Black Water Diving

[Bob3]

One of the last jobs I was on the topic came up of "open or closed". I did notice that if I was doing heavier work, my eyes would tend to be open, and for things that required a little more dexterity & attention, they'd be closed.
Overall, a bit over half the divers (commercial) said they usually dove with eyes closed because they could visualize better with eyes shut.
I've gotten so used to burning (cutting stuff up) in blackwater that I never bother using a dark lens on my hat for clear water, I just close my eyes.
:mean:

 

[Mo2vation]

I dive almost exclusively in So Cal - Catalina, Channel Islands, San Diego, etc. One time I dove (last summer) at East Cape in Mexico...weirded me out. Warm water, no kelp (and no vertical reference...very strange).

I was certified in the cold water, and I love it. I love the kelp and I love my "bad viz" days of 25 - 40 feet.

Reading this has offered to me a whole other perspective on why people dive, where they dive, etc. Just amazing. I couldn't imagine diving when I couldn't see. I've only about 50 dives or so - so I'm still in that wanderlust neck-strain look at this cool thing, look at that cool thing.

Diving to me has no "purpose" - I dive for the same reason many golf: because I can't do it and think about something else. It requires me to leave my crazy career, my music, my world on the beach or boat and become 100% immersed and focused on the dive. I need that diversion from real life. Diving brings that.

Diving in blackwater would remove my personal (and current) motivation for diving...to SEE new stuff - which makes it a completely foreign concept to me.

However, after reading these posts, I see it doesn't remove your joy of diving - the get out and get wet, the weightlessness, the floating, the solitude, the sound of the bubbles, the cool of the water on your dome as you get in, etc.

Being so new, I'm still wrapped up in the tactile, visual stimuli that displaces all of the crapola I deal with above the water. What I'm saying is I hope to soon move past (not "past", maybe better, "add to") this visual (external) stimulation and realize some more of the internal-joy-of-being-wet stuff I'm reading about here. Right now, if I can't see, it ain't fun. The better I see, the more fin it is. Maybe one day, it'll be different, you know?

You guys are great.

Ken

 

[JT2]

I usually dive in freshwater lakes that have average viz of about 5-10ft, but it is not uncommon at all for it to be 0-2ft, and one thing I have always thought was interesting was that whenever I take someone out that has never dove in low or no viz water, such as vacation divers, that most of them hate it and some of them are scared to death, and some of these people are very experienced divers with a couple hundred dives or more in some cases. Sure, we all love to dive in water with great viz, but I think hardcore divers just like to dive no matter what the viz is. Personally whenever I am in blackwater, I like to just hover and stare into the darkness sometimes, as it has a very calming effect on me, but I can see where others might think it is crazy or scary, to each his own I guess.