Bubble Wall - a perfectly useless tale of today's dive ...

[kidspot]

A friend and I went diving this afternoon (airport beach) - water looked beutiful, nearly no waves, vis was decent at about 50-60ft. We went in at the sand channel (south end of the park) We slowly finned out to the second reef which took about 15-20 minutes, then decided to come into the shallows. 5 minutes later we were back at the sand channel realizing how steady the current was today (not real fast, just very steady) as we got close to the sand channel there appears out of the misty depths... a wall of bubbles as wide as the sand channel. There in front of us was a class (I assume) of 9 students in a nearly perfect semi-circle around their instructor (there appeared to be 3 other divers (DM's?) about 25 feet away watching (or maybe they were like us, just curious about this wall of bubbles) we returned after another 25 minutes and they were still sitting there in the sand performing skills. Then in a grand processional (which desperately cried for pipe organ music in the background) they began their unified ascent to the surface... I was amazed at how organized this "little" group was - I've never seen more than about 4-6 students with an instructor before ... then again perhaps I just need to get out divng more often, which being how I like the sound of that idea, I think it's time for another dive tomorrow...

Aloha from the guy going down the rabbit trail of lifes conversation...

Tim

P.S. it was a nice dive, with sightings of an tiny Eagle Ray, 4 ft. Morray out for a swim and a large Octopus in his hole... all in all a very nice dive...

 

[pacificparadisedivers]

Tough to get 9 students through all skills in a timely manner. I have seen many more students in a single group in Northern California. 16 students in one group ( I was a AI at the time- there were two other Instructors + two other DM'S)

It took soooo long to get these poor folks through what should really only take a few minutes if the skills have truly been mastered in confined water. Cold water and bad visibilty conditions made many not enjoy the experience.

When I teach now- I always keep that day in mind. These people are here to have fun and enjoy the sport! It is not always about being able to stuff as many as possible in a class so I can make more money.......

Since you mentioned your dives- My dives today were GREAT - Dove the Sea Tiger (no current 100+ ft vis)- I was leading decent certified divers and got approx 29 mins bottom time. Saw a huge spiny lobster, a leaf scorpion fish, an eagle ray, and a monster YM moray. During our safety stop saw a bunch of big kahala- here is the kicker- one nice sized mahi swam right up next to us..... never seen one that close (underwater)!

Enjoy-

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

I really don't like taking more than 6 at a time as the students end up spending way too much time just sitting there. Even with assistants I limit it to 6. I'll end up taking out as many as 4 groups during the day, rough on me, better for them.

 

[kidspot]

Since you mentioned your dives- My dives today were GREAT - Dove the Sea Tiger (no current 100+ ft vis)- I was leading decent certified divers and got approx 29 mins bottom time. Saw a huge spiny lobster, a leaf scorpion fish, an eagle ray, and a monster YM moray. During our safety stop saw a bunch of big kahala- here is the kicker- one nice sized mahi swam right up next to us..... never seen one that close (underwater)!

Enjoy-

Wow - I'm suprised that Mahi was hanging around - sounds like a lot of great stuff to see ...

I was able to dive with SB member Ed yesterday at Makena landing - he was having a great time with a new Digital Camera ... and talk about good with a compass - first time I've been with someone who actually used headings and kept track of things - we spent about 20 min out getting to the swim through and then we continued on for 30 more minutes exploring, he took a heading, which brought us dead on back to the swim through in 5 minutes. Total dive time was 76 minutes - mostly in the 30-40ft range. I felt like I was just having "one of those" days with air and bouyancy and all, I thought I was sucking air like crazy, especially because we were finning into light surge/current much of the time, but I just ran the numbers and my SAC was at .44 - which is low for me... Makes me feel a bit better - still bumped into the bottom 3 times and my backward kick was stirring up the bottom - so gotta work on that some more -

vis was about 30-40 ft, saw a lot of eels, all in all a nice dive and great to meet another SB member from Maui.

Aloha, Tim