Negative entry vs Using a downline

[lv2dive]

A. Different people have different definitions of "strong current." What you may consider a strong current I may consider mild - that wouldn't surprise me. If bubbles even came close to "making it up three feet" - I would consider that a nice day and wouldn't be discussing the current.
B. Sorry I assumed we were were talking about using downline vs. holding a stop. Isn't that the subject of the topic? See A. regarding the different types of current we are discussing, regardless of what we are doing in them.
C. If guys in great physical shape decade/s younger than me are challenged getting down the line - I don't think it is so much that my no-longer-30 self needs to get to the gym, I think it is the case of a strong current. Again see A. regarding the different types of current we are discussing, regardless of what we are doing in them.

As I said, I've dove lines in heavy current. My fingers were the only thing that got tired, and that was holding on at the safety stop. I'm not saying thats the only muscles I used. Nice job as misreading. If you're working so hard diving that you're breathing rate increases, you're doing something wrong, somewhere. It may be that you (generically, not you in particular) need more exercise.

 

[DaleC]

Not on the surface, always on the bottom. But if you know of a diver that made it to the surface, inflated their wing then went face down and drowned, let me know. And not due to heart failure.
I lack the ability to speak to the dead.
I take my RAM (heavy yoke) out every so often but for the novelty of it, I will keep the Farallon. One piece of "vintage" gear that goes with me on almost every dive is my Scubapro "Box" for my gear....even on tech dives!

Often where a diver is found is not where they died... but this is a kooky discussion point. All I can say is as the CG why they require the ability to float a person face up for all designated life jackets.

My Dad tried giving me an old chevrolet once, 57 2 door I believe, but it was dusty and I was way more happy with my new K car, it being such a reliable automobile.

 

[danvolker]

Not for you Dan but, I don't get this hand over hand thing. What's that? Negative means one sinks. I've pulled myself laterally along a wreck or the bottom but never up or down I hold on to the line and regulate my buoyancy so I go in the direction I need to go with some kicking. That's why we wear weights and BC's or have I been doing that wrong all these years?

I don't think that TC has experienced this either...but Kate has....as have all the Palm Beach wreck divers before hot drops became common.
Of course I understand and have done the type of line descent you are talking about....but you guys are not seeing the line the way it pays out to a deeper wreck....even a baby tech dive like the HydroAtlantic...if the current was really intruding on a day you and your group anchored a mooring ball to it....So let me "set the stage" for the line dive....

The captain has marked the wreck, and either hooked it and released a big float, or, a DM had to run the hook down from a hot drop--and all the other divers would pull down the line.
So.....the line is not just 165 feet long...it can't be.....It has to have some scope or it instantly sinks....So, now it is long enough not to sink, and is maybe 100-150 feet down-current of the point on the wreck where it is hooked to.
YOU have been dropped up current of the ball, on the surface with your buddy.
You had time to get your BC dumped, and get ready, and the current is driving you at the float ball FAST...As it approaches, you and your buddy sprint for the line about 5 feet under the surface---you make your run to it, and succeed in getting your hands on the line...one of you on top of the other....

You have eye contact, both of you indicating a go condition, and then you need to go DOWN.

The thing is, with all the scope out, the line is not going down. You are 100 or 150 feet downcurrent of the mooring point...so the line you are hanging on to had formed an "arc" where it is at a 45 degree angle forward into the current, and down toward the bottom.....

Even though you are completely negative by 10 pounds, this does not help at all, because you are basically pulling yourself forward into the stiff current, and there is a much greater force required to follow the arcing line forward, than it gives you in the downward falling force it imparts to you.

So you hand over hand, pull yourself both forward, and down.

This goes on for the next minute, and takes time because you are sort of like a projectile, and your body position acts like an airplane wing, and every time you move, this is like an aileron adjustment, and your body keeps flying this way, and that--and this complicates each downward grab for the line...not a big complication, but it adds moments....and the moments add up, and after a minute, you are only down 30 feet, and have your breathing way up, your heart rate is at around 130 bpm, and your biceps and and lats are beginning to burn like you were climbing a rope in gym class.

The wreck sits at 90 feet, so you keep pulling, but know you have to slow down, because you don't want to hoover all your gas, and because your biceps want a rest.....5 minutes later, you reach the deck, and get out of the current....

Now you enjoy the protection of the wreck, and can easily see where the DM and other regular divers here, are moving around, and you wisely decide to move wherever they move...and do whatever they do.....The wreck is covered by huge swarms of fish, all collecting due to the structure and current convergence. It is an amazing and fun dive....and then 5 minutes or so later, you see you are at 1800 psi, and you should have had another 12 minutes, but you burned through so much air getting down, that you will not be able to follow your original dive plan---and signal this to your buddy and to the DM( that you guys are saying Hasta Lavista) .....

