First Scooter Dive... Success?

[Guy Alcala]

^^^What she said. Thanks Allison

The leg from the Barge to the Met fields is the one I usually dislike.. It's very long and devoid of landmarks. It's also one of my most memorable... I can vividly remember a night scooter with Jonathan and Nils... 3 scooters wing on wing over the sand with brittle star arms reaching out of the sand... pitch black with just the sound of bubbles, beams of lights sweeping back and forth and the comforting whir or the scooters...

Ben, when I swim the Grand Circuit I head for the two metridium reefs that are just over 1/2 way between the barge and the metridium fields proper. One's just inside the 50' counter (which wraps around it), the other is east and slightly north of that, about midway between the 50' and 60' contours:

http://www.divemonterey.info/Images/BreakwaterMap.pdf

I normally aim for the rightmost one, so that if I'm off course to the left I'll still probably hit/see the one on the left (depending on vis). If I'm off course to the right I'll probably hit the less distinct reef (no metridium on it) just to the northeast. This breaks the trip to the metridium fields up into two legs, and gives you something to look at along the way. It's good nav. practice too, as these are smaller targets than the whole metridium fields.

Guy

 

[ae3753]

If you only scooter to sites you have kicked to before, then you can't actually use the scooter to extend your range. I suspect Ben meant that his rule is a good one to follow when you are "new" to scootering, though it's not clear to me when one is suddenly no longer new. I think a better rule is to take small steps in terms of going to new places. E.g. don't scooter to Twin Peaks if you have never been past Hole in the Wall.

Mike, the issue that I think Ben is trying to point out isn't just a matter of having another scooter to tow you back. It's also a matter of knowing where the hell you are at any given point on a dive. If your buddy takes you out 20 minutes on the trigger to a site you've never been to before, are you going to be able to lead the team back if you have to? Depends on how complex the navigation is, obviously (the navigation to the barge, for instance, isn't exactly complex). I do a lot of my navigation by landmark, and it's hard for me absorb a lot of that on the trigger. So I like to scooter out to a spot I know, kick around for a while, and then next time I will know all of the area I knew before, plus the part I kicked around in.

I think it is also nice to have an idea of what kind of kick you may be in for if your scooter dies, especially when you have someone newer to scootering on the team, who may not be comfortable with a long tow if there is a failure.

As far as bringing you to places that are over your head, people need to exercise good judgment about their ability to do a dive whether they are scootering or not

Allison

Great post. While we did the Grand Tour at BW, it's easy to be lulled into thinking that scootering is simple or worse, safe. A long scooter ride at BW is very different than a long scooter ride anywhere else in Monterey/Carmel. Progressive extension is the most prudent way to dive.

 

[Ben_ca]

So where's the pictures and video?

 

[Ben_ca]

Guy,
I've probably hit that patch before... just didn't hang around too long... was it small ish reefs no higher than 2 ft or so?

Ben, when I swim the Grand Circuit I head for the two metridium reefs that are just over 1/2 way between the barge and the metridium fields proper. One's just inside the 50' counter (which wraps around it), the other is east and slightly north of that, about midway between the 50' and 60' contours:

http://www.divemonterey.info/Images/BreakwaterMap.pdf

I normally aim for the rightmost one, so that if I'm off course to the left I'll still probably hit/see the one on the left (depending on vis). If I'm off course to the right I'll probably hit the less distinct reef (no metridium on it) just to the northeast. This breaks the trip to the metridium fields up into two legs, and gives you something to look at along the way. It's good nav. practice too, as these are smaller targets than the whole metridium fields.

Guy

 

[ae3753]

So where's the pictures and video?

[youtubehq]zquopVePP8g[/youtubehq]

Viz wasn't this bad, the SD980is doesn't do well in lower light conditions.

Now that we've shown ours, are you going to show yours? Nicely done this weekend.

 

[ae3753]

Ben, when I swim the Grand Circuit I head for the two metridium reefs that are just over 1/2 way between the barge and the metridium fields proper. One's just inside the 50' counter (which wraps around it), the other is east and slightly north of that, about midway between the 50' and 60' contours:

http://www.divemonterey.info/Images/BreakwaterMap.pdf

I normally aim for the rightmost one, so that if I'm off course to the left I'll still probably hit/see the one on the left (depending on vis). If I'm off course to the right I'll probably hit the less distinct reef (no metridium on it) just to the northeast. This breaks the trip to the metridium fields up into two legs, and gives you something to look at along the way. It's good nav. practice too, as these are smaller targets than the whole metridium fields.

