Posts by Dan

  • Dry bag

    I should have specified which dry bag I had in mind. It's a big one, big enough to fit all your spearfishing gear minus perhaps the fins and speargun. It's meant to hold all your spearfishing gear, wetsuit, mask, knife etc. as you move it from place to place before and after a dive. It's not meant to hold a small part of your gear, a part that you want to stay dry like car keys, cell phone, T-shirt etc. So, what is the purpose of such a dry bag?



    The reason I ask is because I don't see the point, yet they are popular. The way I see it all my gear is going to be wet anyways after diving, I prefer a mesh bag so it will drain and dry somewhat by the time I need to unpack it. For the small items that I don't want wet I have a waterproof case.

  • Dry bag

    Can I get a few opinions here as to what is the purpose of a gear bag being "dry"? Thanks.

  • Greetings

    Welcome to the forum Ihab. I enjoyed reading your posts on SB. I'd like to see you write with the same spirit here. We don't have any members from your area so I'm sure everyone is interested in how things are over there. I dove Sharm el sheik when I was a kid back in '80, it was the most prolific underwater environment I've ever seen.


    Dan

  • 08/29/2009 La Santa Fe

    The fish beside the cudas is a Jack Crevalle. I withheld from shooting them for a couple of years. I don't know what people have against this fish. The flesh is mostly wine red but is also white in places. I just had some marinated in Italian dressing and grilled on the BBQ, it was good. Flesh turns grey when cooked, maybe this is what some people don't like. But it's firm and closer to steak than other fish. I give the Jack Crevalle :good:my dog likes it too.

  • Blackout

    Quote from LunkerBuster

    were you wearing a dive watch w or w/o a depth guage? did you know how long you had been down?

    I don't wear a watch, don't feel I need one. I tried wearing a watch for a while and got hooked on checking the depth during the dive, I don't want to be distracted by this. I like to go by how I feel, surface intervals, depth, and time. This dive was unusual for me. The reason I know how long it was is by the time of the video. I never knew how long my dives are before yesterday, and I never cared.

    Quote from LunkerBuster

    would this have been a better worse or same situation if you had ditched your belt? would that have helped you ascend or would it have been another thing to distract you?

    It would've been worse. I only wear 5lb now, it's nothing compared to what I used to wear. The weight is insignificant in terms of ease of going up, and as you said would've taken even more out of me to focus and ditch it.

    Quote from LunkerBuster

    did the carbon fins trick you into not knowing what your body was going through? ie, were you deeper than you thought based on how hard you worked to get there?

    I don't think the carbon fins were an issue. It was only 45-50ft and didn't feel deep. I was diving that depth all day and only messed up that dive. The factors contributing to the near blackout are IMO exactly the 3 I listed at the end of my post.

  • Non diving project for once

    :thumbup: It's great when it's a learning experience for the kids. I wrote off aquariums as too much work for what I get out of it (for myself). Now that I have a kid I'll consider it again in a couple of years.

  • Non diving project for once

    Hmm.. tiny like those irritating little fish that sometimes choose to hang out in front of my mask lenses for half my dive. They always scare me the first time they make their appearance, then I can't get rid of them. I wish I could shoot them, but then I think they're just looking for protection the poor little dears..

  • Blackout

    Quote from gerald

    I'm glad you are sharing this, as often people seem to feel embarrassed by it, and don't want to discuss it in public.

    This forum hasn't felt like "public" for me for a while now, I feel among friends. I wasn't going to post about this, kinda forgot about it. Then I was speaking to Oto earlier today, he saw the video on the other thread and commented that my dive time was pretty good. I then felt embarrassed that I was making myself look good without talking about what it can entail, so I told him about the near blackout. Then I thought I should organize it in my mind and post. Now I'm the near blackout celebrity of the week :yay:

  • Blackout

    I got the closest I ever did to a blackout yesterday diving with Alan and Pantoja. I wasn't pushing myself, not trying to go deep or long, not even trying to shoot a fish, at least not with a gun. Here's the vid, which you may have already seen, of my near blackout.


    Video: Pantoja shoots mutton


    I'm pretty sure about why everything happened. I wanted to video Pantoja diving and maybe shooting a fish. I didn't know when he was going to dive so I spent my time breathing up while following him. I was breathing up for a long time before he decided to dive, maybe 5 minutes. I wasn't hyperventilating or anything, I never do, just my usual breath up which consists of deep breaths and full exhales. But I think I achieved the same affect as hyperventilating just because of the duration of the breath up. I was well oxygenated and the urge to breath due to C02 build up? was not there.


    The depth was around 45-50ft, I felt very comfortable with no need to breath. When I saw the stirred up bottom I was still conscious of my air and made a calculated decision to go there. When I saw the mutton is where I logged off so to speak, forgot about my mental air gauge. When the mutton was gone I suddenly/in a flash became aware of my mental air gauge, and started heading up. About half way up was when I realized how bad I was, without any physical discomfort. For some stupid fucked up reason I decided that at that point is when I should stop filming and pressed the stop record button :S Although I didn't break stride doing it we know that every little effort, even a brief mental focus on something other than kicking and ascending, consumes more air. By the time I reached the surface I was feeling like I was about to float away, still without any physical discomfort. When I broke the surface I was thinking I'm going to go back down and was surprised when I didn't. I then yelled out to Pantoja but it was already over. Total dive time was about 1:45.


    Let me tell you that blacking out is a sweet and comfy way to go, but I don't want to go yet. Because of the way I breath up and dive my urge to breath is never suppressed so discomfort has always prompted me to start back up. I also never ever stop keeping my mind's eye on the air gauge. I felt that I had a couple of close calls in the past but I was very uncomfortable when that happened. It was nothing like this time. I always thought my body will give me the signs of an imminent blackout with enough time to save myself. Or at least that last adrenalin kick. I guess I was really eating shit this time. Overall it's a good thing, now I know it can happen to me and what to watch out for.


    So to conclude these were my mistakes in order.
    1. Breath up for too long.
    2. Lose track of my mental air gauge for a few seconds.
    3. Focus on another task on ascent (this particular one is so stupid and has me baffled, is it my nature to do this sort of thing again?)


    Also the whole act of filming underwater is relatively new to me and doesn't yet carry with it all the safety associations I've formed over the years diving with a speargun in hand.

  • 08/29/2009 La Santa Fe

    Where exactly are you feeling discomfort? Sometimes you need to develop callouses in the right places, the discomfort goes away if it's just the toes. Maybe the neoprene socks got compressed since the first time you used them. Give it a chance, if it's still uncomfortable we will have to find you different footpockets. I'll buy the ones you have now back.