scubaaaronh
Contributor
Slow and shallow. I usually have a camera in hand and dont want to miss something. Shallow because i can stay longer, and i seem to see more life than on deep dives.
What's your style?
- Thread starter TSandM
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Zeeman
Contributor
My style is "Bahala Na" so to speak. ie - whatever goes. Usually this means just doing whatever my buddy wants to do, whilst I stray off and check stuff out I'm interested, but keeping an eye on my buddy at the same time. I'm usually quite happy to just be diving, I like to watch and see what's going on - if the group i'm with wants to break the record for the 400m underwater dash, so be it, if my buddy is a nudie photographer and likes sitting in a 4ft square area, that's cool too...
Z...
Z...
dpbishop
Contributor
Depends on the dive and location. I tend to move pretty fast until I see something to look at, then hang around til I'm ready for something new. Some dives, like Ship rock and Eagle Reef in Catalina, lend themselves to speed since, with a decent pace, I can circumnavigate on one tank and never have to back track. Other dives, on smaller, isolated reefs or wrecks might not cover much ground at all. If I'm bug hunting, of course, it's full speed ahead until I spot antenna.
I find that I see more on slower dives. It seems that the less area I cover, the more I end up actually catching.
But there on one of the local dives we dive around and Islet, and it is much preferrable to come up in the bay on the other side due to currents, so in that case some speed can be called for
But there on one of the local dives we dive around and Islet, and it is much preferrable to come up in the bay on the other side due to currents, so in that case some speed can be called for
PaulChristenson
Contributor
TSandM:
Dive style suits the particular dive requirements...
Oh no Lynne! Another thread!!!! jk
I tend to dive slow all the time. Unless, like Andy, I'm diving into a spring cave -- hurry in, ride the current out. I've moved fast a few times with camera in hand. The ray photo in my gallery was taken because I saw their direction of travel and boogied over to get in place. I ended up being about 80-100' from the rest of the group.
Why do DMs lead groups fast? Because that's what most of those divers expect.
I tend to dive slow all the time. Unless, like Andy, I'm diving into a spring cave -- hurry in, ride the current out. I've moved fast a few times with camera in hand. The ray photo in my gallery was taken because I saw their direction of travel and boogied over to get in place. I ended up being about 80-100' from the rest of the group.
Why do DMs lead groups fast? Because that's what most of those divers expect.
Most generally, the last thing people see of me as I hit the water is the back side of my fins dissappearing into the blue. Especially if on a cattle boat, I go into warp drive and I am outta there, out of the mayhem of people bobbing up and down and ramming into one another and strobes going off and people giving me the OK sign over and over and over with this odd look when I don't return it. You can see so much more when your fast and silent, stop and investigate and then move on, before the group catches up. When I get back on the boat I always ask if they saw the shark, or the turtle or the whatever and no--they did not---all the bunched up divers did was ask each other over and over if they were OK. I am not OK, I am getting old, I am grouchy and I like it. N
TSandM:
- to keep the group from bunching up. It's amazing but if you stop moving forward as a dive guide then the whole group will sometimes bunch right up on you; everyone pushing and knocking each other's masks loose and they'll all stop diving and just sit there looking at you wondering "what the heck is he waiting for" .
- because mostly DM's have to do with a special kind of diver--the underwater tourist--who expects to see as many different things as possible in one dive. To these kinds of divers, quantity is what counts. The Loch Ness monster could swim up and pose for 1/2 hour and some people would tick it off on their list and want to move on after 10 seconds. "Yep... seen the Loch Ness Monster, now where's the Parrot Fish?"
R..
TSandM:
You sort of hit on it in your question. It depends on what one wishes to acomplish. I did a dive once where I sat at the end of an old pier crib in fifteen feet of water surrounded by a giant school of alwife. I just sat there quietly and watched them swim up to me until I exhaled and then they'd scurry away. Other dives I've been out with a line looking for parts of a steamer that lie away from the main wreck. I'm doing some distance on these dives so its all ahead flank until I spot something. Photo dives I tend to just plunk along and compose and shoot. If I have a buddy along, which is usually the case, I do have to taylor things a bit so he or she can acomplish his or her goals for the dive.
jim
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