Guy,
Thanks for your hard work on the detailed BW map... I'll have to look for some of those landmarks next time.
Fofo,
That's a pretty fast clip... No wonder you guys weren't getting cold... I never really timed my kick speed... maybe I'll do that next time I'm travelling a known distance.
Ben
You're welcome, Ben, but doing the map was mainly a way to keep myself entertained, and I had a lot of help: Fofo and Matt in the water surveying/buoying, and Ben Troxell taking the GPS readings from his Kayak and doing all the computer work to actually make the map.
60-70 ft./min. is considerably below my measured pace along a 100' tape, although I'm not doing compass nav. then. Just swimming the tape in my current configuration (dry suit etc.), it took me 48 (up) and 51 seconds (back) to swim 100', or ~ 2 fps at a cruising pace. In a wetsuit it'd be faster. Note that we're using a standard flutter kick for these transits, not a DIR-type kick which would be a lot slower. I'm normally about 5' above the bottom to avoid silting. Using a compass would drop that 100+ fpm to maybe 80 fpm, I'd guess. On a long leg I'd expect those figures to drop somewhat - the drop to 60-70 fpm is probably due to pausing at the end of each 25 K.C.s (~100') to make a hashmark on my slate, check the alignment of my compass, look at the sea lions, etc. Along the line, which IIRR Matt Warren and I taped once at 480', we did about 80fpm (six minutes end-to-end) with no need to navigate or note distance. I need to do the dive again solo soon and see how things compare, and check my dive log for the past dives.
I think one of the reasons that Fofo was so warm, in addition to his (actually) dry suit and thick undergarment, is that he was in a lot draggier configuration than I was, pushing doubles and a can light while keeping up with me (single, no can light). Ordinarily his SAC is better than mine, but IIRR we wound up using the same amount of gas on this dive, where he'd usually have 3-6 cu. ft. more than me at the end.
Guy
