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All scuba gear makes pretty lovely life jackets to be honest though. None guarantee a head up position floating on the surface unlike actual life vests. Back inflates do tend to push you forward in the water unless you weight them properly. When i put 10 lbs in my ranger i put 3 in each front pocket, and 2 in each rear pocket to keep me from being pushed forward so i don't have that problem. Thinking about rescue scenarios and planning for them is good practice, but making BCD choices based upon possible rescue scenarios is a bit much. I think the comfort factor of a back inflate trumps a jackets style every time. Also, when making a rescue in a back inflate bcd, don't jack up their bladder all the way full. Thats a guaranteed way to roll them and make your life hell towing them to safety. You only need enough in there to keep them out of the water.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:48
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Crunkjuice posted:making BCD choices based upon possible rescue scenarios is a bit much. I think the comfort factor of a back inflate trumps a jackets style every time. All told, yeah back inflate is the way to go if you are comfortable with it. I just don't think jacket BCs are a bad purchase. E: Oh god I just picked up a lot of my gear from it's annual service. Never own a ton of dive gear. Bishop fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Aug 15, 2012 |
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Aug 15, 2012 17:27
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Last night I bought tickets to Malaysia. The plan is to go with the girlfriend and dive Sipadan. Unfortunately I have to wait nearly 4 months before I can go. 
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Aug 16, 2012 01:44
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Mao posted:I'm looking for some advice from people who know a lot more about this than I do. Already stated, but definitely take the more cautious route. It sucks, but you'll still be able to get certified. I had to sit out 3 weeks for my grad dive in 97, they tacked me on to another classes grad dive instead. Long story short, I had a tooth split on the last beach dive before our boat dive.
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Aug 16, 2012 02:18
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2bM_71XCzc Sea Turtles, so drat cool.
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Aug 16, 2012 02:37
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Scuba diving's always been something I've wanted to try. I live in the bay area, and I get the impression from doing some googling that most people around here who want to dive drive over the mountains to Monterrey bay and do it there. I guess that makes sense, being a marine sanctuary and all, more stuff to see, but I'd be interested in diving in the SF bay itself, if there's anything cool to see underwater there.
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Aug 16, 2012 04:42
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Hyper-Urho-Kekkonen posted:Scuba diving's always been something I've wanted to try. I live in the bay area, and I get the impression from doing some googling that most people around here who want to dive drive over the mountains to Monterrey bay and do it there. I guess that makes sense, being a marine sanctuary and all, more stuff to see, but I'd be interested in diving in the SF bay itself, if there's anything cool to see underwater there. There isn't. Or at least, nothing like what you'll find in Monterey. Hop on Google Maps and take a look at the underwater features. You'll see that there's a large trench that comes right up to the shore in Monterey and Carmel. That trench means that cold, nutrient rich water from the deep comes up right there, and it causes a pretty spectacular abundance of underwater life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterey_Canyon That being said, I've heard the Farallones are nice to dive, but I've never been.
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Aug 16, 2012 08:05
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Had a near spiritual experience today with yellowtail barracudas spiraling all around me. God drat.
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Aug 16, 2012 14:20
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It's Goliath Grouper spawning season in Jupiter, FL right now. I'm heading out on Sunday to dive with them. My buddy said last weekend they counted 104 of them on one of the wrecks. Really looking forward to doing some photo and video of it. I'm also diving at Epcot on Saturday as well, should be a pretty awesome weekend underwater.
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Aug 16, 2012 16:23
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My wife and I are celebrating ten years or marital something in Key West next weekend, and are going diving with Bonsai diving for two days of two tank dives. Looking forward to it! We dove a Kentucky quarry with two tanks a couple weeks ago and.... Ugh. Give me reefs!
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Aug 17, 2012 04:05
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If you decide to dive the Vandenberg, I can recommend going with Captain's Corner. I just dove with them the other weekend and it was a great time. It's a big boat, but it wasn't full and I liked the high deck, it kept stuff dry and they had a wash tank and spray hose on board to clean your gear during the ride back to shore.
