how long are you down there?
I was only there for about 1 minute as I skimmed along the the bottom analyzing the terrain. This was at Mermet Springs, which is a quarry in southern Illinois.
How long does it generally take to get cold in a dry suit?
I have absolutely no idea, because I've never been in a drysuit...I was diving wet!
I have never gotten deep enough for a dry suit but want to get into it.
I'll more than likely get dry suit certified sometime this winter, because the instructors and DM's that were with their students looked real nice and cozy. Myself and another diver were the "tag-alongs" this weekend, and the other diver
was diving dry too.
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I have gone down to 100+ feet a few times, and I really don't really understand the fascination with it. I rather stay above 60ft where my air consumption is much slower. But everyone have their own preference. My wife doesn't like some of the dives I do, and I don't like some of her dives.
It's certainly not for everyone, which is why the vis is generally far better due to not being silted in... Especially by OW students without any fin or bouyancy control. I've just always been more of an "explorer" if you will, so I really enjoy following a wall and see the changes along the way as well as the different types of fish that tend to congregate at specific levels. While you certainly do burn a lot more air, the scooter allows you to use less since you're not working nearly as hard and I was able to zxip back and forth across the quarry while maintaining a very consistent level while off gassing on my very slow ascent which I did in a zig-zag manner rather than remaining stationary for a traditional safty stop.
Where are you diving? Wish I had a scooter.
Mermet Springs -- I bought my scooters on eBay for under $150 each including shipping. They are the Sea-Doo knockoffs that are brown and black (
search "dive scooters"). I bought them from the guy in Florida that has them listed starting at $134. Since buying them, several other local divers have expressed interest in getting Scooter Certified as well.
We've had them in the pool a couple of times prior to this weekend, but this was the first time they have seen any serious use. Yesterday I had the pleasure of diving with my instructor for a fun dive after he was done with his OW students, and we covered some serious territory with them, including zipping in and out of the 727 jet that is at Mermet... At one point when we were playing "follow the leader", he was trying to shake me loose and went into the side emergeny door, and then straight out the other side... I was able to get in, but because I have a Pony tank mounted on my rig, I wasn't able to get out the same way, so after 3 tries of the exit being too narrow for me to squeeze my rig through, I backed up and wnet through the entire fuselage of the plane then out the main door directly behind the cockpit... It was awesome to zoom through a huge jet with the scooter!!!
When we finally surfaced, one of the guys in our group said that they were amazed at how fast we were moving, based upon our bubble trails... One guy said they forgot that we had taken the scooters in with us, and they couldn't believe how fast a couple of divers wrere swimming, then someone else reminded them that we had them. I was told that if they turned their heads for just a minute, they would lose us because we were in a totally different area by the time they figured out where we were.
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deepest i've been is 95 feet, my wife got creeped out down that deep, but me i felt like i could have kept goin.
The only time I've been creeped out, was on a dive to 70' which ended up being a black water dive due to a coal dust like silt that would not allow for any light penetration even with my Ikelite C-8 LED. A buddy and I were hunting off the face of a wall, and we both spooked individually on 2 separate dives at the same site. On the first dive I was the one that became disoriented and started for the surface too quickly and he grabbed me, and on the 2nd dive it was I that stopped him... After 2 for 2, we aborted and moved to an upper ledge about 30'ish feet and stayed thereb for the duration that day!
You feel any narcosis down that deep?
I have not been narked yet but am looking for it, which is why I really wanted to hit 120' yesterday. The 120' deep dive never got to happen since my buddys car broke down on his way over to meet me at the dive site yesterday morning, so I had to dive with the OW students for the 1st dive, then did the scooter dive to about 58' later in the day as detailed above.
-Tim
