Diving Done, We're In Key West
08-15-2009, 05:35 PM
#1
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We're in Key West today, finished our diving certification, did all four dives, yesterday was great, today was HORRIBLE, about 4 to 6 foot seas, horrible visibility and under water was like a washing machine, i was pushed up five feet by up running current and almost got slapped into the reef by one down pushing one. We swam into the current the whole time and STILL ended up way behind the boat. I will say this if you ever decide to go diving do yourself a favor and drop $100 on a mask, the first day I wore my cheap snorkel mask and it sucked it, bought a really nice one for today and it was great.
One thing I have noticed is that I have to surface VERY slowly otherwise I get a "squeeze" my ears don't balance, most notably the right one, this is not an issue when i come up slowly, but for the training i had to do an emergency surface a couple times, for whatever reason it ***** me up, i reach the surface dizzy and nauseated, this only lasts for a minute or so and then my ear hurts like a **********er, I had slightly clogged sinuses so that could be hte issue, key is to come up slowly for me! We went down to 40 feet for our deepest dive, we're certified for 60 feet, but it seems like your air goes so quickly at that depth it's hardly worth doing on regular air tanks.
One thing I have noticed is that I have to surface VERY slowly otherwise I get a "squeeze" my ears don't balance, most notably the right one, this is not an issue when i come up slowly, but for the training i had to do an emergency surface a couple times, for whatever reason it ***** me up, i reach the surface dizzy and nauseated, this only lasts for a minute or so and then my ear hurts like a **********er, I had slightly clogged sinuses so that could be hte issue, key is to come up slowly for me! We went down to 40 feet for our deepest dive, we're certified for 60 feet, but it seems like your air goes so quickly at that depth it's hardly worth doing on regular air tanks.
08-15-2009, 08:00 PM
#2
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Hold your nose and blow when you come up. It help you equalize easier. The more dives you do... the longer your air will last. I imagine that you were pretty excited and that will eat your air up quickly... so will swimming against the current the whole time. Your dive master shoulda dropped you way up current and then repositioned the boat. Drift diving is nice.... you don't have to do much work....just go where the current wants you to go.
This fall you should come up to NC and we can hit some of the wreck sites!
oh yeah, want a really nice mask?? http://www.oceanicworldwide.com/p_computers_iddm.html
This fall you should come up to NC and we can hit some of the wreck sites!
oh yeah, want a really nice mask?? http://www.oceanicworldwide.com/p_computers_iddm.html
08-16-2009, 10:18 AM
#3
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i actually didn't do bad on air, i was just referring to the air tables that tell you how long it will last. I ended up having more air then most when we came up. There was one kid that said he was out of air and I still had 2000 of the 3000 psi left.
08-17-2009, 12:50 PM
#4
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Congrats! Do you own a speargun yet?
**** dive tables, get a computer as soon as you can.
Coming up, if you've got plenty of air, to help your ears breath deeply and open your mouth as much as you can without your reg falling out.
On my certification dive we had to do a spring dive, and an ocean dive. Ocean dive was a disaster, they shouldn't have taken us out. Huge front blew in when we were standing on the dock, they decided to go anyway. 60' boat, 20 new divers, we were going down 50' to the wheelhouse of some wrecked ship out of Panama City. seas were easily 6', at least 10 people got really sea sick. One guy was real bad, so they had him jump in first, off the side of the boat rather than the stern. ALL of his gear fell off. The crew tied the bouy line to the anchor line at the surface rather than below, so getting to the anchor line all this green divers are trying not to get smashed by this huge boat bucking around in the waves. A girl let her grip on the line slip, an older guy (both are new divers) swam to get her (current was pulling her away), he was too exhausted to finish the dive.
At least 5 people dropped their weight belts when first jumping in. Some people lost flipper clips and masks (one guy on the crew found EVERYTHING, including stuff we didn't drop). At the bottom, we had a really short dive, on account of the rope tying our boat to the wheelhouse coming unraveled.
It was pretty ridiculous, but memorable.
I've never been diving for any reason other than spearfishing, I'm sure the Keys are nice (even if all the coral is dying). Diving out here is pretty colorless, anything away from structure or natural rocky bottom just looks like a desert.
**** dive tables, get a computer as soon as you can.
Coming up, if you've got plenty of air, to help your ears breath deeply and open your mouth as much as you can without your reg falling out.
On my certification dive we had to do a spring dive, and an ocean dive. Ocean dive was a disaster, they shouldn't have taken us out. Huge front blew in when we were standing on the dock, they decided to go anyway. 60' boat, 20 new divers, we were going down 50' to the wheelhouse of some wrecked ship out of Panama City. seas were easily 6', at least 10 people got really sea sick. One guy was real bad, so they had him jump in first, off the side of the boat rather than the stern. ALL of his gear fell off. The crew tied the bouy line to the anchor line at the surface rather than below, so getting to the anchor line all this green divers are trying not to get smashed by this huge boat bucking around in the waves. A girl let her grip on the line slip, an older guy (both are new divers) swam to get her (current was pulling her away), he was too exhausted to finish the dive.
At least 5 people dropped their weight belts when first jumping in. Some people lost flipper clips and masks (one guy on the crew found EVERYTHING, including stuff we didn't drop). At the bottom, we had a really short dive, on account of the rope tying our boat to the wheelhouse coming unraveled.
It was pretty ridiculous, but memorable.
I've never been diving for any reason other than spearfishing, I'm sure the Keys are nice (even if all the coral is dying). Diving out here is pretty colorless, anything away from structure or natural rocky bottom just looks like a desert.
08-17-2009, 01:36 PM
#5
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yea we had a bunch of people get sick and not go on the second dive, of course all were ocean dives, but the first day was a night and day difference.
No i dont have a spear gun, i'll prolly buy a hawaii sling as that is the only thing you can fish with in the bahamas.
No i dont have a spear gun, i'll prolly buy a hawaii sling as that is the only thing you can fish with in the bahamas.
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