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Aug 17, 2012 05:18
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I live on the Carolina coast and have been diving wrecks like mad this summer after finally getting my OW cert. I finally got to see sharks yesterday (a ton of sand tigers) and it was amazing. My borderline phobia of sharks is gone because they're basically big giant cats
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Aug 19, 2012 20:27
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jackyl posted:My wife and I are celebrating ten years or marital something in Key West next weekend, and are going diving with Bonsai diving for two days of two tank dives. Looking forward to it! We dove a Kentucky quarry with two tanks a couple weeks ago and.... Ugh. Give me reefs! Also since I'm a local, which KY quarry? Joe's? Pennyroyal?
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Aug 22, 2012 21:29
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drat, never realised how many goons were into diving. Ive been diving for almost 2 years and I completely love it. Mostly Ive dived in Sydney and several times in bali. Recently I acquired an underwater camera which is not too shabby, considering it wasnt much more than $200aud. Took it out diving last week (my first night dive) and i found that the best way to get a clear shot in a low light environment is to turn the flash and get a buddy/buddies to double up the torch light - the flash illuminates too much sediment - or to turn the camera to the video mode. We always have great luck finding cuttlefish, my favourite. If youve never had the privilege to observe one up close it can be truly mindblowing, watching them change the patterns on their skin. Theyre apparently very intelligent creatures and they watch you very carefully, unless they of course try to chase you around a bit. Here's some footage I edited together from the night dive at Camp Cove in Sydney harbour. Sorry if it's very shaky at times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8peAUeUcK8Y And some stills from Camp Cove:      I was particularly happy with this one. Luckily one of the other divers had a big expensive SLR rig with multiple lights and while he had it lit up i snuck in with my little camera to get a decent still. I know Lionfish can be a big invasive problem in some areas but this little guy is a zebra lionfish that actually inhabits the south coast of New South Wales  These shots are from Jervis bay on the south coast of NSW Blue groper - the lovelorn puppies of the sea. These fuckers love to sneak up behind you when youre looking into crevasses and underhangs and scare the poo poo out of you when you turn around. Unfortunately in popular diving areas some unscrupulous people break open sea urchins to feed them so they are almost semi-domesticated.   This is a Port Jackson shark     Off for another night dive tonight, hopefully ill be able to get some more snaps of something interesting. I know there is supposed to be a number of moray eels where were heading and im hoping theyre reasonably active at night. Happy diving goons. TANZENTURTLE fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Aug 23, 2012 |
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Aug 23, 2012 02:47
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Amazing pictures throughout the thread. For those who have not been diving, an interesting point: Pictures simply do not do it justice. The experience of being weightless underwater is, all by itself, the most amazing thing a human being can do, because it is just so far outside the range of expectation of what humans are capable of that few who do not dive can even begin to understand how cool it is to 'fly' underwater. Add to that the grace with which underwater creatures move, and it is basically a religious experience every time a diver goes down, except for jaded people who forget to enjoy what life has to offer. Long-time full-time instructor ready to answer any question also. (I will probably be wrong, because the diving internet is pretty much full of people who know more about diving than people who do it for a living, but.) Kaal posted:Guam is noticeably warmer than Hawaiian water (4-5 degrees F warmer). HI is relatively cooler than many tropical areas due to its geographical position. Still, water transfers heat away from you 20 times as quickly as air; so any water temperature less than 98F will cool you down during prolonged immersion. Actually it is more like anything over roughly 91-94 degrees can often cause overheating with any level of activity, depending on fifty million things. Plenty of people who dive the tropics have trouble only with overheating, while plenty of other people in the same water freeze their butts off.
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Aug 25, 2012 11:57
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TANZENTURTLE posted:Off for another night dive tonight, hopefully ill be able to get some more snaps of something interesting. I know there is supposed to be a number of moray eels where were heading and im hoping theyre reasonably active at night. Happy diving goons. What got you into night diving?
