Posted by seahunt on December 05, 2001 at 21:39:26:
In Reply to: Re: Oh Really... posted by Kendall Raine on December 05, 2001 at 13:33:30:
Gee whiz willikers.
My phraeseology may not be absolutely precise, but I think my point should be fairly clear.
My original response was to a person insulting divers for doing what is standard hunting techniques. I said that they are great divers, and they are, and he is a twit for his silly insults.
The next post was that a 12 year old can dive there fine. I said I was not talking about Casino point. I think you will agree that a 12 year old is not likely to be at the west end of San Nic, at Talott in the north swell or blowing tank after tank all day swimming hard.
I left it for the reader to assume that if I was talking about hunters, I was comparing them to sport divers.
I could say that most of your list is inapplicable, but that is not my point nor is chest beating. Most of the time, the difficulty and challenge of diving is only partly determined by the geographical location of the dive. It is also determined by the diver's will to challenge and push themselves. California has a lot of potentially challenging diving and the hunters tend to push themselves extremely hard. Most of those places you mention are not what would be called popular dive spots and I doubt that you would call most of that sport diving. Sure, some of those places offer more diffiult diving than is common in Calfornia, but I think it fair to say that a California hunter that is used to rough conditions, bad vis, cold, beach entries, long boat trips, who pushes themselves to do as many tanks as they can daily, spend their whole tank swimming at speed and who is as devoted to diving as are many hunters, is going to be better qualified to dive your list of spots than the majority of divers in the world.
No, I don't know everything about diving all over the world. No, I don't think many California hunters can match some of the skills Ron Bear talks about in his cave diving. No, I don't think many California divres could dive under ice without some gear and adjustment. But I dang well do know that the California hunters are skilled, tough divers that year round, year after year, push themselves as hard as any athletes. I don't hear about many other divers around the world that do. I for one, enjoy diving for the challenge it offers me and the way I and many other hunters dive, it is a tough personal challenge.
I hope that you can get my meaning from that.
Enjoy the diving, seahunt