You make your way to the front of the ship where the line is....and look at each other...knowing that this will be work....

You grab on to the line, and find that with the buoyant lift possible with your BC, it is not so hard to pull your way up the line...the BC helps a lot...but....your hands are still having to hold on tightly...much like hanging on to a rope in gym....but now going down instead of up----but of course, now down is up
By the time you reach 30 feet, your biceps and lats are killing you from holding on, and your body is being tossed left and right like a leaf in the wind, caught on something.....You look at your pressure gauge again, which requires a herculean effort, as it means having to hold on to the line with only one hand... a one handed pull up comes to mind....in which there is no ability to pull up...only to NOT let go. And of course, you are down to 400 psi, and you are feeling like a dumb*ss

At the 10 foot depth, you figure this is enough, you've had it, and the two of you look at each other and give thumb up ( with one hand straining), and you release the line.

You pop to the surface like a missile, and all you care about, is being off the line.....

The boat is well down current, and you drift to it on the surface.....As you climb aboard, and your biceps and lats feel horribly crampy...you begin wondering how well you were off-gassing on the hand over hand climb up the line....and if the cramping has trapped gas bubbles in some of the capillaries in your muscles, and whether this was begging for a ride in the chamber, or whether your body will be able to handle the cascade of bubbles, and clear without any plugs forming, with the pain that would follow. You get lucky, and you clear.....And the next time, what will be your "smarter" plan?

 

[T.C.]

A. Different people have different definitions of "strong current." What you may consider a strong current I may consider mild - that wouldn't surprise me. If bubbles even came close to "making it up three feet" - I would consider that a nice day and wouldn't be discussing the current.
B. Sorry I assumed we were were talking about using downline vs. holding a stop. Isn't that the subject of the topic? See A. regarding the different types of current we are discussing, regardless of what we are doing in them.
C. If guys in great physical shape decade/s younger than me are challenged getting down the line - I don't think it is so much that my no-longer-30 self needs to get to the gym, I think it is the case of a strong current. Again see A. regarding the different types of current we are discussing, regardless of what we are doing in them.

And this is a case where you may want the hot drop. As has been said, it depends on the circumstance.

But if the boat can hold to the line, then the current will be less than what you may be used to.

The last line wasn't an attack on you, personally, but I have run into people who couldn't hang on in even a light current. They'd benefit more from a little exercise than anything else, but that also pertained to other things like their overall fitness, air consumption, and effort required to even kick along the reef.

 

[danvolker]

Dan are the currents still as strong at depth or do they slack off? I've worked in 5 knot currents it wasn't fun.

At the highest current spots, like the Skycliff or the deep Hopper Barges...or the pinnacles off of St Lucie that are 25 miles out, at 500 feet deep rising to 200 feet.... When you get belly to the bottom, the "skin friction drag" of the bottom surface drops the current to maybe a quarter as strong...so 5.5 mph, may become 1 or 2 mph....Now at depth, with doubles, you wont want to swim against that--so you go hand over hand pulling in the sand, or rocks, taking your time and not working, with a small assist from medium pace kicking....You would NOT be concerning yourself with silting
The bottom 20 feet is not as big a current as the mid water collumn, but it still is not a dramatic reduction until you are almost belly to the bottom....

Back when I first began lobster hunting on the back rolls up on the crown of Juno Reef ----- closer to the offshore side, where the big HOLES or blowouts are( early 1980's)---this was an area of big gulfstream instrusion, often 4 mph....and with big vis...100 plus alot of the time.

At any given moment, we could drift to a point where we could suddenly see a 50 foot in diameter blowout, 40 feet horizontal to us--and a little downcurrent still hopefully....and the only way to get to it, was to get your belly on the bottom, and hand over hand your way over sand and rock--- and where there was none, sprint to the next handhold.

This was when and where I learned you can't have dragging consoles or any danglies--or you would constantly get hung up....and where I learned that the slickest BC's were far better that the big bulky ones that pulled on you even bellied to the bottom, like a sea anchor.

On dives with lycra skins and no BC, this was ideal---you would barely feel the current....But when you grabbed a bunch of lobsters, the bag would become so heavy, that swimming it to the surface would become very hard work, if not impossible....

So we went to At Pacs, and slicker BC's....Then, a decade later, the Halcyon BP and 18 pound wing would almost be as good at this as the steel 72 with only a harness and j valve....and that was 18 pounds of lift to help pull up the lobsters with....and that REALLY helped!!!!