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Aug 25, 2012 11:59
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pupdive posted:What got you into night diving? The folks at the dive centre where we learned go night diving fairly regularly and insisted that some spots are far more worth diving at night than in the day. My mate and I were keen to try it because we were told that certain sea life that can be a bit hard to encounter in the day are much more nocturnally active, like octopi, cuttlefish, crabs and invertebrates, tubeworms. So that got us excited because we're quite familiar with large schools of fish of all kinds but really like to search around for the rare things. Theres other interesting things about night diving, like it's possible to consume your air at a lesser rate making the dive time potentially longer because you move slower and in a smaller area typically and, surprisingly, it's a very tranquil experience (that is assuming you arent prone to having a claustrophobic reaction). I found that even just watching the torchlights beam off into the darkness and scanning over the environment looked incredible cool, as did looking up at the surface of the water. Also heard that it you temporarily turn off your torchlight in a safe spot and let your eyes adjust you can see swarms of tiny phosphorescent life forms in the water that illuminate as you run your hand through them. Obviously you can only dive at night by doing the appropriate course with an instructor, and all the safety precautions plus several others are even more paramount when your doing this kind of activity, but otherwise its an extremely pleasant, serene experience. Highly worth a try for the diver with open water qualifications whose looking for the next thing. Also, couldnt agree with you more that it's an experience that cant be replicated any other way and is deceptively difficult to relate to someone who hasn't tried it them self.
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Aug 25, 2012 13:59
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pupdive posted:Add to that the grace with which underwater creatures move, and it is basically a religious experience every time a diver goes down, except for jaded people who forget to enjoy what life has to offer. Tell me that after I've dived a boat and come out of the water covered in shrimp that look like alien arms flailing around. 
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Aug 25, 2012 15:30
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Just did a 2 tank dive on Koh Phi Phi, water temp 75 Fahrenheit. It's like warm bath water. SOOOOOOO nice.
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Aug 25, 2012 16:48
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MA-Horus posted:Just did a 2 tank dive on Koh Phi Phi, water temp 75 Fahrenheit. It's like warm bath water. SOOOOOOO nice. Wait, are you sure it was only 75F (24C)? That seems freakishly cold for Thai water...
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Aug 25, 2012 17:12
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eviljelly posted:Wait, are you sure it was only 75F (24C)? That seems freakishly cold for Thai water... That's COLD? I'll double-check, my log is in my backpack getting loaded onto a ferry. Koh Phi Phi->Krabi->Surat Thani->Koh Tao. 20 hours of travelling yay.
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Aug 26, 2012 04:26
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I noticed a while back that some people where talking about having done diving in quarries, im guessing because they live in central US states or similar circumstances. Can anyone elaborate what diving in a good quarry site is like? Do they deliberately hatch sustainable ecosystems to make them attractions?
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Aug 26, 2012 04:49
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TANZENTURTLE posted:I noticed a while back that some people where talking about having done diving in quarries, im guessing because they live in central US states or similar circumstances. Can anyone elaborate what diving in a good quarry site is like? Do they deliberately hatch sustainable ecosystems to make them attractions? Yo. Not so much ecosystems, but sunken equipment/planes/cars/boats. They make underwater parks with a bunch of sunken poo poo to see. Fish life is pretty barren usually
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Aug 26, 2012 04:55
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So the sunken artefacts accumulate plant growth, or decay or something? Or is it really just there to see and navigate around while you do the dive?
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Aug 26, 2012 05:21
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MA-Horus posted:That's COLD? I'll double-check, my log is in my backpack getting loaded onto a ferry. Koh Phi Phi->Krabi->Surat Thani->Koh Tao. 20 hours of travelling yay. I don't know if you've already made all your arrangements but if you can avoid doing Surat and go to Chumpon instead, I highly, highly recommend that. Especially if you're taking the night ferry.
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Aug 26, 2012 05:25
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TANZENTURTLE posted:I noticed a while back that some people where talking about having done diving in quarries, im guessing because they live in central US states or similar circumstances. Can anyone elaborate what diving in a good quarry site is like? Do they deliberately hatch sustainable ecosystems to make them attractions? http://www.lochlow-minn.com/ http://dutchsprings.com/ http://www.2dive.com/btm.htm http://www.sportdiver.com/keywords/bonne-terre-mine/bonne-terre-mine-missouri Quarry/mine diving is how to train when ocean or lakes are far but they have some advantages, including the fact that as man made things putting in training platforms etc is not problem. Ocean sites cannot be altered in any way usually, including putting in stairs and the like away from the ocean itself.