Guy

Thanks, Guy.

Will shoot for the two metridium reefs next time. We varied a little from our usual dive as Cynthia took us to the deeper fields. Scootering our way back, passing fields and fields of metridium was quite spectacular though.

 

[Ben_ca]

Viz wasn't this bad, the SD980is doesn't do well in lower light conditions.

Now that we've shown ours, are you going to show yours? Nicely done this weekend.

Thanks... it surely wasn't our best performance though

LoL any video of me and my team has been sequestered thankfully. The boat ramp at Lobos did look like a BAUE board of directors meeting though... I can report to Peter that the Worm patch was beautiful this weekend

and the boat guys (Chuck and Peter) kept teasing us with fairy tales of Whales and Dolphins outside the cove...

I'm glad you guys had a great run. Thanks for the video....

Was that you in jets fins, doubles and an HID light?

 

[supersand]

Good dive. Wing on wing 6 wide on the scooters sort of reminded me of lawnmowers or wheat combines bringing in the crops. I agree with Mike strange not to be able to see across the whole formation while we were cruising along, but everyone stuck together pretty well. If ever there was an argument for a really strong light this has to be one, it's pretty invaluable for keeping everyone in contact.

Thanks for posting up the video Don. I agree vis seemed better than the video reveals.

Erik

 

[Hepcat62]

Video Was Here

LOL... Don managed to find ~10 seconds worth of footage where I didn't look completely worthless. Thanks for the flattering editing!

The vis was definitely significantly better than the video would seem to indicate. To comment on the earlier discussion (thanks for the great post Allison), the major learning I came away from this weekend with is that scootering is HARD. It might be a bit less demanding physically when compared to kicking the equivalent distance, but it's mentally a SIGNIFICANT step-up in difficulty. It became pretty obvious to me pretty quickly that the amount of situational awareness involved in diving a team of 6 scooters across a relatively landmark-free stretch is significant, and was definitely a bit beyond my current skill level. Fortunately I had a really great wingman who was always pointing me in the direction of the other teammates I was veering away from. Cover me Goose!

Here are some things (in no particular order) that I found particularly challenging. I expected some of them, and some of them were surprises to me.

1. As Don reminded me after the dive (but I was already TOO aware), scootering gives you a crazy sense of false neutral. I wasn't dumping nearly often enough when our depth was decreasing.
2. Doing anything specific (e.g. dumping) while scootering, especially with 5 other scooters to keep from colliding with, is a lot more difficult than it sounds.
3. Maintaining formation with a scooter is hard - speed magnifies everything you do wrong.
4. Matching speed can be difficult. Don's Sierra was running a good bit slower than mine at times. At first I was doing a lot of start-stop driving, but eventually I got into the rhythm of shifting down. The controls are really easy to understand, but when you're just starting out and you KNOW that letting go of the switch will stop, you might instinctually do start-stop scootering for a bit like I did.
5. Never having dived with a stage (or really anything large) clipped off to the side of me, swimming with a Sierra clipped off on my right was AWKWARD.
6. Weighting on a scooter is crucial - especially when clipped off. Mine was a tad heavy, and that made swimming while clipped off even MORE AWKWARD.
7. Feeling somebody else's prop-wash on your face is highly disconcerting. It's a lot of water rushing by, but it also signals impending impact (I always managed to stop in time, but had a couple close ones).

So yeah - NOT EASY. I still wouldn't trade it for the world though. I'm very excited to start working out the kinks and get better and better at this. Like Don mentioned, flying over the metridium fields was really beautiful, in a different way than kicking can really deliver. Not necessarily better, but definitely different.

 

[mikemill]

One thing that made me giddy afterwards was that my buoyancy control was good. Every time we came to a stop I didn't feel that I was that far from neutral.

That dive is the dive I've been wanting for a long time. One nice long dive where we got to take our time, enjoy things, and not fight the weather. It was great.

Brian I feel ya on the clipping off. I think I might re-weight mind to be a little more positive. The real problem I'm having is that it is so long that I'm hitting it while frog kicking. Need to look to see if the tow cord is keeping it down though. I kinda like a shorter cord so it might be limiting it.

The learning part for me was actually on the sweeping turns. Since I was on the inside of any lefts (the only turns that seemed to cause problems for me) I had to recognize the degree of turn and more than once just stop, helicopter, then get back.

Oh and on the way back dodging kelp stalks in decreasing vis was fun

Thanks for the video Don.

Oh and buddy awareness question of the day: Who recognize that my wing was leaking at the hose? Erik did (and I did because I could hear it the entire dive ).