WHO ARE SOME OF THE DEEPEST DIVERS IN MIDWEST

[DetectorGuy]

Welcome to MNscuba. I am not a deep diver, just a run of the mill recreational diver. There is plenty of room in the pool for everyone. Just typing in this "Technical Diving" thread kind of gives me the willy's. Diving around here has such a variety of circumstances that a 120' dive to some may not seem incredible. Imagine diving in 40 degree water to a depth of 50' with 35' viz where you encounter a layer of trees hovering in a layer of hydrogen sulfide that has the consistency of chocolate milk. Then when you get through the layer of trees to a depth of 60' the water clears to 10' viz and stays that clear until you get to about 118' and hit another layer of friable material that percolates up and turns the viz to near zero. Add several entanglement hazards at or just above the bottom (not counting the layer of trees 58' above your head). Then just for fun you add in one or two unexpected and unplanned overhead environments (not counting that layer of trees over your head).

I believe 120' is in the "technical realm" given the right (or wrong) set of conditions. There may be books that say that 130' is the edge of the recreational envelope. Any deeper than that and a mere recreational diver will instantly wither up and die. I read the books and I did not pay attention to them. Technical diving is what you make of it.

I realize the spirit of this topic is to see who are some of the deepest divers in the midwest. I have met a few and I would also like to meet more... as long as none of us do the deep dives for the wrong reasons and become unsafe by diving outside of our training, and comfort level. Diving deep does not have to be a competition even within the same diver, to try to go deeper than you went last time. That is how accidents happen in my opinion. John