Horizontal Obsession

[captain]

Last year on a dock on Bonaire I watched two divers emerge from the water and climb up the aluminum ladder. They were wearing 3-mil shorties and their legs were scraped and bleeding in several places. The scrapes were the size of your hand, angry, bright red, and they looked extremely painful.

I suppose I should have felt some empathy for them, but in truth all I could think about was the cumulative damage that these klutzy, clueless divers wreak on slow-growing reefs, and how the diving experience will deteriorate year by year, until there is nothing left to see.

And what does that have to do with always being horizontal. I have never crashed into a reef and scrapped myself up. What you saw were divers with bad buoyancy control and bad skills. For all you know they could have landed perfectly horizontal on the reef.

 

[elan]

seals and dolphins are free-divers if I'm not mistaken, not SCUBA divers and they do not have that extra tool, so we have to compare apple to apple , I have not ever seen free-diver ascending/descending horizontally,

why do not just get back to the paws and catch the food (read fill the shopping cart) using jaws

 

[denisegg]

OK Boulderjohn I'll bite. What is with this obsession with being horizontal.

Scuba is a 3 dimensional world. In it I assume whatever position best suits what I am doing. If I am descending I swim mostly vertical head down. If I am ascending I swim mostly vertical head up. If I am swimming horizontal to the bottom I swim horizontally. If I need to look up I assume a position that allows me to do it comfortably.
Always horizontal is for dead people.

So you are content with your style of diving. So your question is? Why do you people that dive horizontal do it? I guess the same reason you do what you do. It best suits us.

 

[Thalassamania]

... Granted, fish are horizontal. But look at the octopus, squid etc.; they are in every position imaginable.

That is not something that I'd grant.

 

[knowone]

What do you mean by "is" ?

When fish s hang around doing the fish thing, they constantly make great depth changes RELATIVE to their size, by facing where they are going, tilted at any angle, and going up or down without having to resort to square profiles horizontally.

 

[knowone]

People are confusing the intent of my post. I don't know how to swim horizontal to the bottom unless I am horizontal, that is a no brainer. And if silting up the place is an issue I use a frog kick, but generally only in those conditions not all the time. I don't do elevator diving. If I need to descend from the surface to the bottom then I swim at some downward angle from horizontal and the opposite to ascend.
As Thal said just as the seals and dolphins do

As I'm stitching my split sides back together, I thought the beauty was in the journey and the journey should take as long as possible, as probably stated by Gentile and Chatterton when they were setting anchors on the Doria.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

OK Boulderjohn I'll bite. What is with this obsession with being horizontal.

What is this obsession with how someone else dives?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[captain]

So you are content with your style of diving. So your question is? Why do you people that dive horizontal do it? I guess the same reason you do what you do. It best suits us.

What Mike Boswell posted is an example of the only one way mentality, if they crashed into the reef they must not have been horizontal so to not crash into the reef you must be horizontal, which equates consciously or by intimation to calling someone who isn't always horizontal a unskilled diver.
I posted the topic because of Boulderjohn's idea it might be an interestion topic. I don't much care how anyone but myself dives but I don't generally like the one way is the best way mentality. I will say that in specific situations one way may be the best way and I try to fit the way to the situation.
So I guess to some degree we agree.

 

[marcopalla]

.




<<<====- very obsessed

it is good for photos! with a wrek in the background is a bijeaux, isn't it?


.... if no photographers, I usually walk on the bottom

 

[marcopalla]

wait,
7 pages of replays and none says "Hey man what are you talking about?"

If I am descending I swim mostly vertical head down.
beeeeep.
wrong 1. in that position your bood flow go to increase pressure in your head, so' it's bad for ears equalization and dangerous.
wrong 2. why you swim? you consume more air. deflate the jaket and be horizontal, don't move.

If I am ascending I swim mostly vertical head up.
beeep
wrong 1. why the **** you swim vertical? deflate the jaket and just some kiks in diagonal. use your breathing to correct your bojancy.
wrong 2 if you are vertical you have a difference of pressure on your body, about 0.2 bar from your head to your feet, no good in hard diving

If I am swimming horizontal to the bottom I swim horizontally.
OK, 1 right

If I need to look up I assume a position that allows me to do it comfortably.
yes horizontal with your neck torwards back.

Always horizontal is for dead people.
Talking without knowing is for idiots.

"The horizontal position is often called prone, superman, or skydiver position. For a scuba diver, the horizontal trim is the most efficient way to move through the water. In addition, the horizontal trim provides vertical drag, helping divers maintain a constant depth."