What can YOU teach me?

[Mike Boswell]

San Diego is almost a diver's paradise. I say "almost" because the water is cold, and visibility along the coast is often only fair. Still, the ocean is rich with life, the kelp forests are amazing, and the diving is fun if you are adequately prepared. The diving here looks much easier than it is, and some who come here to dive are not well prepared.

Many who come here to dive don't have the right gear or exposure protection, have no experience with kelp, currents, or entanglement, and aren't physically able to handle shore entries, rips, currents, or large wave sets. Many are unused to wearing heavy wetsuits or drysuits and the ballast and buoyancy issues that go with them. Many aren't practiced at underwater navigation. Few newcomers know how to avoid the sting rays waiting in the shallows. Many don't realize that they can get badly sunburned by spending a few hours relaxing on a cool, foggy San Diego beach.

Dive classes talk about diving under the "condtions" in which you were trained. Since every dive area has it's own special condtions, I wondered if some of you would be willing to share some of yours with the rest of us. So my question is, if I were to visit you to go diving, what should I be aware of? What gear would I need? What special training or experience would I want to have?

 

[Shcubasteve]

Here in South-Central Florida (Palm Beach-Jupiter-Stuart- Ft. Pierce), most of my diving consists of drifting reefs and wrecks. As we all should know, special safety equipment considerations for drift diving may include: sound producing devices, surface marker buoys+ reel (or spool), safety sausage and even portable VHF radios.

Water temps in Palm Beach fall between mid 60s during the winter to 85+ in the summer. Stuart and Ft. Pierce will see cooler temps as the Gulf Stream tends to be further offshore- temps down in the upper 50s are not unheard of.

If you get bored just looking as fish, recreational equipment for the area may include: a camera, lobster hunting gear or spearguns. The avid spearos will no doubt encounter sharks-hammerheads, bulls and reefies and for this reason most hunters will use liftbags to evacuate fish to the surface for the boat to retrieve.

Hope this helps for divers considering the South-central Florida area.

Steve Wood
Deep Six Jensen Beach, FL

 

[tkdgodess]

British Columbia South Coast - mainland. Just about the same as yours except a bit colder, generally no kelp (unless maybe a boat dive a few hours northwest) and days of 1-2' viz. We dive anyways. Shore entries are easier here, except for the rocky beaches full of logs, and it gets ~really~ deep really fast right off the shore and of course with easy depth come all those hazards, don't forget your light. Arctic outflow winds can make it interesting.

 

[TSandM]

Puget Sound has many similarities to Southern California. The water is colder -- mid 40's in winter, mid 50's in summer. And the viz is typically worse: ten feet or so in summer, maybe 20 in winter, and a few days better or worse. Exposure protection is a BIG part of having fun diving here.

Puget Sound is also full of currents, and the current-sensitive sites are often the prettiest, and have the most life. Understanding how to read tide and current charts, and having the specific information about a given site, is very important. Some sites are counterintuitive -- one very current-sensitive site is not at all good to dive on flat exchanges. Another can be dived on big floods, but not even on moderate ebbs.

Because of the number of rivers and streams that dump into the Sound, the bottoms are often very silty. Good buoyancy control and a mastery of non-silting kicks is important for being able to return the way you came.

The high number of particulates in the water means it gets dark fast, even in the daytime. Good dive lights are more than a convenience here.

Of course, the cold water and the high particulate count also means lots of nutrients in the water, so there is a TON of life here! Photographers should plan on macro, though -- wide angle photography is a definite gamble here.

Most shore diving site entries are fairly easy, and we have no surf. Weather conditions almost never preclude diving, although they may rule out certain sites. We don't have blown out springs like SoCal has had!

 

[Mike Boswell]

We don't have blown out springs like SoCal has had!

Or earthquakes, either, I guess. We just had two, ten minutes ago, that had me rattling in my chair.

This year the "red tide" has been making the conditions pretty dark and murky. We are hoping that it goes away soon.

