Egomaniacs

[100ydacvp]

Can someone tell me, why? & how? Can some divers criticize other divers over their choice of diving preferences.. for example “a dive buddy of mine has logged over 250 fresh water dives as deep as 222 feet in lakes and at the bottom of some dam’s, another dive buddy of mine has logged about the same number off the NC/SC coast doing deep and wreck diving..
So here is the problem, they just cannot get along, the sea diver calls the fresh diver not a real diver and the fresh diver tells the ocean diver to get the salt out of his ass.
Is there any real..And I mean REAL difference between the two, there both water and both can kill you just as quick if you’re not up to the challenge . please do not tell me the easy answers.

 

[gcbryan]

There isn't a real answer to this. It sounds like the ocean diver has an attitude problem on the one hand but yes, there is a real difference between the two. I'm not saying one or the other is harder since there are a lot of other variables but diving in a lake is different than diving in the open ocean.

The answer that you suspect is correct (and is) is that the ocean diver has some kind of personality problem.

 

[ivobj]

Yes, there is a difference... you need less weight to dive fresh water other than that I see no difference, we are all divers...

 

[HowardE]

Fresh water is for drinking.

 

[Doc Harry]

There is a huge difference. Half of my dives are in fresh-water reservoirs because that's what's nearby. But I do a lot of deep open-ocean dives too. The dives off NC coast are infinitely more complicated and difficult than reservoir dives. The current and ocean conditions are major factors.

 

[FritzCat66]

Fresh water is for drinking.

...and for rinsing your gear after some good saltwater dives.


Seriously, here in Florida there's all kinds of opportunity for both fresh & salt diving, and lots of folks do both. Many divers have preferences one way or the other, but variety is the spice of life.

Also, there's a good deal of ribbing that goes on between divers of different stripes: salt vs. fresh, rec vs. tech, DIN vs. yoke, splits vs. paddles. etc. I don't know the guys you're referring to, but it's also possible you're reading them more seriously than they intend.

I was giving one of my tech buddies all kinds of hell this past weekend for diving doubles on a drift reef ("You planning to sell air underwater???"), and anyone who heard us "arguing" might have thought we both had some serious issues, but we knew we were just poking one another.

 

[ptyx]

Both are noobs.
Only internet diving is the real stuff.

 

[DaleC]

I dive both (and take some good natured ribbing because of it). I'm just curious as to what's down there.
From a solo perspective, I find lakes to generally have lower vis, seem "gloomier", and to be a lot quieter. This may be due to the isolated nature of the dive sites. To me they seem tomb like and the challenge is diving into unknown terrain. On the plus side there are no large predators to bump into and no currents to deal with.
If you have a naturalist bent and pay attention to detail there is plenty to see down there... and no rinsing.

 

[jtivat]

There is a huge difference. Half of my dives are in fresh-water reservoirs because that's what's nearby. But I do a lot of deep open-ocean dives too. The dives off NC coast are infinitely more complicated and difficult than reservoir dives. The current and ocean conditions are major factors.

I don't believe the salt is making those dives different it might be one is a small body of confined water and one is not. Come dive eleven miles off shore in Lake Michigan when the water is 39 degrees top to bottom.

 

[Doc Harry]

I don't believe the salt is making those dives different it might be one is a small body of confined water and one is not. Come dive eleven miles off shore in Lake Michigan when the water is 39 degrees top to bottom.

Agreed. I consider Lake Michigan diving to be just like open-ocean diving, like my dive on the SS Wexford last year:

I dive both (and take some good natured ribbing because of it). I'm just curious as to what's down there.
From a solo perspective, I find lakes to generally have lower vis, seem "gloomier", and to be a lot quieter. This may be due to the isolated nature of the dive sites. To me they seem tomb like and the challenge is diving into unknown terrain. On the plus side there are no large predators to bump into and no currents to deal with.
If you have a naturalist bent and pay attention to detail there is plenty to see down there... and no rinsing.

Agreed, I find soloing in a deep dark lake to be a lot spookier than soloing in the ocean. But rinsing is necessary, to avoid transferring pests and non-native species from one body of water to another, e.g, zebra mussles like these:

My point is that open water diving (ocean, large lakes) is much different than diving in a quarry, smaller lake or reservoir.