. Likewise, when I dive wrecks here in Asia, there is typically bad viz...especially if penetrating with students!

However, for open water divers (and training) here in Asia, I don't teach divers the buddy skills needed for sub 1-2m viz. Why not? Because the dive would be considered 'crap'...and I'd advise the divers to abort.

 

[tstormdiver]

For myself, I can tolerate pretty much 0 vis with no problems. When I have students, it is another story. This summer the local quarry we train at only had 5- 10ft vis at best. I would only take a buddy pair out at a time. This meant more work for me swimming back & forth, but then I was able to keep a better eye on my students. I could tell the low vis did stress some of them out not being able to see more than a few ft. By going at a 2:1 ratio, I could help ease the transition of going from a warm crystal clear pool to a much cooler & murky quarry. I basically mad a "diver sandwich" with me in the middle to act as guidance for the divers. I also showed them how to use the guide ropes that go from attraction to attraction Which also helped with their sense of direction. Since I have over 300 dives in that quarry, I know where everything is, so I could still show the students around. The more apprehensive the students were, the closer I kept everyone together, including touch contact, if needed.

 

[Purple Jos]

For me personally, I don’t like diving in less than 5ft.
I have done it, and not enjoyed it.

With my OW class, we had less the 15ft for the swim, but only about 3-5 feet vis for the skills – silty bottom.
It was not pleasant, but manageable.

 

[Bob DBF]

Up on the north coast of CA if you can see your fins its a good day. 0 to 2' I can and will dive but it becomes more a training dive than a pleasure dive, same goes for 2 to 4' but there is room to relax. After that the increasing visibality the dive becomes more enjoyable. Personally I will dive in damn near anything but finding buddies becomes tougher as the viz decreases.

Bob
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I may be old but I’m not dead yet.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

That is why I set the poll up to get the opinions of divers and instructors. For some students low vis is no big deal if you train them for it and make sure they know it is no big thing. If you are training them to go to the Caribbean and are constantly bitching about the bad vis they will see it as no fun. This is where inland instructors shoot themselves in the foot. I have said before that I do everything I can to prep divers for low vis conditions. That is what we usually have here. They are thrilled to see a catfish or bluegill.

They know how to stay with their buddy. No separation in the pool. None in OW. No single file tours. I have taken students in two at time when vis was not so great and they and I had a great time. When you can only see 2-4 feet in front of you everything is a new surprise for them. I know the dive sites. Nothing is going to eat, sting, or grab them. When they are in proper postion and using non silting kicks- WHICH EVERY NEW DIVER IS CAPABLE OF IF THEY WANT TO AND ARE SHOWN HOW- 2-4 feet of vis is not a real challenge.

Now, granted I purposely keep my classes small (2-4 people). This way they get not only more individualized instruction but more time to just work on skills and swim around in the pool.

The only reasons for separation of new divers on checkouts are poor preparation leading up to them, inattention by the instructor, and a genuine emergency. Poor prep includes faliure to teach necessary skills and allow the student to really practice them in the pool, not actually using the buddy system in the pool so that it is looked at as not very important, and IMO not insisting on them staying together in OW as buddies. New divers - if shown how - should be the best buddies. If a new diver gets separated from a group then whose fault is it? Surely the divers, but why? Was he/she not really given the message that getting away from your buddy can kill you if you are not self sufficient? Were they given good instruction on proper procedures and was it actually put into use in their classes?

And if they were shown how why are they diving in a herd anyway? Where was the one young man's buddy? One report states that he was believed to be 200 ft from where he was found. Sounds like a CF to me on at least two people's parts. The deceased and their buddy. What about the group leader? Was there one? If so did he/she assign buddies and on what basis? So many variables to consider when vis is brought into the equation. Bas vis does not equal danger. Poor training and poor procedures with bad vis can. Bad vis is just vis. It takes a human screw up to make it dangerous. Including deciding to dive in it at all when not ready or trained for it.

 

[Byte Me]

My vote was 2-4. Had I voted BEFORE OW checkout dives I would have voted 10-20

My first ever dive experience was in Playa del Carmen doing a Discover - 80F water and 100' vis. Then it was to the pool for OW class. Our checkout dives were in a sand pit in SE WI. High 50F temps and 5-10' vis. My LDS expected this and had two instructors and 3 backup instructors for the 8 of us. We got extra briefing about sticking with your buddy, what to do if separated and were told that diving in this would make us better divers.

I believe that it has, at least for me, and while I don't LOVE low vis diving like Mike and his crew, I do LOVE diving and, well, here in the Midwest there ain't a lot of 100' vis opportunities! So you take what you can get - which I guess means I love low vis diving Doing my checkout dives in those conditions really drove home a lot of what was taught in the pool - things I may have treated more cavalierly had they been done in warm blue water.

 

[Randynfla]

With students I did not like any vis less than 10 ft. Fossil dive in the SC rivers during summer, if I had 10 inches if vis I was tickled to death. Winter time we would have 3-8 average

 

[santafejoe]

As a DMC i was helping with a AOW class over the weekend at Haigh Quarry. The vis was not that good 8 to 10 feet. Our student was doing her Search & Rescue dive so we placed the object 25 ft away from the house boat where we found it at. Our Student along with the instructor tied off at mid boat and went out to start a sweep. Our student found the object in about 10 minutes in poor vis.
Personally i think the Vis conditions over the weekend were just right for teaching a AOW student Search and Recovery. I myself years ago when i did my Search & Recovery for AOW & Rescue class had about the same type of Vis. I feel it makes you more aware of your soundings and also makes you think a little more too.

 

[noreastDIVER84]

I think that less than 1' vis is when it is time to call a dive. I routinely do dives in 2-4' vis, and am comfortable in doing so provided I know the site or at least have some waypoints to work off of. The way I look at it is that when I go to the Caribbean it makes that even better.

 

[TSandM]

For my own diving, if the viz is less than 10 feet, I'm going to consider calling the dive and going out to lunch. I dive to look at stuff, and if I can't see the bottom before I hit it, I'm not going to see much during the dive.

This spring, I did a deep dive with a good friend from out of town, where we had to stay in shoulder to shoulder CONTACT to stay together, even with our lights. That's a dive I wouldn't have continued, had it not been that my friend was from out of town and I was desperately hoping we could get BELOW the crud layer. (We didn't.) We got lost in an extremely familiar site, and failed to find most of the "attractions" there. It wasn't much fun.

I've assisted classes in 5 to 6 feet of viz. That's not fun, either, for staff or for the students. They have always handled it amazingly well, though. I've worried that they would turn around and say, "Diving isn't fun; we aren't going to continue doing it," but the students Peter certified in the worst viz have become very active divers! I do think, for safety, you have to keep ratios very small.

I tried to video a Fundies prep class in five feet of viz (I know it was five feet, because Peter said if he was hovering above my fins, he couldn't see my head.) That was a cluster. I got almost no usable video, and I don't think the students learned very much.