Thanks, Lynne

 

[tstormdiver]

Here in KY we have flooded quarries, lakes & ponds, flooded strip mine pits & rivers. Most of the diving is rather low vis & the waters are temperate. During the late summer the surface to about 30 ft, the water temperatures may be very nice (mid 80's), yet at depth very cold (about 42 degrees below 60 ft). There is no one type of diving or thermal protection to be done. IN the summer, you nealy die of heat stroke getting into your exposure protection, then when you get to depth, you freeze, all in the space of a few minutes. In the cold waters, a diver should have a redundant air supply & thick exposure protection. In the warmer waters you almost have to be careful of overheating (especially if coming up from the cold waters in thick protection). During the winter, it is just plain cold!:shocked2: There are some currents, if you dive the rivers (I do not) & visability is usually measured in a few inches, on a good day. In strip mine pits you must be aware of very soft sediment bottom that stirs up without effort.& also for deep mud that can entrap you whilst entering & exiting the water (been there, done that, got the t-shirt). You must also deal with boaters who have absolutely no clue what a buoy with a dive flag is & will come over to investigate (never seeing the bubbles). Another hazard to look for is the "KY Piranha" that lurk. Those little bugger bluegill can inflict a nasty bite,.... especially to one's ear lobes.

 

[Mike Boswell]

Another hazard to look for is the "KY Piranha" that lurk. Those little bugger bluegill can inflict a nasty bite,.... especially to one's ear lobes.

It's really astounding and ironic that, of all the toothy and malevolent underwater creatures people are terrified of, it is the happy little Bluegill that does the most real damage.

 

[seaducer]

In NJ we have some different types of diving. Inshore we have some jetties, long piles of rocks, that can be accessed either from the jetty itself or from a surf entry. There are generally a lot of fish there, with some tropicals like butterfly fish and trigger fish in the late summer. Currents and tides are important to pay attention to. Temperatures vary from low 80's in the summer (hey, it happened once or twice) to low 40's in winter.

Offshore some fantastic wreck diving is waiting. This is all boat diving, sometimes with very heavy current, but not drift diving. In other words you better be able to navigate the wreck or junk pile back to the anchor line. Some specialized gear include "uplines", where in you can tie off to the wreck, shoot a lift bag to the surface and there for not be too far away from the boat when you get there. "Jon" lines are also seen frequently here, these are lines that you tie to the anchor line while doing your stops, so you can hang easily even though the boat (and line) is heaving in the waves above. Also some way to get the attention of the boat crew should you lose or get blown off the line, whistle and sausage.

Water temps are pretty constant in the low 50's,at the bottom, viz can range from wholly crap I can see the entire wreck!, to wholly crap I can't see my hand on my mask, with the latter more common.

 

[Quero]

Here in Thailand we have the kind of conditions that make some cold water divers claim we are only half-trained because we don't have to deal with the psychological and other demands that cold water taxes divers with.

However, we do have coral, and lots of it. The thing I'd counsel a cold-water diver like yourself to be aware of is exactly where those fins are, regardless of the kick style you prefer. We also have swim-through boulder sites, so knowing where your tank is in relation to the space you're going through is important, especially since coral also grows in and around the swim throughs.

The other thing that's characteristic of our diving here is that virtually all of our dives are drifts, so it's important to know how to deploy an SMB. For drifts, good buddy skills are crucial since you can easily get way ahead of a buddy who stops to marvel at some critter in a hole in the wall.

 

[spectrum]

So my question is, if I were to visit you to go diving, what should I be aware of? What gear would I need? What special training or experience would I want to have?

Well being to the north we have larger tidal swings than southern areas. Here in southern Maine we can count on 8+ feet and more as we head north in the state. This can change the entry and exit topography of the rocky shorelines significantly during a dive or even as you gear up.

A lot of our shore diving is along rock shores and ledges. If the seas are up at all you want to keep your distance so you don't get slammed into the rocks.

With barely a dozen (if that) public air fill stations in the state you need to plan things if you will be remote. Mixed gasses are generally not available.

Lobster can be taken only by trap. Get caught with one as a diver and you will lose your gear and vehicle and that's before it get's ugly. If a lobster man catches you messing with traps you're on your own.

There are no full time hyperbaric facilities that practice dive medicine.

A dive flag is not required and with lobster trap lines & buoys in the water towing a flag can be a liability. Nevertheless it can be prudent in areas with boating activity. Do not count on boaters recognizing or respecting the flag however.

We have a lot of rivers discharging into the ocean. After heavy rains the best visibility will be away from the rivers.

Pete