More experience needed?

[fisheater]

I aborted my very first post-OW cert dive.

It was with my dive club. Four of us surface swam out quite a ways on the Sonoma (CA) coast. My buddy was an experienced tech diver, who was taking me under his wing. We descended and I couldn't see a danged thing, other than shadows where I knew my fins must be. I couldn't see my buddy. I couldn't see the other buddy pair. I couldn't see the bottom. I couldn't see the surface.

I figured that I was WAY too green (damned near as green as the water) to be diving solo. And diving solo I was, because those other three divers simply ceased to exist in this world.

So. I surfaced and hung for about half a minute. Then, the other three surfaced, all having called the dive because of the non-existent viz.

We all surface swam back to shore.

(We did notice that there was SOME viz. shallow, near the shore. My buddy and another tech diver, did a fairly long, very shallow dive while he tested out his new macro photo rig. After coming all that way, I wanted to dive, even if our max. depth was 12 fsw!)

[mm2002]

I have done a few extremely low vis, or close to zero vis dives this summer. I'm pretty comfortable in low vis, but it's when I end up solo that I feel like I'm diving a tad beyond my experience level. Bad vis, and being by yourself really isn't a good combination in my opinion.

[Martin2]

Originally Posted by mm2002

I have done a few extremely low vis, or close to zero vis dives this summer. I'm pretty comfortable in low vis, but it's when I end up solo that I feel like I'm diving a tad beyond my experience level. Bad vis, and being by yourself really isn't a good combination in my opinion.

No, it isn't. I'm at the point that I really won't dive in vis less than 3 feet. It just isn't worth it for me. Unless I'm at a location that I'm familiar enough with to actually enjoy with that little vis. But there aren't very many of those.

[Bigg_Budd]

I didn't feel out of my league, but my first dive on the O was one of the most challenging dives I've had. But the training kicked in, and now it is nothing more than a good story...

[cummings66]

I've never felt out of my league on dives I've done, but I am confident that it will happen to me once I venture out of the lakes into the ocean.