You might miss something good! (Video Dive Lesson)

[Shaka Doug]

Aloha Fellow Divers,

We all know it's pretty easy to miss stuff underwater. For new divers engaging in scuba tours while on vacation at an exotic location I have a couple simple suggestions to make your diving more enjoyable.

1) Stay extra close to your dive guide and check with him/her frequently. They know where to look for the cool things and are usually in tune with the dive sites. They can make sure you see the good stuff but you have to check with them often!! Don't "zone out"!

2) It happens way too often that people on my dives completely miss a cool turtle, eel, manta ray and other awesome encounters. (Even when it's practically right next to them!) It would help them to dive with a Tri-View mask. It's a little weird at first but they sure do allow you to see things off to your sides a lot better than a basic flat mask. I would never dive without one unless I absolutely had to. If you haven't tried one, I highly recommend giving one a shot next time you hit the water. They really open up your vison for you.

3) Have a look at this video I put together from a dive I made this week. These guys had their hearts set on seeing a Green Sea Turtle. They almost completely missed it!! (The good news is that we ran into 5 or 6 more turtles during the dive so it all worked out in the end!)

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just talk to each other down there?......NAHHH!!!!!

Has anyone seen a turtle around here???



Thanks for watching! I hope this helps someone out there in SB land have a better dive one day!!

Aloha and Shaka!

Shaka Doug
Maui, Hawaii

 

[Scuba.com]

I'd put a lot more emphasis on taking your time, slowing down and minimizing the amount of underwater real estate you try to cover on a dive than I would on the mask.

I've taught classes where I've challenged my students to list what they see on a dive. In most cases the diver or divers who relax, settle down in one or two spots and simply pay attention will come out with a filled dive slate of aquatic life they've enjoyed where the people trying to cover the most reef either scare off the things around them or are so busy swimming they forget to look about.

Another thought, while Tri-View masks aren't a bad thing, they don't necessarily offer a terribly significant improvement in over all visibility. These types of masks came about back when black rubber was our only skirt choice. They were big and bulky and heavy. For many dive shops they were a tough sell due to this until a slick sales rep came up with the idea of convincing people you got greater peripheral vision with the side windows. A little talk about clausterphobia and maybe a shark comment or two and the next thing you know we were all lining up for the Kool Aid.

While adding the side windows might offer a little bit of extra vision for the most part its a wash. If you line a couple masks up side by side, buckle to buckle comparing them as they'd sit on your face, you'll notice that the vast majority of the time the windows on a 2 window, low volume mask stop at pretty darn close to the same point the side windows start on a tri-view mask. What this means is the same vision out of both. The advantage to most divers of the lower volume mask is that it holds less water and is much easier to clear! And the less time spent messing with your gear, the more time you can spend seeing what's around you underwater.

 

[Herk_Man]

Snickering quietly to myself.

 

[Scuba.com]

Oh... And I forgot to add.... Funny Video! Thanks! LOL

 

[Brian Sharpe]

dangling gauges......arghhhhhhhhh!!!

(funny video otherwise!)

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Dangling gauges are the new curb feelers. ;-)

-Mitch

 

[N2DeepInAz]

Cool video! I l've recently ventured into UW photography & video myself.

I recently did 9 dives in San Carlos and shot video for 7 of them. I found on the two dives that I left the camera on the boat, that because I was concentrating so much on the camera and looking for things to see that I was actually missing what was right under my nose. It's a delicate balance to find. I learned to video hear and there and enjoy the time in between clips.

I also realized that as a videographer you tend to fall behind the group quite a bit as they are trying to cover as much area as possible and there's times where you just want to stop and watch things evolve around you.

 

[Blackwood]

Nice turtle. Funny video.

BTW these may be the strangest looking fins I've ever seen.