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Aug 26, 2012 09:52
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Following on from TANZENTURLE's photo post, here's a couple of the man himself, back from before my loving camera flooded:  ...and a couple of favourite pictures from the same dive:   Our next training night-dive is this Thursday. Part of the training is, once descended, to have everyone turn off their torches and just float in total darkness for a couple of minutes. Sounds freaky as hell, can't wait.
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Aug 26, 2012 10:45
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Clicktrack posted:Our next training night-dive is this Thursday. Part of the training is, once descended, to have everyone turn off their torches and just float in total darkness for a couple of minutes. Sounds freaky as hell, can't wait. Depending on the phase of the moon, and the visibility, it is entirely possible it will not be anywhere close to total darkness. When teaching night diving, this always turns out to be the student's the favorite part of the dive afterwards. I have done entire dives w/o lights, with no problems getting and receiving hand signals, seeing marine life, and navigating just by the full moon.
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Aug 26, 2012 11:35
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pupdive posted:Depending on the phase of the moon, and the visibility, it is entirely possible it will not be anywhere close to total darkness. Crazy, until what sort of depth can you usually see without torches in these conditions?
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Aug 26, 2012 14:04
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The one night dive I did was pretty neat. It wasn't nearly that dark, but we turned off all the lights at the end and if you moved, the bioluminesence of the algae or whatever is soo coool.
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Aug 26, 2012 21:55
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TANZENTURTLE posted:drat, never realised how many goons were into diving. Ive been diving for almost 2 years and I completely love it. Mostly Ive dived in Sydney and several times in bali. Recently I acquired an underwater camera which is not too shabby, considering it wasnt much more than $200aud. Took it out diving last week (my first night dive) and i found that the best way to get a clear shot in a low light environment is to turn the flash and get a buddy/buddies to double up the torch light - the flash illuminates too much sediment - or to turn the camera to the video mode. I would love to check out this kinda dive site next time I am in Australia if your willing to allow me to go with you.
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Aug 27, 2012 00:43
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SlicerDicer posted:I would love to check out this kinda dive site next time I am in Australia if your willing to allow me to go with you. Sure. The more the merrier if your qualifications are valid in Oz, I guess. That was sort of a beginners site, only about 7-10m. Well be trying out a dive site called Ship Rock soon which we've done during the before. Theres a nice long wall about 18 metres deep with easy entry and navigation. You just follow it one way then turn round come back to a marker (strobe light on a lead weight). BTW if anyone is interested in diving Sydney and NSW sites, shore, wreck or boat, there is a very comprehensive website by a guy called Michael McFadyen whose been visiting and revisiting them for decades. Its an absolutely terrific resource for anyone thinking of visiting, or already living in Syd. Has plenty of technical info, good pics and accurate accounts of the kind of marine life one can expect to encounter, including how theyve changed and fluctuated over the years. Definitely worth a look for just about anyone with a love of the sport and a buch of time to kill, too. http://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=1 Most of the best spots are in Port Hacking, including a spot called 'Barren's Hut' that he claims is Sydney's best. http://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=263
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Aug 27, 2012 08:02
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As an experienced diver, how often do you worry about the 'bends'? And what would you recommend to any novice divers like myself about avoiding it?
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Aug 27, 2012 09:20
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Clicktrack posted:Crazy, until what sort of depth can you usually see without torches in these conditions? I usually plan night dives to be as shallow as possible 7-10m 20-35 ft. The no light diving portion of a night dive is interesting: Because the color sensitive light cones in our eyes are concentrated in the front of the eyes and the more light sensitive black and white sensing rods tend to the peripheral vision, you end up not looking straight at stuff to see it best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell So one is not always seeing perfectly on one hand. But when the stars line up right (full moon (or nearby bright lighting), 100ft+/30m+ visibility), you can see colors (faded but visible) by the incident light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manta_ray_night_dive The Manta Ray Night Dive on the Big Island of Hawaii originally came about because one of the hotels put lights in and near the water that drew plankton, and that drew Manta to feed on them. Originally light usage was discouraged to concentrate the plankton around certain areas of the hotel lighting. Here's something fun to do on a night dive. Leave your light behind pointing up, and swim away from it. You get practice wihout a light, you can always find the light to swim back to, and when you get back to it, a lot of stuff will have been drawn to the light. For me, PADI no longer requiring a night dive for the advanced class is a mistake. There is so much to learn about everything on a night dive that it is perfect for a training dive, and because it has special procedures it is useful that way too.
