lamont
Contributor
TSandM:Regarding the comment about DIR divers being focused on the mechanics of the dive, and not on the diving . . .
Right after you get your provisional in Fundies, you get very mechanics-focused. You've just had your nose rubbed in what you can't do, and for a while, it's pretty easy and desirable to spend your time underwater trying to fix the problems. What's really important, in MY personal opinion, is to get past that. Eventually, you have to remember why you went underwater in the first place (if you know) or what you first found there that was joyous enough to keep doing it.
The DIR divers I dive with love the life in Puget Sound, and are as excited as you could ask for when they find a big octopus, or an unusual nudibranch. I guess the difference may be that, on the dives where you don't find much of anything except seal-generated silt, we can amuse ourselves doing S-drills and critiquing one another's trim
Actually all the DIR skills and stuff that we practice crawling around in the silt in cove 2 is what makes the other dives so much fun. I don't worry about my gas, I don't worry about my buddy's gas, don't worry about OOAs or free flows, I'm neutrally buoyant conserving energy, I can put myself exactly where I want to go without thinking about it, and the bulk of my conscious awareness is just on peering in holes looking for critters. If I didn't like looking for critters, recreational diving would be extremely boring right now because I've basically got all those mechanics down.