---------- Post added April 13th, 2014 at 11:51 AM ----------

Let's not blow smoke; no, you wouldn't.

In fact, I would be happy to dive with you....Even though I have felt something of "Mike Tyson Bad Intentions" coming off of you on many posts, I also expect that most of us communicate very differently in-person, because we have a much better awareness of how the other person is thinking/acting/trying to get to as a point.

I would give you exactly the same welcome I would any other Scubaboard member....and would be just as happy to ignore the entire Internet conversation threads, and just dive and chat about fun stuff, or....to have you ask me to demonstrate some of my past answers in real life, or let you try some of these things for yourself( to get boats or whatever, to make this happen).

Those that know me here, know I have this for Internet posters way more Negative and aggressive than you have been....And of course, I have those stories too

 

[Darnold9999]

I find it kind of hard to believe that there is all this incredulity around Dan's statements about hot drops. There are, quite simply, parts of the world where it is really not best practice to hook into the wreck (at least, all the time).

Don't think it is incredulity about hot drops being a technique to get ot a wreck, the annoyance was the intimation that it was the only technique. As some have said sometimes a hot drop is just not a good idea and a line is the only way you are going to get from here to there.

If nothing else this thread seems to have modified Dan's posting style a tiny bit and he is starting to learn that perhaps the centre of the diving world is not Florida (Said with tounge firmly in cheek)

 

[AfterDark]

Dan, sounds like diving I would have enjoyed 30 - 35 years ago but way too much work now. Still sounds like fun, but beyond my physical abilities.

NE / NC diving is my comfort zone these days and that's not what most would consider "vacation" diving. Getting up the ladder with my 94LP's ID's after a dive is about all I can stand!

 

[shoredivr]

By the time you reach 30 feet, your biceps and lats are killing you from holding on, and your body is being tossed left and right like a leaf in the wind, caught on something.....You look at your pressure gauge again, which requires a herculean effort, as it means having to hold on to the line with only one hand... a one handed pull up comes to mind....in which there is no ability to pull up...only to NOT let go. And of course, you are down to 400 psi, and you are feeling like a dumb*ss

At the 10 foot depth, you figure this is enough, you've had it, and the two of you look at each other and give thumb up ( with one hand straining), and you release the line.

You pop to the surface like a missile, and all you care about, is being off the line.....

The boat is well down current, and you drift to it on the surface.....As you climb aboard, and your biceps and lats feel horribly crampy...you begin wondering how well you were off-gassing on the hand over hand climb up the line....and if the cramping has trapped gas bubbles in some of the capillaries in your muscles, and whether this was begging for a ride in the chamber, or whether your body will be able to handle the cascade of bubbles, and clear without any plugs forming, with the pain that would follow. You get lucky, and you clear.....And the next time, what will be your "smarter" plan?

Dan, have you ever used a jon line for hangs? We do that here when there's a current so the flag effect is not an issue.

Also, the nautical term for a rope tying a ship to a dock is a hawser. Sorry, it was bugging me in a previous post

 

[danvolker]

Don't think it is incredulity about hot drops being a technique to get ot a wreck, the annoyance was the intimation that it was the only technique. As some have said sometimes a hot drop is just not a good idea and a line is the only way you are going to get from here to there.

If nothing else this thread seems to have modified Dan's posting style a tiny bit and he is starting to learn that perhaps the centre of the diving world is not Florida (Said with tounge firmly in cheek)

I admit I began with a "way over the top" message that Hot drops were the right way, and lines were the wrong way....
But in fairness to me:

1. The original post was a REACTION to someone in a Near miss thread, that was saying that " the ONLY safe way to do the dive to the bottom would have been with a descent line"...no real current, vis was fine....they just said as a matter of course, that you should always have a descent line.
2. This is what created the "My dog is Bigger than Your Dog" nonsense...which I can easily launch into, if the topic pulls me this way ( and I am not the only one
3. I have learned that if I want to go "over the top" in a response to someone, that it would be way better NOT to piss off MOST OF SCUBABOARD with my rejoinder --not so much that I can't go over the top any more, but that I better had "target" this better

---------- Post added April 13th, 2014 at 12:55 PM ----------

Dan, have you ever used a jon line for hangs? We do that here when there's a current so the flag effect is not an issue.

