Poor viz diving

[D_B]

Barracuda2 ... glad you listened to that "little voice in the back of your head" An important thing to cultivate anywhere, but very important part of diving discipline ... besides you ever hear of anyone saying that they wished they had Not listened to that little voice?

 

[ghostdiver1957]

Having just read the accident forum about the Monterey diver, I was struck by the depth combined with such low visability (2-6ft). I get very uneasy when the viz is even 20 ft and usually call the dive if it is a deep one. Most of our wrecks are 100+. This is extremely rare anywhere I have ever been, so I know nothing about it. Any dive I remember in bad, bad viz turned into a disaster....couldn't see the divers.

I am eager to know how many of you dive in poor visabilty and ...what it is like...do you get used to it? Why do you do it? Do you get claustraphobic, ever? Is this the norm for certain areas like Pacific NW? In Baja once (la Bufadora), the viz was like chocolate milk and everyone dived but me. I was afraid of getting tangled in the kelp. What about kelp in bad viz? What comes into play?

North East Coastal diving from Virginia to New York is generally all low vis diving. Most divers who dive up here are very experienced and very comfortable in low vis. A Typical day is less than 10 feet, a good day maybe 20 and once in a blue moon maybe 30-40 feet. Most days are less than 10 feet with many as poor as 5 feet. Anything worth seeing is at 100 feet plus for the most part. There are a few shallow areas of 30 - 50 feet with good spearfishing... but the vis is always poor. The exciting part is spearfishing with a bunch of people in less than 5 feet of vis... No one has mistaken me for a fish yet... but it worries me when guys are using 10 foot lines in 5 feet of vis. Spears shooting everywhere around you... oh well... it gets your juices flowing.

I dive regularly in the Chesapeake Bay as well... Oyster Dives, recovery dives, work... and the vis on a great day is 5 - 10 feet. Typically you're lucky to see your hand in front of your face. This type of diving isn't for everyone... but it has it's rewards for those that enjoy it.

If you ever get out our way... let me know... we'll take you diving...

Happy Going...

 

[Laughing Swordfish]

When I did my commercial training we did pretty much everything in zero vis. We had to assemble pipe puzzles at 100 feet by feel. We were never allowed a light. Our deepest dives (170) were also without a light. I couldn't see a thing except for some red flashing spots, which I guess were from the narc. Pretty creepy, but we did have hard wired communications with the surface which helped somewhat.

Doing recreational dives with a light and 2-3 feet of vis seems like a luxury now.

 

[Storm]

Having just read the accident forum about the Monterey diver, I was struck by the depth combined with such low visability (2-6ft). I get very uneasy when the viz is even 20 ft and usually call the dive if it is a deep one. Most of our wrecks are 100+. This is extremely rare anywhere I have ever been, so I know nothing about it. Any dive I remember in bad, bad viz turned into a disaster....couldn't see the divers.

I am eager to know how many of you dive in poor visabilty and ...what it is like...do you get used to it? Why do you do it? Do you get claustraphobic, ever? Is this the norm for certain areas like Pacific NW? In Baja once (la Bufadora), the viz was like chocolate milk and everyone dived but me. I was afraid of getting tangled in the kelp. What about kelp in bad viz? What comes into play?

I am still new to the diving, but both my wife and I were certified in colder (mid 60's in late October in teh St. Lawrence River) and darker water with vis anywhere from 6 to 15 feet (as we dove in the river, ther was also various current strenght to deal with. I was concerned as my wife admitted to experiencing slight claustrophobia when snorkeling and thought that the water conditions would be a problem for her. She did great.

I did experience a slight shock at the vis difference between the gin clear pool and the tanic river, but it was great. I'm actually a bit apprehensive about our first blue water dives as we do not know what to exoect, but we'll have the this season to work on our comfort level before we hit (hopefully) high vis- blue water dive on a planned trip next December.

The one advantage we do have up here is that with the colder sweet water, and lack of tropical life, the wrecks we have up here (some 5000 n the Great lakes) are awesome. We dove a nineteenth century (sunk in 1889) wreck that was beuatifully preserved. The vis was 10 to 20 feet, which was more than enough to drink in the detail of the wreck.

We were taught, at least in our course, to be very buddy aware, as you can loose your buddy in the silty water, and the local divers lobby new divers to become very proficient in anti-silting diving...something Judy and I are still working on.

Hopefully we'll get to that level before we hit the water again this spring.

Can't comment on kelp, we have the usual freshwater vegetation, hydrillia, milfoil, etc. but rather than looking at these as hinderances, I look at them as potential spots to see the freshwater predator fish, musky, pike, bass, that we have up here.

Cheers!

 

[Narced141]

In the lakes in Kentucky the visibility is 15 ft. on a good day. We dive in 2-6 ft. visibility all the time.

 

[eleven]

im a pearl diver , we dive almost everyday with low to no vis, some of the areas we have to do moooring checks it is pitch black. i think diving in low vis is something you get used to , its not comfortable but its deffinatly do_able.

 

[KingViper]

All of the Quarry's here are poor viz (usually) especially when students have been around kicking up the silt. You get used to it I guess.

B

 

[Darnold9999]

Learned to dive here in the PNW, normal is 20 feet or so and it can vary down to a couple of feet to 60 - 70 feet on a good day. Remember being astounded the first warm water dive. You could see the bottom - instead of drifting down through a featureless soup until the bottom came up to greet you.

I do love great vis, but it can come at the expense of things to see. Up here there is life everywhere. In tropical waters I often feel like I am diving in an oasis surrounded by desert. Lots of concentrated life on the reef, surrounded by miles and miles of sand.

 

[jeckyll]

..... - instead of drifting down through a featureless soup until the bottom came up to greet you.
.....

I rather liked the 'featureless soup' on last Thursdays dive. You weren't complaining all that much post dive either

 

[Ishie]

I am eager to know how many of you dive in poor visabilty and ...what it is like...do you get used to it? Why do you do it? Do you get claustraphobic, ever? Is this the norm for certain areas like Pacific NW? In Baja once (la Bufadora), the viz was like chocolate milk and everyone dived but me. I was afraid of getting tangled in the kelp. What about kelp in bad viz? What comes into play?

I dive in poor vis and it's all right. I prefer good vis, but to me, anything over 20' is good vis.

I've dived in like 6 inch vis, and though it doesn't scare me, there isn't a lot of point to it. I don't get clausterphobic unless I can't move my limbs or if my neck is compressed, so no worries there.

The kelp has only bothered me once, and it was easy enough to cut my way out of it with my James Bond knife. The only time kelp scares me is when I'm freediving, but with scuba, I figure I've got between 15 and 70 minutes to work it out, so it's never really bothered me. Had a buddy get tangled in it in low viz, but didn't freak her out, though when I began helping her untangle it, a playful harbor seal dragged her straight down into it. LOL. Still, no big deal, and she was out in under three minutes, and not with any panic or rush. Didn't even require a knife.

I used to fight kelp more, but 9 times out of 10, it's easy enough to simply unwind it.

For low viz, I stick close to my buddy, and enjoy the abundance of life clustered on the rocks, and try to get some macro shots.