Are you an EXPERIENCED recreational diver?

[Dody]

I sorry to disappoint you, but your not doing the planning, the guide is. Planning is more than selecting a date, time and site. It involves research into weather, tides, currents, topography, etc. Then access, egress, depth, times, not forgetting gas management need to be included. There are other aspects I’ve not mentioned.

I do it all except that I don’t make any research. The weather is always the same at this time of the year and the only available information is temperature, tide and wind speed. I ask the guide to give me the intel I need. Seabed public info is limited. So the guide tells me, here there should be mild or no current. Or here, the currents can be strong. Then, on site, I decide if I want to dive (only if we have a boat and viz is good. No dive with strong current from shore even reef dive), refine the plan with directions, Poi, depth, bottom times with a main exit plan and contingency. I do full gas management. I am very thorough. Sometimes, too much for the guides

 

[Edward3c]

I do it all except that I don’t make any research. The weather is always the same at this time of the year and the only available information is temperature, tide and wind speed. I ask the guide to give me the intel I need. Seabed public info is limited. So the guide tells me, here there should be mild or no current. Or here, the currents can be strong. Then, on site, I decide if I want to dive (only if we have a boat and viz is good. No dive with strong current from shore even reef dive), refine the plan with directions, Poi, depth, bottom times with a main exit plan and contingency. I do full gas management. I am very thorough. Sometimes, too much for the guides

That's all good,

But your not at the stage where you are confident about your planning, because you are getting confirmation from a guide. Nothing wrong in that, but at some point you might want to go to the next level and become fully independent.

There are many dives where I’ve done all the planning for a site none of the party have dived before. That’s the exiting thing about new sites is not knowing what you will see/find. I did one back in October , when still allowed to travel, it turned out to be a desolate sloping bottom to 40m. The only positive was this critter (see image).

 

[Dody]

Not fully proficient to go anywhere at anytime without guidance, no. Too many variables that I don’t master. For example, I would hate having to surface and be dragged into the open sea by very strong currents with little hope for rescue. But when I ask my instructors to experience strong currents so that I learn what to do, their answer is always: strong currents = no dive.

 

[David Novo]

Not fully proficient to go anywhere at anytime without guidance, no. Too many variables that I don’t master. For example, I would hate having to surface and be dragged into the open sea by very strong currents with little hope for rescue. But when I ask my instructors to experience strong currents so that I learn what to do, their answer is always: strong currents = no dive.

Maybe in Cape Verde you do not dive with strong currents, but that is not true in other parts of the World.
It can also be the case that there is a strong current on the surface but not on the bottom. With a shot line or negative entry, it is not hard to dive in that case.
With a strong current on the bottom, you can drift dive.

 

[Edward3c]

Not fully proficient to go anywhere at anytime without guidance, no. Too many variables that I don’t master. For example, I would hate having to surface and be dragged into the open sea by very strong currents with little hope for rescue. But when I ask my instructors to experience strong currents so that I learn what to do, their answer is always: strong currents = no dive.

Learn how to read and interpret charts, they will forewarn you of currents or buy an almanac covering the places you plan to dive.

The no dive because of a current sounds like an instructor with limited experience. To do a drift dive requires current. They can be done from the shore. Earlier in the year we went 2 miles up-current placed our kit on the shore, drove the cars to the exit point then walked back and had a smashing dive. On another occasion we went in before low water, drifted down the Loch when the tide turned we drifted back up to the entry point.

There is one dive site where we drift North at 30m then ascend to 15m and drift back to the entry point.

These are the type of skills we, BSAC, expect our Advance Divers to have.

 

[Dody]

The no dive because of a current sounds like an instructor with limited experience.

I should have been more specific. He was talking about dives which are not drift dives and more importantly when we don’t have a boat.
Here, in Praia, if you are lost at sea, you are basically dead. No Search and Rescue team (no dedicated boat, no helicopter in the island, very little fish boats, no radio), very light commercial traffic. They don’t do Rescue. They do Recovery with very few successes. It might be different in some other Cape Verde islands but I am not even sure as there is no decompression chamber in the entire archipelago even though a lot of tourists come from the entire world diving in Boavista, Sal, Sao Vicente and Santo Antao.

 

[Edward3c]

I should have been more specific. He was talking about dives which are not drift dives and more importantly when we don’t have a boat.
Here, in Praia, if you are lost at sea, you are basically dead. No Search and Rescue team (no dedicated boat, no helicopter in the island, very little fish boats, no radio), very light commercial traffic. They don’t do Rescue. They do Recovery with very few successes. It might be different in some other Cape Verde islands but I am not even sure as there is no decompression chamber in the entire archipelago even though a lot of tourists come from the entire world diving in Boavista, Sal, Sao Vicente and Santo Antao.

That does put a different prospective on things.

You should have some fantastic underwater scenery? What about tourists

 

[Dody]

That does put a different prospective on things.

You should have some fantastic underwater scenery? What about tourists

This is what we have here. The shots are not from me bit from another SB member.
https://flic.kr/s/aHsm9WYxvq

 

[Searcaigh]

This is what we have here.

Some nice nudis there ..... damn that's another place on my never ending list

 

[Aviyes]

5- Water entry and exit when sea is rough.

Lots of variables. Boat: Ladder type/size, direction of current/weather in relation to anchor line, etc.

I remember being on the T&C EX2 and surfacing as a squall hit. I had to drag myself up the tag line, didn't remove fins, timed the ladder and climbed it sideways/backwards. It was quite a fun challenge at the end of the dive. I was laughing all the while.