Dangerous- or not?

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Part of becoming an experienced diver is to learn to calculate the compound effect of multiple risk vs the benefit (enjoyment) of the dive and call a marginal dive. I struggled with this at times all the way to 100 dives and even now I sometimes make a bad decision because I love diving.

There is no single issue that by itself would cause the to thumb the dive, but the combination would have. Example: 2ft vis is acceptable if you are searching for fossils or artifacts if all other conditions are good. Same conditions are for lets look at the pretty fish dive is pointless. Add the night conditions, the surge the expected deterioration in conditions and your small experience with night dives and you are simply asking for something to go wrong.

You came out well, so its a "learning experience"

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Part of becoming an experienced diver is to learn to calculate the compound effect of multiple risk vs the benefit (enjoyment) of the dive and call a marginal dive. I struggled with this at times all the way to 100 dives and even now I sometimes make a bad decision because I love diving.

There is no single issue that by itself would cause the to thumb the dive, but the combination would have. Example: 2ft vis is acceptable if you are searching for fossils or artifacts if all other conditions are good. Same conditions are for lets look at the pretty fish dive is pointless. Add the night conditions, the surge the expected deterioration in conditions and your small experience with night dives and you are simply asking for something to go wrong.

You came out well, so its a "learning experience"

Agree with this. the OP is asking us if what he did was "dangerous". Kinda silly really. Any time you go underwater with life support equipment... or even enter the ocean... it is not completely "safe".

Divers need to perform a Risk/Reward analysis for a dive.... Does the risk justify the reward (and for most the reward is "fun").

Was the dive fun? Would YOU do it again?

Sometimes we need to do dives where we get out and say "that wasn't worth it, I would have been better off eating popcorn and watching TV". We learn the hard way that a dive like that had too little fun and too much risk.

Everyone has to make their own decision. I personally would not enjoy diving with a buddy in 1-2 ft vis. 95% of the effort would be directed toward staying together. For super low vis, I would prefer to be alone, because I have the ability to concentrate on the environment, not on some other "fool".

I personally would not engage in recreational diving in 1-2 ft vis in a very surgy environment. If the water is super calm like a lake or quarry, it is very different.

It is just way too easy to get thrust into something sharp or dangerous or thrown into a fishing net. Maybe it is silly to worry about a fishing net, but in those conditions, a net can be pushed into you, even if you are stationary and holding onto the bottom.

Dives like that are EXCELLENT at developing some skills and confidence, but they should also serve to help you develop the ability to make smart decisions about what conditions are appropriate for you to dive in.

 

[keithbt]

You have experienced it and now are a low viz night diver. 40 minutes of this would be a very great deal of navigational skills. Also what your 2' vis might be another divers 5' vis, so in essence there was enough vis to actually keep you diving, cause if not you would ascend up to the beach and end the dive on your own decision.

More or less your scuba friends are only stating this cause you are new divers, of course now you passed this and now have first hand of this dive condition. Keep it up as you and your buddy should do well in diving.

perfectly said

 

[flots am]

My 23 year old son an I are newer divers who have been recently certified as AOW and night divers. We each have
40+ dives under different conditions. This last week we did our first night dive " by ourselves" from a location we are
familiar with at Malibu beach. We checked the local swell report and weather report. We knew the rain was coming
and the weather would be changing, however the waves were the same size as when we did our training. When we

As long as you can safely end the dive, surface any time you want and return to the boat/shore, you're fine.

flots.

 

[spectrum]

More or less your scuba friends are only stating this cause you are new divers, of course now you passed this and now have first hand of this dive condition. Keep it up as you and your buddy should do well in diving.

Speaking for myself the experience level of the OP had little to do with my sentiment. He stated,"We knew the rain was coming and the weather would be changing, however the waves were the same size as when we did our training.". That is a red flag.

A few years ago we went for a pair of afternoon shore dives knowing a storm was coming in. The conditions we nice but a wind shift was forecasted and the storm could be seen on radar. We went out and had a nice 1 hour dive. As we entered the shallows of the cove the rollers kinked in and the surge made for a wild ride. Removing fins and walking out of the water was difficult. Before we could change (we immediately scratched dive 2) the place was rocking and rolling.

On a night dive when in many was visibility is limited for the divers and any shore support the risks are elevated in many ways. Some times the best dive decision is to not dive.

Pete

 

[AfterDark]

Location, location. Some adverse conditions are less or more risky depending on the location. A rocky shore line is no place to dive day or night with a coming storm. However a sandy beach it isn't such a concern. If I thumbed every dive that was 1-2 ft vis I'd been doing a lot of kitting up and kitting down after a 2min dive. You did it without issues so as someone asked, would you do it again? That's the only question you should ask yourself. Every dive isn't perfect the only way to know what dive is or isn't worth doing it is to do it. Night diving is always 0 vis until you turn on your light, then it's as far as your light shines regardless what the real vis is. So 2 ft I live it and make the most of it around here that means ROCK LOBSTERS!

 

[TMHeimer]

I agree with most. Any surge and 1-2 foot viz for me is no fun anyway. But since things were predicted to worsen, I'd say it was dangerous. I've been in worse viz than that many times, a couple of times in: basically you can't see your hand a half inch from your mask. You don't do that long, but if there's no surge it's just a boring exercise. Even very mild surge in one foot viz can smack you unexpectedly into a rock or something.

 

[Doomnova]

I think myself I would have called this one and gone home. Simply the weather was known to be getting worse some time which could be sooner or later than forecast if that has happen things could have gotten ugly pretty fast. Add in the low vis I really do not think it would have been too fun of a dive. If it had been surge and good vis or low vis and no surge I would be alot more willing to go but both being bad. I tend to think about worse case events and if one of those were to happen during the dive in those conditions I'm not sure I could handle them with both of those conditions.

 

[Altamira]

"Did we do something dangerous - or not?."
In my experience with diving and other hazardous endeavors, if you have to ask that question, the answer is usually YES.

 

[Stoo]

This reminds me of a favorite phrase I used to use when I was teaching: "Experience is what you gain immediately after you needed it!"...

If you had fun, and returned when and where you wanted to, then you done good! And you are wiser for it.

Having said that, the willingness to call a dive is the Hallmark of a sensible diver. Don't let bravado override common sense.

Many years ago, I was going to dive with my original high school dive buddy. (He had pursued a career in commercial diving and at the time was doing sat dives to about 700' in the North Sea....) He was sitting at the edge of the hole, suited up, tethered and ready to go. Then he looked at me, and said he wasn't up for it that day. I'll never forget that...