Doc, hope you know i'm just poking fun! I remember being one of those fins - maybe that was your reference- when i passed you at about 8 feet deep with a diver real low on air.
I seem to have survived.
But that's the thing about the shore dive from CCV, for about 1/2 the distance to the wreck, if you ran low on air,
you could just stand up.
Even a diver who's hyperventilating could make it in on SCUBA from the Wreck with 300 psi.
You bring up a good point, though. So many times, even when people are "going out" with a full 3000psi, they're in such a rush they'll miss everything that lives in that shallow reef environment (2~15fsw) that stretches the first 300 feet out to the Wreck.
When my wife (aka:
Herself) was first starting out, she gave me an "low on air" and also an "out of air" sign on two separate occasions at the PA wreck (even though she had 3-500psi). These days, she thinks about heading back at 500psi, and is definitely on her way at 300psi, altho she prefers more reserve to allow for
shallow water hyper-dawdling®, a PADI Distinctive Specialty that she authored.
One night,
Herself watched me from the gazebo, knowing right away why I had stopped in 3' and wasn't moving, butt up in the air. She knew I had an
Octopus, and she was wrapped around my arm and tugging at my reg and mask. I hadn't budged in four minutes, so she assumed correctly that it was my n
ew best 8 legged friend.
At this point, two outbound divers were heading out on the chain to night dive the wreck. I had their bee-line path pretty well blocked with my butt and 16 watts of light, and didn't notice the divers until the started crawling over on top of me and
Mrs.
ctopus: on the way out. I asked them later what they saw and they said
it was pretty dead out there- not much.
Go slowly. And
if you think you're out of air on the way in at CCV, suck it dry-
then stand up. Many people "stop scuba diving" on their way in at 4fsw next to the gear platform. You're missing the best part- that 80 feet to the shore. As one CoCoNut phrased it,
"I don't run out of air, I run out of water!"
"Go slow, Seymour" -
Ossman
)
