Does clear water make you a careless diver?

[Stoo]

I was diving at the Forest City with a friend on Sunday and was blown away by the visibility. At a depth of about 128' (just at the edge of the boilers) I looked up and could see my boat clearly, with the flag fluttering in the breeze and my Better Half looking over the side! Allowing for the fact that the boat wasn't directly overhead, my best guess is that the vis. was probably in the range of 140'-150'! Clearly (pun intended) this was the best vis. either of us had seen here in a collective 50+ years of diving Tobermory.

Earlier in the dive, I was at the top of the wreck in about 60' and could see my "buddy" beside the boilers with his exhaust stream rising all the way to the surface. (I will point out that my buddy and I both dive "solo", so our buddy-team consists of being on the same wreck at the same time...)

Anyway, I got thinking that for the majority of divers that rely on a buddy when they dive (with a typical "single" configuration) does this great visibility make you a "sloppy" buddy? With Caribbean-style vis., are you inclined to stray further from your buddy than you normally would? And considering the depth and water temperature, does this put you at greater risk? Somehow this seems likely to me, and somewhat ironic...

Back in the good old days, "good" visibility on the FC might have been 15', so a team was "forced" to stay close or risk becoming separated, causing them to abort the dive.

Any thoughts?

 

[NadMat]

I was diving at the Forest City with a friend on Sunday and was blown away by the visibility. At a depth of about 128' (just at the edge of the boilers) I looked up and could see my boat clearly, with the flag fluttering in the breeze and my Better Half looking over the side! Allowing for the fact that the boat wasn't directly overhead, my best guess is that the vis. was probably in the range of 140'-150'! Clearly (pun intended) this was the best vis. either of us had seen here in a collective 50+ years of diving Tobermory.

Earlier in the dive, I was at the top of the wreck in about 60' and could see my "buddy" beside the boilers with his exhaust stream rising all the way to the surface. (I will point out that my buddy and I both dive "solo", so our buddy-team consists of being on the same wreck at the same time...)

Anyway, I got thinking that for the majority of divers that rely on a buddy when they dive (with a typical "single" configuration) does this great visibility make you a "sloppy" buddy? With Caribbean-style vis., are you inclined to stray further from your buddy than you normally would? And considering the depth and water temperature, does this put you at greater risk? Somehow this seems likely to me, and somewhat ironic...

Back in the good old days, "good" visibility on the FC might have been 15', so a team was "forced" to stay close or risk becoming separated, causing them to abort the dive.

Any thoughts?

Back home in the local watering holes, vis is normally 6-12 ft avg, buddy usually sticks close (2-6'), otherwise you loose 'em When diving in excess of 40 ft' vis, buddy may get 10-20 ft away, but as long as remains a couple a kicks away that is fine with me. As long as buddy is easy to locate and reach, safety is not compromised.

But I can see how the siren of great viz could tempt some divers not used to it to possibly stray farther than they should from buddy. In poor viz, the allowable distance to buddy is sight limited, while in great viz it is limited by time to get to them in an emergency.

 

[shoredivr]

Dang, Stoo, that was great viz! That's a great mental image of one of my favourite wrecks in the area. Viz was pretty good on the May long weekend, too.

To answer your actual question, no, if I'm with a buddy I tend to keep the same distance no matter what the viz....

But really, my mind is drawn back to that image of great viz on the Forest City.....

 

[Stoo]

Viz was pretty good on the May long weekend, too.

It seems like the water clarity has generally been improving for the past few years. I presume that this is the result of the effects of less pollution, zebra mussels and the generally dryer summers. With the heavy snow this year, I really expected the water to be a little murky this spring, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

I was diving over May 24 as well, and did a couple of dives on the Arabia which also had 100'+ vis.

As for the buddy team issue, I was south twice this past winter and it seemed like many of the pairs were often 40 or 50 feet apart... presumably too far to be much assistance amd I was wondering if this "sloppy" approach might spread up here...