Most challenging dive?

[fisherdvm]

Last weekend, another diver told me "I don't consider a dive a real dive, unless we are at least 70 ft deep.

Well, this morning, I found my dive very difficult. My son lost one of his fin (had no idea where he lost it) when we dove 2 weeks ago. So I had about 1/4 of an acre to cover. I roughly know that it was when we were in the shallow, practicing our skills.

As much of the dive is 4 to 10 ft deep, it was hard to maintain buoyancy. As the bottom is pure muck, I can't scrape it without causing a dust storm. The lake is treated with copper sulfate and dye, so the vis was about 3 ft to 4 ft.

Fortunately, I was perfectly weighted and had no air in my bc, and had more problem keeping down than floating up. I did about 18 passes, going through the same territory twice (amazingly it wasn't too mucked up!). And my last pass, before giving up - the fin was on the bottom, sticking straight up at 5 ft depth!!

What I learned is - flutter kicks are fine for recreational diving, but the frog and modified flutter is a must for search and recovery. Second, if I didn't have perfect weighting, this shallow dive would've been impossible.

I still don't think deep dives are challenging. That's just my opinion.

 

[MikeFerrara]

A full flutter kick is just plain lousy if you are anywhere near a bottom that is the least bit silty. Whether you are just diving for fun or doing search and recovery, it'll make a mess.

You can do a shallow dive being overweighted and manage your buoyancy just fine...provided you a trimmed well. You'll just have some air in your BS.

If you had a full tank and no air in your bc, you were underweighted...as you used some air, the tank would become lighter (more buoyannt) and up you go.

Properly weighted, you will ALWAYS be overweighted at least by the weight of the breathing gas you carry...because you want to be neutral with nearly empty tanks.

For your friend who thinks a dive needs to be 70 ft deep to be a real dive, tell him I can show him some cave dives above 10 ft of depth that will likely curl his hair...or just tell him he's a nut and let it go. LOL

 

[Gary D.]

Well I guess he would consider a zero vis dive in a 6’ concrete pool a routine dive for him. If he does, tell him to come see me. I’ll invite him to come along the next one we do a dive in a septic tank. And if he would feel more comfortable he can use his own gear.

Gary D.

 

[ucfdiver]

Keep an eye out over here for him-
Diving Accidents and Incidents - The Deco Stop

That section is filled with "hero dive" reports.

My toughest dive was lights out, sharing air in devils ear during an intro to cave class, with an average depth of around 30ft deep. I've been stupid and went past the 100ft and 130ft depth limits for rec diving, and it wasn't a difficult dive, just a stupid one that I'm lucky nothing bad happened during.

 

[kouhoutek]

I did my first deep (105 ft.) dive back in October.

I was pretty apprehensive, partly because my ears don't always clear so well, and partly because I'd never gone past 30 ft. before that trip.

When I got down there, I remember thinking: "Is this it? It's too dark to see well, it's cold, and I only get to stay down here for like 10 minutes. Wasn't there a nice reef at about 40 ft.?"

I'm glad I did it, if only to get the "deep diving" thing out of my system.

Now I focus on what I can see and do when I am down there, and let deep take care of itself.

 

[fisherdvm]

If you had a full tank and no air in your bc, you were underweighted...as you used some air, the tank would become lighter (more buoyannt) and up you go.

Properly weighted, you will ALWAYS be overweighted at least by the weight of the breathing gas you carry...because you want to be neutral with nearly empty tanks.

I had 7 mm on, so if you were near the top 3 ft, you'd float. If you did a pike dive, breaking that 3 ft will compress the neoprene enough to let you stay submerged. Went right until I had about 650 psi. Not using any air in my BC implied that I am underweighted, which is true, if I didn't watch my breathing depth. But if I had to do a 15 ft safety stop, it would have been fine. I think most of us who dove with thick wetsuit know what I mean... The top few feet is what you'd have to break if you were "perfectly" weighted.

Shallow dive with constantly changing depth is where not having any air the BC or very little air helps.

 

[Kevrumbo]

The most challenging dive is one involving extreme surge and swell conditions making it difficult to hover at safety stop or Oxygen Deco, depths 20'/6m to 10'/3m; and swift prevailing currents & eddys, with up & down rip currents at depth: the Oil Rig divesites here in So. Cal are notorious for this. . .

 

[MikeFerrara]

To each their own. I weight myself so that I can hold any depth with a near empty tank....meaning that I neutral at the surface with a near empty tank. That means that with any amount of gas in my tank, there's going to be a little in the bc too...no big deal, even on a shallow dive.

 

[NancyLynn]

Two dives vie for most challenging for me.

One in cold water (50s), medium visibility, relatively shallow (without looking at my log book, I'd say 30 ft max).

What made it challenging was rental equipment that didn't fit really well - and allowing someone else to mess with my weights (arranging them in a more technically correct way, but in a way which interfered with buoyancy control because of the poorly fitted BC), and a member of a trio buddy pair who kept popping up to the surface then back down, etc.

As for my own challenges, I was fine and had good buoyancy control at depth, but the safety stop was the pits. The jacket didn't fit snugly, and didn't empty of air completely. On the first dive I had the jacket anchored by the weight belt so the pockets of air in the BC didn't rove much and were manageable. On the second dive, when the weight belt was (appropriately for safety reasons) easier for someone else to release, it wasn't anchoring the BC, and the air pockets kept migrating throwing off my buoyancy control, so I was fighting to stay down and just hang at the safety stop.

My own challenges were compounded by the third member of the trio who kept disappearing to the surface - I hadn't thought to discuss ahead of time how to handle a diver who intended to stay at depth and within sight but who just didn't.

The second challenging dive was Devil's Throat in Cozumel. Mostly it was challenging because it pushed my limits in two directions - depth (130') and overhead environment (it's a corner through, rather than straight through with line of sight from end to end). It wasn't physically challenging, particularly, but it was emotionally challenging - both as I tried to assess ahead of time whether doing the dive was a reasonable risk with my limited experience at depth (several dives at 90') and with overheads (a number of short swim-throughs and one well marked follow-the-leader wreck with direct access to the exterior in all but one room) - and once I was on the dive in making sure I was staying out of deco (which I did) and being aware of the possibility of narcosis (which I did experience mildly for perhaps a minute coming up from the 130' bottom of the dive).

 

[DOkie]

Just my opinion, if you live in Michigan and you've never experienced a "challenging deep dive", you don't dive a lot at home. 3-4 foot viz is an EXCELLENT day on some of these wrecks.