Where have you experienced the strongest currents?

[Diver0001]

I'm sure this isn't going to impress most of you but the strongest currents I've personally experienced were at Elphinstone reef in Egypt. I've dived there on multiple occasions in various conditions but on one dive we had an 8-10 knot reversal (south to north) current with very much non-trivial up and down wellings..... and that at a little before 8 AM....

I'm pretty sure the locals thought it was serious because they wanted to cancel the dive but only let us go because the least experienced diver was a DM with 650 logged dives.... and I have to admit, it wasn't relaxing. We spent most of the dive trying to find nooks and crannies to "hide" in so we could keep our group more or less connected to the same dive plan....

Another group who tried to dive the same reef at about the same time we did got picked up by a Zodiac something like a km off the reef in open water.... In my case, I was only able to control my depth in a washing-machine-bandwidth from 5 to 18 metres (I was shooting for 10). Another diver who I met there (and this is someone who I was sure could dive....A higly experienced (GUE) North Sea wreck diver) said that in similar conditions he gave up and swam into the reef and physically held on at 52m (165ft) because he got caught in the downwelling and couldn't handle it....

Needless to say, it wasn't something you want to do for stress reduction. It was ... stimulating.... exciting.... but not your typical early morning reef bimble ....

R..

 

[dkktsunami]

Speigel Grove and entrance to Devil's Ear.

 

[Buoyant1]

Three dives stick out in my mind

The Duane off of Key Largo (we were flying like flags on the line)

Rock Key in Key West...just a stiff current the whole way out and a drift dive the whole way back

The Donut off of Marathon the current was so bad we aborted it after about 11 minutes.

 

[mselenaous]

Sea of Cortez, Mexico with its extreme tidal shifts twice daily the currents range from medium to extreme. Off the southern end of Isla Angel de la Guardia (Angel Island), at a tip known as Vibora (snake), we were drift diving from pangas. I've never seen so many sheepshead and hogfish in one area but my buddy and I were being bounced off underwater boulders like tumbleweed in the desert. It called for wearing a crashhelmet. My first comment upon surfacing was "Welcome to NASCAR diving - Zoooom".

In comparison, for me it made hanging off the line like a waving flag on the Speigel Grove & the Duane seem easy.

 

[jiveturkey]

Nusa Penida in Bali, Indonesia

 

[Desert_Diver]

Yap. Multiple dive sites. If you don't face into the current, you will lose your mask. If you do face into the current, it will purge your regulator. It's difficult to doff fins because you need to hang on to the ladder with both hands.

Exciting stuff.

 

[Zeke XA3]

To the poster who asked about rnaking a site, to clarify what hte guy above says,

i reguallry dive in a 3 or 4 kot current and none of my equipment even moves, becasue its a drift dive im moving with the current so the water raltive to me is still.

But hold on to a line in a 2 knot current and you will start falpping like a flag in the wind.

Someone else did Cideral Pass in Cozumel, i have a little vid here (YouTube - Snowstorm - Underwater current in Cozumel) of the sand flowing over the rocks, me and my buddy had great fun doing hand stops in the sand (stick your hand in the sand and let the current flip you 180 degree in half a second!)

Also the English channel drift dives are very...interesting 5 or 6 knot current but with only 5m visibility you have only a second to dodge anything big up ahead!

 

[StreetDoctor]

The mouth of Lac Cai Bay in Bonaire. We were climbing from rock to rock

 

[Diver Lori]

......entrance to Devil's Ear.

Technically, that's fllow, not current. But I know what you are saying and agree!

 

[oldschool]

This past July on Something Special Reef in Bonaire. It came out of nowhere. The first fifteen minutes into the dive, there was zero current. Then we hit a brick wall. Definitely the worst I've experienced.