Of Drift Dives And BCDs

A drift dive is when there's a strong enough current that you can jump in the water and get pulled along by it and it takes you on a tour.

We dove Cousteau's Drift. 

You tend to get a longer dive out of it as you're suing less air by not kicking nearly as much as the current takes you where you want to go.

The downside is you're not fighting against the current to get back to where you entered the water, so the boat is going to come pick you up. Everyone sticks together and the divemaster tows a float so the boat knows where you are.

Entry is fun too,  you gear up, buddy check, line up at both exits on the boat and as the boat drifts in the current when you reach the starting point for the dive the Captain yells "Dive, Dive, Dive" and in you go with a negative entry to drop down into the current as rapidly as possible.

Thus turned into quite a cluster of a dive entry.

People all over the place trying to keep an eye on the divemaster and not run into anyone else. 

 

 There's the divemaster with the float in tow.

You could just take a seat and flow with the current.

 

The current was zipping along, as you can see form the coral bending in the current:

 

Got to see a stingray flying in the current as well.

 

This was fun until I started rising a bit. Took some air out of my BCD and that did it.

Then I started rising again, took even more air out wondering how there could still be air in it as I had jumped in with a deflated BCD.

It happened yet again,

Yep, BCD was malfunctioning and it was doing a slow inflate all on its own.

So I removed the hose connecting it to my tank and problem solved for the rest of the dive. The slow leak was taking quite a fair bit of air over time.

At the surface we all were told to inflate out BCDs  so I reattached the hose and Whompf! - the BCD inflated 100% in seconds and started over-inflating in a very loud manner and spiling air out the overpressure valve.. So I took the hose off again and took some air out as well. The inflator had a leak and was staying open. Not a big deal but an annoying that needs to be dealt with and they didnt have the tools on the boat to fix it.  I dove with it a few more times inflating it manually, and then swapped it out for a rental BCD for the rest of the trip.

It was a fun dive and drifting away was kinda relaxing. 

A 37 minute drift dive with a max depth of 29 feet and an average of 18 feet.