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Aug 27, 2012 10:11
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Sotore posted:As an experienced diver, how often do you worry about the 'bends'? And what would you recommend to any novice divers like myself about avoiding it? Not to avoid answering your question, but as an experienced driver, how often do you worry about getting paralyzed in a car accident? The metaphor is pretty robust because we can take lots of care to prevent getting bent (always hydrate, stay well away from limits, watch our ascent rates) but we simply cannot be sure it will never happen to us. There are some pretty well accepted risk factors, and yet there are some DCS hits which are completely 'undeserved', to put it one way. Which means we simply do not know all the factors. I drink 4-5 2 liter bottles of water every day (I dive for work every day) as a preventive measure. But then again I am diving for work every day which is in and of itself a risk factor. Most people I know who have gotten bent have been dive instructors, and dive instructor trainers. I also know some fish collectors who have taken a 'hit', and know of a rather famous case, famous in certain fields that is, of a tourist who did one dive and ended up in the chamber. Chamber is a hyperbaric Chamber: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_chamber#Hyperbaric_chamber) Only one person I know personally got paralyzed from being bent. On the other hand, I have lost two roommates to death by car accidents, and I still drive without even thinking about that. About half the people I know who have gotten bent, got bent in Chuuk (Truk Lagoon). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuuk_Lagoon pupdive fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Aug 27, 2012 |
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Aug 27, 2012 10:24
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Sotore posted:As an experienced diver, how often do you worry about the 'bends'? And what would you recommend to any novice divers like myself about avoiding it? As I beginner diver it should be a non issue so long as you stick to your ndl's, keep hydrated and are in any kind of shape. Most of the stories of divers getting bent I've read are people straying way out of their limits and truk seems particularly bad for this. The PADI dive tables are very conservative as they have to cover everyone from fit 20 year olds to retired people wearing XXXXL wetsuits.
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Aug 27, 2012 11:20
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Hey eviljelly, I'm on Koh Tao. About to do my night dive for Iain's AOW course. Great so far!
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Aug 27, 2012 11:48
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What is this a picture of? (One of the problems with being a long time dive instructor is that I am so used to some stuff, that when a customer points something out to me, I sometimes have no idea what they are noticing with their fresh eyes. I mean turtles are pretty big, so those are easy. But sometimes I have no idea which new to them thing the customer is noticing. On the other hand, I was doing an intro dive with some customers and they were enchanted by the fish they were feeding, and out of nowhere a Manta Ray comes swimming by to check us out. And no one but me cared. I was like "Hey look at the manta ray! You might never see one again in your life!" And the customers were like "Forget that Nemo is right here, trying to bite me!" We were both excited, thus the exclamation points. I do still love playing with bubbles from divers below, which makes me clearly a nerd in some divers eyes. But a lot of the kids I train could spend the entire dive just swimming around in bubbles from other divers below and be happy. I love this picture. I wish I had shot it myself. I cannot really say what I love about it, but.
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Aug 27, 2012 12:43
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MA-Horus posted:Hey eviljelly, I'm on Koh Tao. About to do my night dive for Iain's AOW course. Great so far! Noice. Night dive is best dive, bro. I don't mean to overplug 'my' shop, but if you have a few days, you really oughta come over to New Way and sign up for the Sail Rock dive on Friday. We've been seeing bull sharks galore and we're always the first ones there - there's a huuuuuuuuge difference between the first dive when we're alone vs. the second dive after everyone else gets there.
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Aug 27, 2012 13:13
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pupdive posted:What is this a picture of? Not sure but id like to know, if you mean the orange thing. I asssumed it was some kind of cunjevoi-like thing with a vent opening. It was on a shallow rock wall with weeds and grasses covering it. I typically spend a decent bit looking close up at any fine plantlife when snorkelling and diving. And if anyone dives and doesn't take a cool sneaky moment to fly over other peoples bubbles, then they have forgotten how to live
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Aug 27, 2012 15:06
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