Your shallowest dives-or-what kind of dives do you like the best?

[Freds@Aquanauts]

Coolest dive, drifting over the sand, seahorses and octopi everwhere, couple of cone shells, and a box jelly, all in 12-14m - beautiful!

Freds

 

[limeyx]

There's a story here and we like to hear it, eh. Dont leave us hanging, eh?

maybe something to do with an open drysuit zipper and a stinging jellyfish?

 

[JimC]

128 Minutes in a local cave. Max depth 11 feet.

Its nice to have literally hours to figure your self out of a jam and not have to worry about deco at all.

 

[limeyx]

If given the choice of seeing the same thing at 80ft or 15ft ... I'd choose 15ft. My biggest gripe with deeper dives is the short (under 40 minutes) of dive time. I really enjoy 60-90 minute dives - after all I have just as much to get ready and clean up either way. My second gripe would be narcosis (which starts affecting me at approx 70ft) so I prefer shallow - did a 1 mile drift dive with PeterGuy and TSandM when they were here last - it was a great 90 minutes with an avg depth of 12 ft.

Now if there is something to see deeper I'm all for it, especially if it's unique. My favorite deep dives are watching the garden eels at 70-80ft in Molokini crater.

Aloha, Tim

We have a lot of dives here where you can do down to 140-150 at the bottom of the reef and then slowly drift upward but still see plenty of reef shallow (say Blue Caverns) that way you get the best of both worlds.

 

[scubarealtor]

i think my most enjoyable dive was a night dive in cozueml in 45' max depth, mostly around 35'. we were in a spot without any real current. it was just fun to hang out. i love night dives.

 

[Web Monkey]

My favorite so far has been in about 25' of water when the thermocline was just below the grass, and the afternoon sun was pouring in, lighting up the grass and the fish hiding in it.

I just hung there for probably 15 minutes just watching. There was nothing special happening, except that it was calm and beautiful and everything was perfect.

It was at least as special as seeing the stingray swim under us in Cozumel, but special in a different way.

Terry

I go?...how deep should I go?...how deep do you go?...what certification do I need to go "this" deep?. Fully realizing that there are worthwhile sights and activities down deep and having trained for and dived some of them myself, I think maybe we try so hard to get soeplace else that we sometimes miss stuff that's right in front of us.

I was going to specifically ask about shallow dives but then decided to add the "or" and also ask what types of dives you enjoy the most. Why discriminate on the bases of depth on way or the other?

 

[pilot fish]

Wouldn't be prudent.

Being prudent is not your forte'. Go for it, mate. Don't be timid.

 

[MB]

Over the years we've had lots of threads asking about max depth. I guess it's natural for divers to think about depth because after all diving is going "down" under water. Still, new divers are sometimes in a hurry to do that AOW cert to get below 60 ft ... we sometimes miss stuff that's right in front of us.

What a neat question Mike. I'm been lucky enough to enjoy a few hundred shallow dives over the years. My current definition of shallow involves some beach dives that are 25' and shallower. Between fossils, shell beds, roving gangs of squid, cruising tarpon, teeth, and curious triggers, there's always something cool to play with or watch.

 

[RonFrank]

I love those shallow low stress reef dives. After a rather disappointing Invasion dive on the Grove (Vis was 15' at BEST, maybe 10' was more like it with ripping currents, and big seas to boot), we got to do 80 minutes on Mollassas reef.... Vis was not as good as I've seen, and it was overcast, but wow, what a great dive, and we all enjoyed it to the max dood!

 

[TheFoggyMask]

Edmonds UW park, max dpeth was 9 feet. We spent on hour puttering around the shallows since we were too lazy to make the long surface swim out.

My favorite dives are when we choose a small area to examine closely. I like finding all the little fishes and shrimps. I also like dives where I get to lead, which isn't many. I swim slower than my buddies so they end up blazing off in front of me.