On The Water

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Gigi, you got me fired up with the jewfish shot...I worked up another Hayden video...we bought him a kid's snorkel but he insists on using Alex's full size one. I do not know how he gets it in his mouth and makes it work. Indulge me...I have WAY too much fun with him:

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I went diving for the first time this weekend off the coast of Carrabelle, FL (in the Gulf of Mexico)...Shot two black snapper. We were in 80 ft of water, and were diving on some boats that some friends took out and sunk. Most fun I've had in a long time.:D
 
I'm a certified diver. My deepest time was a bounce dive into the edge of the Carmel trench, in Northern California. Not down long enough to require decompression. The trench is a thing to behold, a certain distance from shore and abruptly there is a ledge in the gravelly sandy bottom, that angles down in a surprisingly steep angle. The angle is so steep that the sand on the sides perpetually slides down. You look down into blackness. It's so cool! A night dive there would be spooky!
 
I had a good friend who was a top notch professional deep water diver, those guys that breathe special mixtures when doing underwater construction, and the like. He was forever going off to the north sea with his younger brother, who worked as the dive tender, the guy who manages the divers from ship, regulates their decompression when in the chambers, and everything else to keep them healthy. Berl got into the trade after doing river demolition in Viet Nam. Maybe crazy, but it pays well, I believe, and you get to see some of the world. He told me that in Nam, so often the rivers were so muddy, everything had to practically be done by feel.
 
I can imagine. Once, one of the head divers cut a 3" gash in his thigh. After decompressing, he took a shower, then called all the other divers around to show/teach them how to sew it up. That was pretty cool - they were taking notes.
 
Anybody who sends a first time diver down to 80 feet and has him clear his mask, is doing a criminal act. No way should that be condoned. Thirty-forty feet is the norm.
 
woodworkingboy said:
Anybody who sends a first time diver down to 80 feet and has him clear his mask, is doing a criminal act. No way should that be condoned. Thirty-forty feet is the norm.
Click to expand...

Agreed....staying at less than 33 feet is best...a free ascent even from that depth can be daunting. Maybe topnotch will give us more details.
 
woodworkingboy said:
He told me that in Nam, so often the rivers were so muddy, everything had to practically be done by feel.
Click to expand...

Jay,

I have joined the local Dive Team, part of FEMA here...precise descr. is "Public Safety Diver"...apparently much of the recovery diving here is "blacked out" conditions due to silt and turbidity.

We have had the first 8 hour class session, do the next 8 hrs this Saturday...again in class, take our eqpt in for evaluation and more instruction. Two weeks after that (Oct. 24) we do the swimming qualifications and water tests (probably doff and don, blackout diving (mask will be blacked out), breathing from broken line, search patterns, etc)...all this in an Olympic swimming pool.

I went ahead and did my own pretest 2 days ago at the local aquatic center:

800 m with mask, fins, snorkel
500 m with no gear
100 m buddy tow (no buddy, I towed a spine board with a "sea anchor" attached...5 gal. bucket with holes in bottom)
15 min. survival swim, last 2 min. with hands out of water.

Besides getting pretty cold the test went well.

Dec. 5 will be diving in a local large lake with realistic problem scenarios...body recovery, evidence recovery (e.g., discarded weapon).

I'll post here periodically as the course develops...after all, it is "on [in] the water".
 
Gary, that sounds cool! We were on the water all weekend, finally got what we were after! We bagged one lobster as well.
 

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I know that is so much fun...I remember diving down about 8 feet, leveling off in foot high grass and stalking thru that grass to get close to fish...just like stalking on land but you can float/fly horizontal as you creep thru the water...a very cool experience.
 
That's great, Gary, that you are expanding your diving skills like that, though there is the grissly element to it too. Do you get called out through the police, that asks for your services when required?

Nice fish, V!
 
I think it is law enforcement requests mainly, though those may sometimes be originally driven by FEMA, depending on the situation. The Dive Team gets called out for land searches, too. We have to complete NIMS 100 and 700 (basics of the Incident Command System that is used for disasters) which is part of FEMA.
 
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