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

[Rick Murchison]

This past weekend I had the pleasure of an 87 minute dive in 15' on the Perdido Bay jetties. Water was bathing-suit warm and the jetties were swarming with fish and other critters. It's hard to beat that kind of diving for just pure relaxation and fun with the kids.
Rick

 

[Diver Dennis]

I've done a 2 hour dive, max 15' taking pictures. Truth be told, I almost always spend time in the shallows late in a dive taking pictures.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I prefer spending time as opposed to logging depth. I really enjoy wreck diving and when we do cold water trips we usually ask what's good in the 50-80 foot range. Above the thermocline but below where the ice and storms tear the wrecks up really bad is my favorite dive depth. When I go warm water diving I want to see--well I want to see wrecks but lets skip that right now--I want to see colorful stuff and be able to dive until I get chilled and want to come out. I prefer to be deep enough for my computer to continue to register the dive (about 8 feet) but other than that I'm not a depth hound.

My favorite dives are the ones where my buddy and I are perfectly in tune, communicating with just glances and head nods and occasional hand signals. I can almost hear what my regular dive buddies are thinking during the dive. It's a REAL thrill to dive with someone the first time and discover that you are on the same mental wave and can almost hear each other thinking as well as you hear your regular buddy.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[grazie42]

I do both and they both have their place IMO.

I try to do shallow wetsuit dives (above 60ft) once a week (during the summer), it´s as close to "nekkid diving" I´m going to get in local waters and I come up happy even if I just spend an hour breathing uw without seeing anything to write in my log.

During the weekends I usually do one or two "deeper" decodives (in DS). I´m not really pushing my personal limits but I do rack up some deco and see things that are only found at those depths. I also like the planning and dicipline required to do them as I want to.

Why limit yourself when you can do both?

 

[K Mejean]

I love the shallow dives. I have not been further than 62 ft. but I have the most fun in about 25 or less. The stress level seems to be a lot lower and the visual effects are tremendous.

 

[pilot fish]

I feel most relaxed on dives under 80 ft, in the 50 ft range, but it really depends on what's there that decides my depth. My most favorite dive was Devil's Throat in Coz 126 ft, Columbia Deep 98 ft and the worst dive I did was at 18/20 ft in Bonaire at the Town Pier. What a waste of time.

If you are at 35 ft for over an hour with great stuff to see, you are in diver's heaven.

 

[Trinigordo]

I just like to dive, whatever the site decides is my depth. I have thoroughly enjoyed dives that don't get deeper than 15 feet and I have been equally thrilled by dives past 100 feet.

No such thing as a bad dive for me

 

[jiveturkey]

I did a mountain dive in a river that ranges from 1-3m deep. The current was raging so we had to get as deep as possible to keep from being swept away. In the 1m range we were basically just crawling and pulling ourselves along the rocks. At the "deep" end the water came in like a waterfall and created a circular current that sucks you under. You end up against the wall that the water flows over and you can watch the water and fish splash down. Lots of fun in the shallows.

 

[redacted]

My favorite local dive is a clear spring-fed river with a constant temp of 68 to 70. I stopped carrying a depth guage because the deepest hole I had found was about 15 ft. I'm not sure how long the dives last as that is another unnecessary instrument. But currents that run .5 to 2 knots keeps the work level up and dive time constrained. Sometimes I just have to stand up and stumble thru the shallower rapids. I even log all these dives as it gives me a place to record the treasures I find on every dive.

 

[jcpol]

The best dive ever was beween 20 and 25 feet at the "Aquarium" in Virgin Gorda, BVI. Lots of light, lots of fish, and my wife and I had the pleasure of watching a turtle swim casually between us for a good solid 10 minutes. We could have stayed there till our tanks were empty, but they made us stay on schedule and leave with more than 900 psi.