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>Lets see,If I wear a dry suit with a tank top and shorts underneath,I'll be >fairly warm.Yeah,this cold water in Fl. can be a real problem.I guess those >guys who dive the reefs and wrecks there must be real supermen.(I did dive >there >in Boynton in Dec.97.and Miami,Keylargo 94,Key West,Isamorama,Keylargo 95 >and I've done all your drift diving,currents,rough seas(what a joke)and >this was >FAR from challenging). JT,....................... Miami, Key Largo and south have NO currents, as far as South Florida diving goes. This includes any of the Key West deep wrecks, which have essentially "No current" by Jupiter/Juno standards. Boynton has some current, but usually is mild compared to Central Palm Beach, and very low current compared to Juno and Jupiter diving. And unless you did dives to 200 feet or deeper, you did not face any of the real conditions we have been talking about. We are NOT discussing baby recreational dives. You can't even use the wreck diving techniques here that Billy Deans uses----so don't be so sure you are talking about the same things we are ( i.e., on deep wrecks off of Juno, you CAN NOT anchor a boat or float line to a wreck, and then pull your self down a line. NO WAY would you want to try---it would be begging for DCS later, it would be a huge waste of gas, and you would need phenomenal strength to succeed. And you would NEVER come up a line anchored to the bottom, to do deco on. NEVER! It would be just plain stupid to plan on this when the current will usually run between 3.5 and 4.5 mph, and this is actual GPS speed, no tired diver exaggeration.). The only Boynton dive with appreciable current is the wreck of the Skycliff. On a normal day on the Skycliff, if you poke your head up into the current, over the protection of the side of the ship or a cabin, your mask can be immediately ripped off, if you have a normal purge on your second stage reg in your mouth, it will be depressed by the current flow, and you'll have to cover it with your hand if for some reason you need to keep your head exposed. This wreck does not seem to have any Newfoundland current intrusion, so the current stays constant all the way to the bottom 1 to 2 feet, where skin friction drag slows the speed of the current. And this "is" a mild current wreck, by north Palm Beach standards. The 250 foot deep occulina ledge off Juno, that WKPP members have been searching for the 2 remaining deceased tech divers on, will have 3.5 to 4.5 mph currents going North on the top 200 feet of water, with the Gulfstream, and the bottom 50 will be either still or slight south current, and a frigid 42 degrees up to a warm of 62 this time of year---caused by intrusion from the Newfoundland current. The shear you run into once you penetrate the bottom water, causes stresses you NE divers have not yet encountered, and so far, don't seem to comprehend. We don't consider this temperature range (42 to 62 degrees) any big deal, as it is easy to dress for it and hardly something worthy of addressing as a skill, the way some of the NE guys are talking. However it can NOT be safely dived with a wet suit in Winter, as the 3 missing WPB divers are testament to. As to ocean conditions, we go out in anything the boats here can handle, which typically limits us to 8 to 12 foot seas before the boats choose to cancel out of a planned dive---frequently the dives themselves are great with these conditions ( large east wind blows the Gulf stream in really close, often pushing visibility to over 150 feet when this happens), but the inlets get dangerous where the waves pile up much higher, and a few boats have turned over here in the last 3 years---making many of the captains more cautious about running in 12 to 15 or bigger.....Most of the good dive sites will always be over an hour run, sometimes over 2 hours to get back against current and waves). So unless you guys are diving boats much more seaworthy than the 38 foot Deltas that are popular for dive charters here in WPB, this nonsense about your divers being a "tougher" or "hardier" breed, will have little to do with diving conditions, and a lot more to do with self aggrandizement. Now, I'm not saying you guys have poor diving---I really want to experience some of your better dive sites. I do believe they will be very good. I'm just disagreeing with the REASONS several NE divers have used to have us believe the NE dives are so very challenging. *Note---I use the 3.5 to 4.5 mph description for surface current, because when we take the boat out of gear to drop the tech teams and scooters in, the GPS handheld I use shows this to be our speed over the bottom---this is what I use to calculate how far upcurrent we need to drop, in order to hit a spot we want to reach on the bottom. I see no reason to convert the GPS reading to knots. Certainly you can make this calculation yourself, if considering it his way annoys you:-) Regards, Dan Volker >Dan you still miss my point or your dancing around it.I've dove in your back >yard you can't say the same.I have no doubt that you can master our area,but >to say its a cake walk you have to dive it first.And as for the drift >dive,if I were a cruel person I would address resent mishaps.If you >planning to come up here this summer when and where if its in this area I >can recomend some nice dives or I can plan some dives that should be up to >your skill.This is not a challenge,but an offer for great diving.You can >then say our diving is easy with experience not ego. >Ho yeah when talking about currents or boat speed and things the correct >term is >knots not mph.And I have incountered your Newfoundland current off of South >Carolina from a tried in boat(I would have perfered not too but once your into >a dive and the current comes you deal with it.) >Capt.J.T. > > > > -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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