diver solo,
i see that you are a senior member of spear board.
in this forum, do you feel it is wise as a senior member of the spear
and an experienced diver to share the wisdom of diving with half a steel tank full of air that may or may not last you, an experienced solo diver (diving 101..dive safe and dive with a partner), -75 minutes in between business calls ?
in the port charlotte instruction area, as that of casey key...i believe the rule is return to the beach or boat with +1000 pounds......and never dive a short fill !
i could be mistaken once again, but can you count on your hands...finger by finger...the inexperienced recreational divers who have died off venice beach chasing the big one and their dreams....
.....hunting sharks teeth
i do not believe that the diver who asked for your help seems to know his way around several obsticals
...those who are not aware must now be informed of the rip tide and eddy current off venice...
or the recreational boaters who run over divers and their flags...or run through the charter boats with deployed dive flags and individual diver flags deployed...
...also of the danger of bulls and hammerheads feeding in the area where i see you dive....
how to escape a rip tide.....or make it safely to shore if out of air.....
oh, walter has some sound advice. safety and the unknown...one rain drop does not make a flood...but alas....a careless diver can create his own death....
if you can't get walter, i'll vouch for safe diving.....
that's why i recommeded diving with an experienced and trained dive company when learning the gulf beach arena....Steve of the Hammer Head...or the operater of the submersion excursion....
life comes at you fast.......diver safety first !
Hi Bonediver. Welcome to ScubaBoard. I'd like to address a couple of the issues you have brought up from my earlier post.
First and foremost, I was not advocating that anyone should dive in the manner that I am accustomed to diving. A lot of the habits I've acquired in diving over the past thirty years are geared toward convenience and as long as they don't overly compromise my personal safety, I'll continue to utilize them. The operative word here is personal. I have been diving solo for a very long time and I often enjoy the freedom of only having my safety to be concerned about. Conversely, I welcome the camaraderie of being able to dive with someone else when the opportunity arises.
Next, being a "senior member" of ScubaBoard doesn't imply that I have any authority over anyone or that my opinion carries any more weight than any other member on here. It only is a reflection of the number of posts one has made on here. Any advice I give anyone on here will be geared toward "safety first"
Before I dive any site solo, I first dive it at least a few times with someone who is familiar with the area and knows of any unusual conditions unique to a particular site.
I've never had to chase down any megs, normally they are just laying there waiting to be picked up. And I do think you are mistaken at the number of divers who have died while diving at Venice. Compared to shore conditions I've dived at sites all over the world, the normal conditions at Venice are positively calm. When there is a rip current at Venice, it is due to higher than normal wave action usually due to storms in the Gulf which make it undiveable anyway. And I thought eddy currents can only occur when an electrical conductor is introduced in a magnetic field. But you're a dam engineer, so you should know that!
Boaters and jet skiers are a danger to divers the world over, Venice is no exception. I don't recall telling everyone they should dive without a flag. In fact, I don't see how you could construe from my post that I would tell anyone to just plunge willy nilly into any situation that would endanger them.
In hundreds of dives I've made at Venice, I've never even seen a shark. I do realize they are out there and like any cautious diver, I keep a wary eye out for them.
I certainly don't have a deathwish, but I do believe in predestiny...that the time and place of our deaths is predetermined and nothing we can do will ever change that. I am secure in the knowledge that when my time comes, I know where I will be going. Do you, Bonediver, know where you are going when you die?
And lastly...geeze...are you mistaking ScubaBoard for SpearBoard? Yeah, I'm registered on there, but I never made any posts.