Yep, this is a good thread, and has also been on my mind lately. A lot.
In fact it is on my mind everytime I get into the water here.
I recently moved to the San Francisco Bay area.
The vis here is generally pretty poor, on average about 5-10 m. Northern Califonria has few sharks by South African standards, but they do have Great Whites, and quite a large seal population, and statistically, they have a lot of shark attacks too.
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The problem too is that shore diving here is very common, which I do because boat access is not easy, so there is no friendly boat to bail you out of the water quickly either. And I keep thinking to myself in my green picasso wetsuit, with my jubby little legs pumping away that I might resemble a fat seal, worse still a spastic one, to one of the whites. So basically, whenever I dive here, it is slightly unsettling, and it is hard to relax in these circumstances. Basically, compaired to diving on the Durban North Coast of South Africa, its an order of magnitude more intimidating and more scary. Perhaps this is a foolish illusion.
I spoke to one of the better divers round here, and he seemed to think that sharks where not an issue, and are rarely seen. But at the back of my mind I noted that because you can't see them, doesn't mean that they aren't there.
Now we can't change the vis, so the real question I had is if you are going to dive, how effective do you think a powerhead would be in this situation. Or do you think you shouldn't dive here at all. I dive with powerheads, but think that it is merely a safety blanket, and a hollow one at that, and the scary reality is that if a white wants to chomp me, I won't even see it coming, let alone have time for a powerhead.
Are there any other divers out there that dive in these conditions?I am interested in their views, and steps that they take to relax, when they dive, when they don't and that type of thing.
