DukeAMO
Contributor
DH and I went to the scuba club cookout today (well, sort of... we got there too late for food).
It was only about 70-75 degrees out, and drizzling a little. It's been unseasonably cool for August this week. Fortunately, the water was still about 85 degrees. I was just fine in a shorty, until we got out of the water.
On the downside, the water was extremely green and murky from algae and other stuff. Murky enough that looking down below us, the water looked black, even in full daylight. Visibility was around 6-8 feet. Really, we didn't see much at all on the dive. A few fish, a few things that were sunk in the lake.
On the upside, it was a perfect time to practice basic skills, which is why we were there.
1) Nitrox - this was our first Nitrox dive. It was nice to practice the "nitrox ritual" while it was still fresh in my mind.
2) Buddy skills - you *really* have to stay close together when this vis is that bad. And not kick each other too much.
3) Compass navigation - we set a heading for the bus and headed out underwater. We didn't actually find the bus right away, but we figured out what we were doing wrong for next time. We did find an underwater dock.
4) Air-sharing drills - we had planned to do these at the bus, but the dock worked well.
5) Visual navigation - we followed some lines that people had set. Hey, there's the bus! We also found a car and the rock crusher this way. The rock crusher, unfortunately, is boring when you can only see 5 feet. It was black as night below the top of it (at only 40 feet deep), so we didn't even drop down next to it. Then we followed the line back to the bus.
6) Hovering - we tried to do this by the bus, and realized that we needed to move more weight up next time. It's always a learning experience when you use different exposure protection on every dive!
7) More compass navagation - this time we did it correctly, using a reciprocal heading from the bus, and we ended up right back at the beach where we started.
6) Shooting SMBs - when we got back to safety stop depth, we both sent up our SMBs. It took a minute to get it, but we did get it. The hardest parts were not tangling the line and not getting pulled up.
7) Mask-off drills - back at the beach, we both did mask removal and replacement drills a couple of times. I'll never like them, but they are actually getting easy.
8) Weight checks - we also checked our weighting right at the end of the dive. DH needs to try less next time, and my weight was fine.
So, actually - it was a great dive, even though we didn't really see anything worth noting.
It was only about 70-75 degrees out, and drizzling a little. It's been unseasonably cool for August this week. Fortunately, the water was still about 85 degrees. I was just fine in a shorty, until we got out of the water.
On the downside, the water was extremely green and murky from algae and other stuff. Murky enough that looking down below us, the water looked black, even in full daylight. Visibility was around 6-8 feet. Really, we didn't see much at all on the dive. A few fish, a few things that were sunk in the lake.
On the upside, it was a perfect time to practice basic skills, which is why we were there.
1) Nitrox - this was our first Nitrox dive. It was nice to practice the "nitrox ritual" while it was still fresh in my mind.
2) Buddy skills - you *really* have to stay close together when this vis is that bad. And not kick each other too much.
3) Compass navigation - we set a heading for the bus and headed out underwater. We didn't actually find the bus right away, but we figured out what we were doing wrong for next time. We did find an underwater dock.
4) Air-sharing drills - we had planned to do these at the bus, but the dock worked well.
5) Visual navigation - we followed some lines that people had set. Hey, there's the bus! We also found a car and the rock crusher this way. The rock crusher, unfortunately, is boring when you can only see 5 feet. It was black as night below the top of it (at only 40 feet deep), so we didn't even drop down next to it. Then we followed the line back to the bus.
6) Hovering - we tried to do this by the bus, and realized that we needed to move more weight up next time. It's always a learning experience when you use different exposure protection on every dive!
7) More compass navagation - this time we did it correctly, using a reciprocal heading from the bus, and we ended up right back at the beach where we started.
6) Shooting SMBs - when we got back to safety stop depth, we both sent up our SMBs. It took a minute to get it, but we did get it. The hardest parts were not tangling the line and not getting pulled up.
7) Mask-off drills - back at the beach, we both did mask removal and replacement drills a couple of times. I'll never like them, but they are actually getting easy.
8) Weight checks - we also checked our weighting right at the end of the dive. DH needs to try less next time, and my weight was fine.
So, actually - it was a great dive, even though we didn't really see anything worth noting.
