Laguna Shore Dives February 4th and 5th

[ScubaWithTurk]

If you ask ten divers what the visibility was on a dive you will likely get nine different answers. It doesn't need to be as precise as using sonar or a Secchi Disk to measure but there is a simple way to get pretty close. Horizontal visibility, which is what divers use when describing vis is about half of the vertical visibility. When you can no longer clearly see the surface check your depth. If you are twenty feet below the surface and can still make it out visibility will be ten feet. You can also check how far off the bottom you are and divide that by two. You will be surprised at how little vis was compared to what you thought it was.

With fins on, most divers are about six feet long, give or take a foot. You can also estimate visibility in body lengths and multiply by six. I never consider something I can barely make out or a shadow ahead as visibility. I only report what I can clearly see. Merry and I mad a dive at Shaw's once and had eight feet vis. We could barely see more than a body length. The only other diver in the Crevice with us reported twenty five feet.

I love this. I have never heard using vertical vis to get a better idea of true vis. I did not know this so I couldn't use it this dive but if I were to use body length, I would have to state vis was 6' max. We were entering the trench, crevice...whatever it is called when as the lead I looked back to check on my buddies. The one directly behind me I could see clearly however the second buddy who was right behind her was more a shadow than a real figure.

Thanks for this information. I am always learning new things every time I come here.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

It's hard to judge correctly with the filtered light and the magnification of the mask so using your depth gauge to measure vertical visibility is more accurate. I've always hated when someone reported thirty feet vis and after rushing to go diving I find it to be closer to ten feet.

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

I always err on the side of caution. I think that comes from my military background though and looking at the vis while out at sea. We always understated vis, well, more like reported vis to be as accurate as possible without ever stating that it is a greater distance than it actually is.

 

[keithbt]

The water was as if somebody poured milk into it.

 

[lamarpaulski]

It gets much much better at Shaws. Between rain and surf it's been truly crap. Fall and early winter can be great and it is also a great night dive when very calm (in 'tunnels' / Crevice area where you had whiteout.} Like other guy said if you thought that was cool...give it a shot in October after a couple days of Santa Anas.

Really offshore like Catalina is probably best bet right now.

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

I am looking at doing a Catalina trip soon. A day trip around the weekend of the 17th if any of you more experienced divers would want to join a newbie and heavy gasser.

 

[Sam Miller III]

No interest

Too historical

 

[shucksun]

The dive went well. There was little to no surf so entry was super easy however the viz was less than desirable at 5-7' max. We tried to do the swim through between the reef but the surge picked up a bit there and made it a total whiteout with viz less than 1'. Although i did happen to look down while trying to find my buddies and saw a large group of fish. Maybe 15 Garibaldi, 10 or so kelp bass and about 15-20 other fish I didn't recognize.

Water temp read at 58 degrees but that seems a bit warm..although I wouldn't know because my Bare Reactive wetsuit was incredibly warm. I couldn't be happier with that purchase.

After getting caught in the whiteout and surfacing to team back up with my two dive buddies , we swam back out of there and stuck to the outside edges of the reef for the remainder of the dive.

This was my first dive without an instructor present which was exhilarating and also had my nerves on edge a bit. My other two dive buddies have 3 dives between them (apparently they did the OW class and there OW dives were actually just one dive)

Some things I learned:

1. I still have weighting issues to work out as there were times when I had a hard time descending but I did have a knife, three page slate and a brand new wetsuit.

2. My nav skills suck! I need to spend a lot of time on underwater navigation as I want to really excel at this.

3. Still have issues with buoyancy but there was a moment, a very special moment as we were swimming towards the swim through channel where the reef rose up about 2'. I saw it coming, took a nice long slow breath and almost crapped my new wetsuit as I rose to the perfect height, passing just over the reef and the exhaled once on the other side to get back down to about 8-10" from the bottom. I had a hard time repeating it (by hard I mean I couldn't repeat it) but wow!!! I know what it feels like to have buoyancy and breath control down pat and I can't wait to splash again to work on it more.

4. I need to work on my cardio; coming back up those steps strapped with soaked gear wasn't easy.

5. My back loves boat dives more than shore dives.

6. I need to change gloves. My 5 mil gloves make it hard for me to tell what I am touching when trying to make small gear adjustments. Something thinner which I think I can pull off as I wasn't cold at all today in my 7 mil full with no hood.

7. I need to dive with people that are much more experienced than me, I love that my friend and her boyfriend came with me today and we will dive more often together but having someone much more experienced would be nice for tips and advice.


All in all it was a Super day to splash, everyone that descended also ascended. The quiet time underwater helped me to regain focus and put some things into perspective. I have a lot of skills work to do but am more than ready to put in that wok and be the best diver I can become!

Scubaturk,

Great to hear you got out there. Thank you for sharing your experience. When you are just starting out, even a low viz dive pays benefits. Keep diving!

J.