2007 Remembered - Your Best Dive

[Mack Diver]

As an instructor and the owner of a dive shop, my diving is predominately limited to instructional check out dives. That is not to say that I don't get to do any "fun" diving or that I don't enjoy doing check out dives. Simply, most of my underwater time is spent in 20 - 30 feet of fresh water, watching new divers demonstrate their skills to me. That being said, it comes down to a tie for my favorite dive of 2007.

After DEMA, my wife and I took a day trip and I got to dive Ginny Springs. The clear 72 degree water reminded me of Aquarena Springs, in San Marcos, where I take many students for check out dives. The big difference was that Ginny was a little deeper at 49' and there was an overhead environment. Still, it was a great experience and I was able to enjoy my underwater time without constantly monitoring the other divers in the water.

My other favorite was actually during the check out dives for a couple of Open Water classes that I taught this year. In both cases I had a student that was apprehensive about diving up to and including the first day of check out dives. The students were comfortable with their skills, but the knowledge that they would be in water that was considerably over their head tended to boost the anxiety level. What made the dives great in each case was to see the look on their face after they completed the mask flooding skills without panic. You could tell that the little light bulb had gone off in their head that "Hey, I CAN do this". One of those students came back to the shop a couple of months after her certification and spent the next hour telling my wife and I about the wonderful dives she and her husband had enjoyed in Belize. Thats enough to justify renewing my instructor cert for another year

 

[Walter]

May 13, Crocker Reef off Tavernier in the Florida Keys. As we cruised one way along the bottom of the ledge, a 12 ft Sawfish was coming the other direction. Awesome experience!

 

[Sonofasailor]

A tie between:

1) my first trip out of two to the Mexican Pride this year (photos courtesy of MissD)...I've never seen water this blue in Florida before.

2) a dive at Casino Point in Catalina...briefly lost my buddy Dr Miguel in the kelp (photos courtesy of him) when I ran into a Black Sea Bass that makes a Goliath Grouper look like the little brother you pick on...this giant followed us for a good 15-20 minutes and would get within spittin' distance of us.

Cheers.

-J.-

thats a huge BSB!



favorite dive of 07? Jackson Blue cave in Marianna, FL.

 

[scubafool]

My first cave dive into the Peacock Springs system. 700 feet down the mainline on the Pothole line. I did a writeup on it that you can find here: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cave-diving/188277-s-all-been-worth.html

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

Probably my next one.

 

[Gary D.]

All the best dives are the ones where I come back to the surface with the same amount of people I went down with.

Gary D.

 

[mikerault]

Hands down, the worst dive was on 9/9/2007 when I lost my Canon 20D DSLR with the ikelite housing and twin DS51 strobes on a "typical" Lake Lanier, Georgia five. The best dive was on 10/27/2007 when I found the camera....

Mike

 

[rawls]

I had some great dives this past year with some great people...but my best was with one of my open water students...Molly. The last day of open water she couldn't clear. She was an intern at Duke Marine Lab and was with 3 other fellow interns who did get their certs. I could see her disappointment in her eyes but as she had always been, she was greatful and always said thank you. I felt really bad. She did great in the pool and aced her final exam, but she had some problems clearing. I saw her getting ready to leave and I pulled her aside and told her I would drive back to Beaufort on Tuesday to finish up if she wanted to. A big smile came across her face along with a skip out of the dive shop. We went to Radio Island on Tuesday. There was a thunderstorm in the morning and as we were walking down the beach the clouds broke and there were huge white cumulonimbus clouds and the background was pure pink. I have never seen the sky like that. I went down and set the buoy line and the visibility was 20 feet which is about as good as it gets at Radio Island. I knew it was going to be a magical day. I came back up and asked Molly if she was ready. She was nervous and I said...Molly...It's just me and you and this is your time and we have plenty of it. We headed over the rocks and she had a small bit of trouble clearing at the top but she relaxed and got to the sand without any further problems. She was so excited I think she probably peed in her wetsuit. We swam over to the buoy line and she did the most flawless CESA I have ever seen a student do. When our heads broke the surface she yelled THAT WAS GREAT!!!! I said congratulations Molly, you are now a certified open water diver. I wouldn't have taken a million dollars to miss seeing the look in her eyes. We went back down and spent the rest of the time u/w exploring the jetty. I took her back to the dive shop, gave her certification card to her and drove her back to Duke Marine Lab. The dreamy look in her eyes said it all. She gave me a big hug and as she always did throughout the whole class she said Thank You

That was my best dive of the season...one I will never forget

 

[mkutyna]

My best dive was today. It was a pretty standard dive for me and my buddies going into Lower Orange Grove until the end. About halfway through the dive I signaled to one of my buddies that I was going to test my brother with an emergency out of air signal (reg out of mouth, slashing at throat) during our lazy ascent at 40 ft. He OK'ed it and we proceeded with our dive.

On our ascent I did as planned and swam up to my brother doing the OOA signal. I was figuring he'd deploy his octo and I'd get some air. What I get is a blank stare back at me.
I continued doing the throat slash more earnestly now and am still met with a blank stare. Then I decide to start tugging at his octo hoping that he'd get the hint. Still nothing. Eventually I just rip his octo from it's clip (it was harder to pull out than I thought it'd be) and take a few breaths. The whole time he's just looking at me with this "***" expression on his face. After I take my few breaths I return his octo to him and switch back to my primary.

Not necessarily funny at this point but when I turn to look at my other buddy he's doubled over laughing his ass off. It occured to me that it was pretty damned funny, me "dying" and my brother just staring at me. He endured quite a bit of ribbing when we surfaced. I'll have to make sure and be prepared because I'm sure he'll do the same to me sometime soon.

 

[String]

Done roughly 250 i guess this year. By far the best was one of the first. Combination of perfect weather and tides me a 30nm offshore site possible. And for 45 minute just constant playing with seals.

The 4.5 hour tow back due to broken boat wasnt highlight of that trip though!