nolatom
Contributor
I was describing a travel experience from a work-related trip to a friend, and how it was interesting to bump across something unique while on your way to a destination, which you might never have seen on a "tour". She pointed out, "that's the difference between being a traveler and a tourist".
We dive to have fun, and be spectators of the beauty of nature. I love that, and that's almost all of my diving, off dive boats with mostly instabuddies.
Except a couple of times when it wasn't:
--zero-vis dive in the marina which after several tries found my prescription glasses that had slipped off and gone overboard. About 3 tries, gauges and light useless, but finally found my kinda expensive specs, by the "braille" method. Fifteen minutes, and a big 8 feet depth. More difficult than 88, by far. Never done this before
--another zero-vis dive, max depth a massive 6 feet this time, trying to determine roughly how much damage three launch ramps had sustained after a hurricane so the marina board I'm on could have a better idea of how big the repairs would be. Braille all the way, which direction am I heading? Then I'd surface and shout it to my dive-mistress wife, who jotted it down. Never done this before. Turned out pretty similar to the survey the construction company came up with later, which was the official version, as mine was never intended to be.
--a volunteer worker among workers on a "drilling trip" at the Stetson Bank marine sanctuary out near the Flower Gardens off Texas, way offshore (ask Frank/ "wookie" about this, his and Melanie's boat, doing mooring U-bolt pneumatic drilling and cementing into the substrate, on behalf of NOAA as they did on a regular basis). Now this dive had excellent vis and warm water, except when in clouds of rock dust while drilling, or dust from Portland cement bags we shuttled and poured into the holes to anchor the u-bolts in place. So you either saw lots, or nothing. Never done this before either. Satisfying team effort. And once, while ascending alone with empty cement bags and fretting over my gauges a little (you use air fast and build up nitrogen on successive trips, so watch gauges closely), I looked up and saw the dotted "wall" of a whale shark passing by about 10 feet away. Wow!
--back to zero vis, but "red" zero instead of brown zero, I did a bottom-scrub on a friend's 34' sloop I get to borrow. I learned as I went along, but using a small toilet plunger in one hand to hold me in and scrub brush in the other, it worked out okay, though my 30cf pony went low so friend zoomed over to dive shop for a rental 80 while I kept working at the surface. Never did this before either. This was probably about a 70-80 minute "dive", with a big 7 feet max.
With the exception of Stetson, which is always beautiful, these were not pretty dives, or even dives where you could see anything at all. Yet they stand out in my memory because it was new and different, and more challenging than my typical dives. And in a way I'm prouder of them, though I wouldn't rush to repeat a couple of them. I'm not sure if the tourist-or-traveler analogy is the perfect one, but I got a kick out of using what I'd learn to do something we don't normally do, and to have a sense of purpose in doing it.
Have you had "unusual" dives which turned out to be more meaningful than you had figured they would?
We dive to have fun, and be spectators of the beauty of nature. I love that, and that's almost all of my diving, off dive boats with mostly instabuddies.
Except a couple of times when it wasn't:
--zero-vis dive in the marina which after several tries found my prescription glasses that had slipped off and gone overboard. About 3 tries, gauges and light useless, but finally found my kinda expensive specs, by the "braille" method. Fifteen minutes, and a big 8 feet depth. More difficult than 88, by far. Never done this before
--another zero-vis dive, max depth a massive 6 feet this time, trying to determine roughly how much damage three launch ramps had sustained after a hurricane so the marina board I'm on could have a better idea of how big the repairs would be. Braille all the way, which direction am I heading? Then I'd surface and shout it to my dive-mistress wife, who jotted it down. Never done this before. Turned out pretty similar to the survey the construction company came up with later, which was the official version, as mine was never intended to be.
--a volunteer worker among workers on a "drilling trip" at the Stetson Bank marine sanctuary out near the Flower Gardens off Texas, way offshore (ask Frank/ "wookie" about this, his and Melanie's boat, doing mooring U-bolt pneumatic drilling and cementing into the substrate, on behalf of NOAA as they did on a regular basis). Now this dive had excellent vis and warm water, except when in clouds of rock dust while drilling, or dust from Portland cement bags we shuttled and poured into the holes to anchor the u-bolts in place. So you either saw lots, or nothing. Never done this before either. Satisfying team effort. And once, while ascending alone with empty cement bags and fretting over my gauges a little (you use air fast and build up nitrogen on successive trips, so watch gauges closely), I looked up and saw the dotted "wall" of a whale shark passing by about 10 feet away. Wow!
--back to zero vis, but "red" zero instead of brown zero, I did a bottom-scrub on a friend's 34' sloop I get to borrow. I learned as I went along, but using a small toilet plunger in one hand to hold me in and scrub brush in the other, it worked out okay, though my 30cf pony went low so friend zoomed over to dive shop for a rental 80 while I kept working at the surface. Never did this before either. This was probably about a 70-80 minute "dive", with a big 7 feet max.
With the exception of Stetson, which is always beautiful, these were not pretty dives, or even dives where you could see anything at all. Yet they stand out in my memory because it was new and different, and more challenging than my typical dives. And in a way I'm prouder of them, though I wouldn't rush to repeat a couple of them. I'm not sure if the tourist-or-traveler analogy is the perfect one, but I got a kick out of using what I'd learn to do something we don't normally do, and to have a sense of purpose in doing it.
Have you had "unusual" dives which turned out to be more meaningful than you had figured they would?
