What is drift diving exactly?

[toodive4]

Drift diving means relaxing... letting the current take you... never having to kick... no worries.... yeah right - no worries - got dropped off for a drift dive once... supposedly we were on the edge of the wall... nope - no wall could be found... not even by the so called dive leader leading the dive... so there we were drifting in the clear blue at 100 feet looking down into the abyss - to a bottom we were told was 700 feet down - current was a fairly swift 1.5 knots and we were all looking at each other like "duh," finally we decided to do a free ascent from 100+ feet hoping that the boat was following our bubbles... lucky for us it was relatively close by and we were able to signal it. The Captain and dive leader apologized to us for the errant "drop" and proceeded to blame it on an oddball current that was running away from the wall instead of along side of it. It was quite an experience... a little scary - even for some us experienced divers since none of us had ever dove in the clear blue with no bottom in site. Getting your bearings was quite difficult with nothing to focus on except your gauges and the diver next to you... Just a story for you... but don't let "drift" diving lull you into a false sense of relaxation - you never know when you might hit a dive like this one...

Ken

Usually with a drift dive you can let out all the line or, if the line is really long, you can let out about 2 or 3 times the depth that you are drifting at. You'll find that the impact of the surface wind and currents at different depths, plus the drag created by the person holding the line, that the bouy will keep the line taut enough not to be tangled. You don't want the drift line to be short as you'll experience it tugging on you due to wave action. As you make your ascent, just wind in the line so that you come up under the bouy. Most tangles happen during ascent because the line is not being reelled in during ascent.

Another important technique for successful drift diving is for the divers to orientate themselves across the current so they are drifting in parallel instead of line astern. This enables everyone to see clearly and avoids tangles. If the current is really fast, all the divers can hold on to the line, with a bit of light finnning to position themselves parallel to the current and maintain the line tidiness.

Regards
Peter

 

[fmw625]

Did some drift dives in Cozumel. My first time. Had a great time. Had to watch SPG closely and learned a lot about bouyancy control. Viz was great >200 ft. Felt like you were flying between the surface and the bottom.