undrwater
Contributor
If the dive site was unknown to myself and buddy, I wouldn't feel prepared to dive there.
To add: I almost always shore dive.
Did your OW course prepare you to dive?
- Thread starter Cthippo
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To add: I almost always shore dive.
If you don't know anything about a dive site, you are not prepared to dive there, no matter how much training you have.
I was a technical instructor with more than 800 dives when I dived in Puget Sound. I absolutely needed the local knowledge of the friends with whom I dove.
If you had a good dive map would you be comfortable diving? Is the content in this document helpful? .
If not, I'd love feedback on how I could improve it.
You need tide information. If you have never dived where tides matter (and I bet most people have not), that map won't help.
Did you actually read the document? Or is this simply insufficient? Spread over pages 30-31.
For low current dive sites, an excellent and popular website is
PYD. In the future, when planning dives that are more
advanced due to potential current and thus require more precise planning, a better
source is NOAA Current Predictions - Current Predictions. I recommend
choosing tide windows where the currents are less than a knot, preferably half a knot or
less. Another useful site for the entire continental United States is
Sorry! Just saw the front page and didn't realize there was more.Did you actually read the document? Or is this simply insufficient? Spread over pages 30-31.
For low current dive sites, an excellent and popular website is
PYD. In the future, when planning dives that are more
advanced due to potential current and thus require more precise planning, a better
source is NOAA Current Predictions - Current Predictions. I recommend
choosing tide windows where the currents are less than a knot, preferably half a knot or
less. Another useful site for the entire continental United States is
undrwater
Contributor
A good dive map is useful. A local who dives the site regularly is priceless.
The two sites in your PDF; (a LOT of great info there, thanks) keystone and Edmunds have some good info (like wind direction), but I'd want compass headings and info about the contour, etc...
Edmonds is soooo flat (long surface swim, impossible to get lost, lots of things to see but requires decent viz).
I get you, and that requires a good map. I don't know about dive maps in your area. Usually these are put together by DM candidates as part of their DMC program and get collected/stored on various sites.
These folks: Coastal Sensing & Survey are producing some nice scans that can be useful to divers. Not sure if anything like that exists in your area.
But yes, good dive maps are key.
OMyMyOHellYes
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Locally& elsewhere I have solo dived shallow shore sites that were new to me. I used online info. from various sources, as well as googling satellite maps -- you can see the basic bottom terrain. If a site was new to me I proceeded with much caution, even though I rarely exceed 30'. Tides usually are not a problem on the East (or Gulf) Coast of U.S. & Canada unless you are diving in an inlet.
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