How to rate visibility

[Banyan]

I love this thread because it makes me feel totally decadent. Decent local viz is maybe 60'. "Good" would be 90'. "Excellent" would be 120'+. Anything below 20' is considered horrific and requires immediately ending the dive in order to go to the nearest bar and complain.

All you folks talking about routinely diving in 30'- viz are my heroes.

 

[khblair]

I love this thread because it makes me feel totally decadent. Decent local viz is maybe 60'. "Good" would be 90'. "Excellent" would be 120'+. Anything below 20' is considered horrific and requires immediately ending the dive in order to go to the nearest bar and complain.

All you folks talking about routinely diving in 30'- viz are my heroes.

lol - thats awesome!

 

[scubajo007]

We dive the Philippine waters and the visibility varies greatly. In the dry season around Negros and southen Cebu we generally get +40ft (up to 60ft or more) at a depth down to 60ft. In the rainy season on the northen part of Luzon (100 islands) we have had a visibility less that 5ft at a depth of 10ft, well we just take that as an other experience. If we get +20ft we consider it worth to dive, but a good dive will be +40ft.

 

[jdfmail]

Spoiled...100ft is nice and common in these parts and a bad day is 30ft.

 

[Wannabespearing]

Majority of time we have 30+ here in the keys

 

[ijdod]

Usually in th 5-to-15 range, but wouldn't abort if less. Have to admit that in my log I don't give a measurement, just an indication of expectation vs actual viz, on a -- to ++ scale. So a tropical dive might rate ++, but so might a local lake, on a good day.

 

[Hank49]

There IS a formal definition of visibility, using Secchi discs, but nobody ever does that. .

Shrimp farmers use Secchi disks.
But bad diving vis in my experience is less than 60 feet. Good is more than 80. Great is over 100.

 

[emoreira]

I guess I'm just spoiled. I won't bother if the viz is less than 40 ft unless my buddy really insists upon it. The one exception is our local shore dive at the Blue Heron Bridge/Phil Foster Park. Unlike my friend and neighbor, Jupiter Mermaid who dives for free.

I was studying in Indiana and was jonesing for a dive, so I tried diving a quarry with a couple of fraternity brothers who were local. It was cold and dark. Only sights to see were dead branches (to my eyes). That is when I took up skydiving.

I admit I'm VERY spoiled. I live in a community that is bounded on the East by the Atlantic Ocean and by the Intra Coastal Waterway on the West. From the ridge in my back yard I can see the dive and fishing boats on the ledges.

I can walk to our marina and am 5 minutes from a public boat ramp and marina. Also 5 minutes from my LDS, Jupiter Dive Center. Their dock is maybe 35 ft from the back doors of the shop. If conditions are "bad", there is always tomorrow.

You lucky man !!!!
My nearest dive place is 400 kms away, a quarry with, normally, bad visibility. The alternate one (also 400 km away) could be open sea with 90 % possibilities of cancellation owing to bad sea conditions (poor to no visibility, bad weather conditions, bad sea conditions, etc).

 

[emoreira]

i think my blue algae quarry is a bit better than the one you dive in

from that cliff you can see the 2- 35' training platforms and divers

if you can get your diving before the noobs in classes muck it up the visibility is really quite good with lots of sunk items to see

Beautiful place. You lucky diver !!!

 

[emoreira]

I should consider myself a lucky diver. I dive in mud puddles. Whenever I dive in nice places with good viz I can enjoy those places a lot.
Those of you that usually dive in those warm waters with 60+ feet viz, you do not know what is good, you are not feeling what I feel when I dive places with warm water and good viz.
I'm going to cry for the next 10 months