Interpreting Buoy Station Info

[Charlie99]

:bawling:

3-4 feet sounds better, but a wave interval of 10 seconds, is that too much?

For surface conditions, the longer the period the better ... long period swells are nice and round. Short period waves have sharp fronts.

OTOH, the longer the period of a swell, the further down into the water column it reaches and the more likely it is to stir up the bottom. See this post by FredT.

 

[DandyDon]

I have a hubby (who dives) and 2 teenagers who don't. I don't have a pickup; we have an Infinity and a Pontiac Bonneville and I'm not sure if I can pull a trailer with them. We took our 2 kids to St. John last year and I don't even want to think about how much it cost. We can drive to Florida in 12 hours. That would work for a week long vacation, but I have to see about how much it will cost vs. hotels.

Then again, if we fly to Florida, we can justify leaving the kids here....

I'm heading out the door to go diving in Huntsville.

Okay, with a diving hubby in the trailer, camping security will be better, and you'll have someone else to handle the jack! Don't think you'd want to drag it to the other end of Floriday. A trailer for 4, though, would be a bigger deal. Maybe you could leave it parked near the quary, and pay someone to pull it out on weekends?

The $50 room at Hungry Pelican, Key Largo is small for one, way too small for two; need a $85 room.

 

[TheRedHead]

Dandy Don:

It usually takes a villa to hold all of us for a week. Plus airfare for 4 people and the costs add up quickly. I can buy a Winnebago on ebay. It would pay for itself in 5 trips.

When my kids go off to college, then we can sell the house and go tooling around the country's dive spots while working from my notebook computer during surface intervals. Can you get high-speed satelite connections? Yeah, that's the ticket. I can check the NOAA buoys from the Winnebago and be prepared to dash off to the calmest site. :rofl:

One can always hope...

 

[Seadeuce]

Charlie99For surface conditions, the longer the period the better ... long period swells are nice and round. Short period waves have sharp fronts.
OTOH, the longer the period of a swell, the further down into the water column it reaches and the more likely it is to stir up the bottom. See this post by FredT.[/QUOTE]


For a newbie it might help to be less-technical.
Look at the sea before you go diving/when you arrive.
Estimate the distance between the swells (or waves).
If the distance is, say, 100ft - then you will have groundswell (water motion) at half that in depth (50ft).

This works for virtually all sea states, and is a good rule of thumb.

A shorter wave length of ten feet may be a bumpy boat ride out to the site, but you're guaranteed a comfortable dive whilst underwater.

The opposite is also true - a longer wave length means a smoother boat ride, but then .....

Hope you have a good time,


Seadeuce