Also, the nautical term for a rope tying a ship to a dock is a hawser. Sorry, it was budding me in a previous post

We have seen people experimenting with them around the time we were trying to get more of the captains to let us do hot drops.....If we had not found some Captains with the "Rainman" skill levels in estimating drops, we probably would have done experimenting ourselves with the jon lines.... If you have ever had a dive boat tow you on a long rope behind the boat, going 5 or 6 mph with you about 10 feet down....it is very uncomfortable...even if you were using a jon line set up--just the huge force on your body, with the current trying to rip you to pieces with all the vortexes created. It is tolerable for a couple of minutes, but you would not look forward to it for much longer.That is the issue with just staying on the line at a static depth.....even with the better solution of the jon line, if you had to pull FORWARD and Down, against a 5.5 mph current, you would pull hard...rest..pull hard...rest..and so on....way better than just hand over hand, but I don't think it would be fun. The hot drop, we just fall headfirst like freedivers, and the ship comes flying at us--all we have to do is avoid running into it, and then a quick sprint to protection of structure--usually 5 to 10 feet in distance. Sometimes we can come in so perfectly there is not even any sprint at all--this is really more of the norm, but in the extreme cases, I thought the non-perfect approach needed to be explained.....In the perfect timing, we just keep dropping, and light swimming, and adjust our fall speed as we approach...and end up dropping right into the middle of the deck, no sprint ever needed. You can't promise someone that will happen every time though .

 

[boulderjohn]

In Proust's novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, the character Swan wonders how the world would be different if people chose to read worthy books like Pascal's Pensées instead the trivia in the local newspaper for that period of time each day. Similarly, I wonder how many worthy books Dan could have written in the time he has devoted to his posts in this thread.

Now you enjoy the protection of the wreck, and can easily see where the DM and other regular divers here, are moving around, and you wisely decide to move wherever they move...and do whatever they do.....The wreck is covered by huge swarms of fish, all collecting due to the structure and current convergence. It is an amazing and fun dive....and then 5 minutes or so later, you see you are at 1800 psi, and you should have had another 12 minutes, but you burned through so much air getting down, that you will not be able to follow your original dive plan---and signal this to your buddy and to the DM( that you guys are saying Hasta Lavista) .....

You make your way to the front of the ship where the line is....and look at each other...knowing that this will be work....

You grab on to the line, and find that with the buoyant lift possible with your BC, it is not so hard to pull your way up the line...the BC helps a lot...but....your hands are still having to hold on tightly...much like hanging on to a rope in gym....but now going down instead of up----but of course, now down is up
By the time you reach 30 feet, your biceps and lats are killing you from holding on, and your body is being tossed left and right like a leaf in the wind, caught on something.....You look at your pressure gauge again, which requires a herculean effort, as it means having to hold on to the line with only one hand... a one handed pull up comes to mind....in which there is no ability to pull up...only to NOT let go. And of course, you are down to 400 psi, and you are feeling like a dumb*ss

At the 10 foot depth, you figure this is enough, you've had it, and the two of you look at each other and give thumb up ( with one hand straining), and you release the line.

You pop to the surface like a missile, and all you care about, is being off the line.....

Dan, I dive a lot of the same wrecks as you describe in your posts, and I have dived them in pretty heavy currents--at least I thought they were heavy until I read your descriptions and realized I have really been missing something. At any rate, I have not experienced anything like what you just described in the quote above in quite some time, and that is because we have been doing things differently from what you describe on every occasion in which we have had a DM tie a line to a deep wreck. I am talking about dives with anywhere from 30-77 minute ascents for decompression. Perhaps you could describe this to process to the people with whom you dive--it's a lot easier.

The first time we did it this way was on the RBJ, a wreck at about 270 feet to sand. Because it is so easy to miss it with a hot drop, especially with the screaming current we had that day, the skipper gave the DM one shot at hitting it with the line, and he succeeded. When the captain described the plan, I asked how the line was going to come back up after the dive. He said he would send the DM back down. I said that we would rather unhook it ourselves, and he agreed. It worked great, as I will describe later.

On the shallower wrecks I have dived since then--like the Hydro Atlantic you mentioned--we use a similar procedure after the DM hooks in. The DM asks us for our planned bottom times and run times. He then times his descent back to the wreck to unhook the line while we are just beginning our ascents. In either the case of the divers unhooking the line or the Dm unhooking it as the divers begin their ascents, the result is the same. The line swings free until it hangs straight down from the ball that is now drifting freely in the current. The divers are also drifting freely in the current. Since everyone and everything is drifting at the same rate, the illusion is that you are not moving at all. Some will hold to the line lightly as they hold their stops. Some will "Okay" the line as it bobs up and down loosely between their fingers. Others will just hover in the water in the vicinity of the line. As divers finish their deco, they drift slowly to the surface next to the float, where they see the boat waiting for them. The boat positions itself properly in regard to the current, and the divers drift casually to the ladder. Piece of cake.

Since the boats you are on don't seem to know about this technique, you might want to clue them in. Life will be much easier.