Share your wildest current or surge dive stories here👇Also, leave any questions you still have about currents! DAN Surface Signaling Kit: shop.dan.org/products/dan-deluxe-surface-signaling-kit Join the community: www.patreon.com/azulunlimited Dive with me: azulunlimited.com/upcoming-diving-expeditions/
Great educational videos for many divers regardless of how experienced or how many dives they have. I had too many experiences of incidents over my 20+ years diving. Worst one was in Komodo, castle rock. Where one diver was not prepared to do negative entry and swim against current to the reef. He lost his right fin on the giant strike and still went down to 5m. By the time we noticed that, he was about to get panic but the local DM got the fin and put it back for him. Oh forgot to inform that he was with other team. We went off diving in our on group and the next thing we know after the dive, he was down in 36m on the same spot and unconscious without reg in he’s mouth. He was rescued by he’s DM and report of hospital was fine. So he was 6 mins out of air underwater and luckiest person in the world. Moral of the story, know your limit and dive your limit. P/S don’t buy your certifications !
Another type is the “South Florida Hot Drop” - tech wreck off Pompano Beach sometimes need you to do negative entry, drift with the current to the wreck, explore the wreck, then, exit,shot a DSMB, then do a blue water deco (if you need to) drifting until the boat picks you up. I did this a few years ago diving the Hydro Atlantic when we had 4kt ripping current. Great dive but challenging. We drifted almost 2 miles. Boat picked us up almost right at the Pompano entrance to the intercostal
Did a negative entry at a place called Big Scare, Costa Rica. We were told to assemble quickly to the bottom at 100' where we could see some sharks. We all got down, waited for a bit - no sharks. My NDL was getting close so I opted to get shallower and hover above everyone. I started drifting away quickly. I survived.
Same physics when kayaking, except you don't want to stop in the split before the obstacle. And yes, you gonna need at least a tad bit of strength, if you don't manage to hit it perfectly to correct your direction. Love your channel and hope I can go diving with you some day. You are such an empathic down-to-earth person and I can imagine diving with and learning from you being supernice and enjoyable. 👌
I'm back into diving after many years away, and the majority of dives here along the St. Lawrence river in Ontario are drift dives. I'm learning to be more comfortable with each dive and mostly with my own equipment. Our average current is typically 2-3 knots and at times as much as 5 knots. What I'm struggling with is the amount of air to put in my BCD, enough to just float above the river bottom but not so much to be pulled by the occassional up current. Weighting is key for me know that I'm using a 117 cu ft steel tank
Some of my favorite dives ever were the fast drifts in Komodo. Shotgun is awesome. Actually finding these "splits" in front of pinnacles however seemed very hit and miss. If you weren't dropped in exactly the right place you could miss the split. Still fun though. The current is your friend. 😁
Timely and very useful thank you! We are heading off to drft dive with hammerheads (hopefully they’ll be there) in a couple of days. I’m sure some of these insights will prove invaluable.
Great video 🙏 All i would reiterate is ‘planning’. When u have a good plan you won’t be surprised with immediate strong current, or hitting a current, or current ‘arriving’ with tide changes. Nice to go - ‘yep expected that’; ‘ok here’s the current change so we are turning around’; ‘negative decent to get to reef & out of strongest current’; ‘here’s the channel at 90deg to get out of strongest current’ etc. Less experienced divers become uncomfortable with unexpected conditions. And - fins. I’m a Jet Fin diver (strong propulsion) - in current i really dislike alternative fins. So - part of my confidence is knowing & trusting my gear. If sh_t gets real i have confidence in my experience, buddies & gear - we would also have contingency plans so we understand when one of us (designated dive leader) starts signalling alternative dive plan underwater.
I agree the best way to get experience with current and surge is to experience it. Side note probably not the best time to learn about surge and current in a ccr class on your first open what dive lol.
8:40 lets all work on diver etiquette! We do hiking with “leave no trace behind” We can all place the same effort into our dives. Preserve the Reefs as much as we can, or else we’ll all be diving in caves after its all gone.
Really ripping current after a storm in Cozumel. Best damn roller coaster ever. Usually Cozumel is a nice easy current. Not that day. Great video as always. Safe dive Sarah. Mike.
Thanks for the great videos! Would love if you could do one on down currents: signs of, different kinds (if any), why/how not to panic when caught in one, getting out (finning vs in/deflation, daisy chain etc). Thank yoouuu!
There is another kind of drift/current dive that is quite common in the Netherlands in The Eastern Scheldt river (Oosterschelde), and there's likely many other places this is done. The river is a tidal estuary and you plan your dive around high or low tide. This, when planned around high tide, results in the current taking you inland for the first half of your dive, and seaward for the second half. The inverse would happen around low tide. You exit where you entered the water.
Hi, I love your videos! You didn't mention anything about getting caught in a down-current. Have you had this experience? If so, what's your advice. Thanks.
@@AzulUnlimited Looking forward to it! I'm so afraid of strong currents because of getting caught in a down-current. After the first couple days of any dive trip where I've had to navigate currents, I get nightmares that I'm going down, down down and can't get back up. Luckily, they only last a couple of nights.
I definitely should work on my level of fitness. And I should learn how to kick better. Sometimes my frog kick stroke is great, the next one may be next to nothing. There is a modification of the flutter kick that I do that seems to work pretty well. I saw a dive master doing it. Legs spread out, turn both feet CW 90 deg and bring the legs together. Next stroke is with the feet turned CCW. Seems less tiring for me. The wildest current was easy because we hung onto the mooring line. But we had gone to 30 meters, so the clocks were ticking to NDL, so we crept up the line, but were outstretched like flags during a tropical storm. It was fun and nobody went into DECO.
I’m going to do a follow-up video to this to cover up & down currents and negative entries. This one was getting too long so I cut those topics but enough people have asked so stay tuned!
