Dive Conditions

[WellyFisho]

In my head this sounds like a bunch of stupid questions but here goes.

Is it ok to hunt in high wind conditions if the water clarity is good? What about when it's raining?

What conditions leading up to a dive day and also conditions on the dive day that contributes to low visibility?

e.g. Day before it's been raining hard with high winds = low vis??

Last question, assuming I've chosen the correct time of day to dive and appropriate conditions also, is it more productive to hunt in or along the edge of high current areas? Which areas are most productive?

Thanks

 

[Mr. X]

Is it ok to hunt in high wind conditions if the water clarity is good? What about when it's raining?

What conditions leading up to a dive day and also conditions on the dive day that contributes to low visibility?

Yes, reasonably good visibility is what you are after. Wind & rain conditions are simply indicators of what visibility is likely to be, IMHO.

Leading up to dive day? Rain- esp. if near to the mouth of a river/stream/drain - & wind, churn/swell, storms, plankton bloom in the Spring.

 

[Andrew the fish]

Wind and swell especially, those are safety concern. Gearing up and entering or exiting the water may be difficult and dangerous. This is nothing beyond common sense though. High seas make it harder to relax on the surface, so your bottom times will be shorter. You will be flooding your snorkel all the time. Also, wind creates surface current you will be swimming against. Closer to shore surface current will either elevate or lower the water temperature by stripping upper/warmer layer of water, or on contrary, pooling surface water making warm layer thicker, all the way to the bottom. Those kind of things. Now, if you spearfishing from the boat, there is the whole new can of worms from high seas...

Rain is never a bad thing though, unless it has been raining for a few days heavily and all the runoff from shore ruined visibility. But, even then, low visibility spearfishing is also fun.