How to tell Diving Conditions & Visibility: Tide, Swell

[Chronikle]

Hi Spearos,

New to a good understanding of the ocean conditions and visibility.
I am wondering what makes for better conditions?
Does High Tide vs. Low Tide matter?
Does the Swell or other conditions like offshore/incoming storms matter?
Time of the year (like algae blooms in summer?)
I am in Southern California but would really like to hear about this region and other areas too!

Any education and insight would be greatly appreciated.

-Dave

[AndrewK]

Incoming and high tide is always bringing cleaner water from offshore to inshore. Outgoing generally sucks dirty water out of bays, rivers, inlets, etc and can screw viz up. Wind against tide is never a good thing in my experience.



Ideal conditions for me on the east coast of florida are light east winds. id assume its bass ackwards for you cali people. Wave heights above 2 feet inshore and i dont even bother, with south florida we dont get rolling swells, we end up with a craptastic short period(distance between wave crests measured in seconds) swell that sucks up sand and sediment from the bottom and thrashes viz. also, horizontal and vertical viz are two different things, you may be able to see the bottom clearly in 20 feet of water but viz on the bottom when looking parallel to the bottom may be limited.


knowing bottom composition is always a plus too, sandy or muddy bottom will tend to have terrible viz in rough conditions... while primarily rocky or reef type areas may be better but not great.

[Chronikle]

Andrew
Thanks for the elemental considerations. Is there anything that gives swell reports like tide reports that you know of?

David

[AndrewK]

Originally Posted by Chronikle

Andrew
Thanks for the elemental considerations. Is there anything that gives swell reports like tide reports that you know of?

David

I use wind finder app on my phone.

[JohnMc]

Magicseaweed gives a fair bit of information, wind speed, direction of wind and swell as well as tides. Its a useful guide and if you have a little local knowledge as well it really comes into its own as you can translate the information into a rough idea of the visibility. Were I am its simple though, any wind, green soup if I am lucky and sludge brown otherwise

[injunspearo]

it really is best to just go dive, then asses the current conditions and that should pair up nicely with the visibility you had on the dive. This sort of thing takes time. Good luck.

[mjmoore83]

I could write an entire book about how sea conditions and other environmental conditions effect the visibility for diving. It matters on where you dive, what has been going on and what your bottom is like. The shape of the coast, time of year, time of day, moon phase(tides), rainfall on land and runoff, wind, current, wind swell, ground swell, coriolis effect of the earth, chlorophyll yada yada yada. How many times have you been diving and the surface looks awesome and as soon as you hit the thermocline it goes to crap? Just go diving when you can. Sometimes you can move a mile or two offshore/inshore and it is totally different.

[Chronikle]

First, I want to thank each of you in taking the time to share your knowledge and tools/apps.

AndrewK - I never thought about the low tide sucking out the grime from the inlets. I have been looking at the vertical and horizontal on the last dives too!

JohnMc - Magic seaweed is awesome! Just trying to learn all the different charts and apply them to the dive conditions of the day as a reference.

injunspearo & mjmoore - Agreed that any passion worth pursuing should not be short lived but worth learning over many years. I have the patience and am finding more time to get more experience with more dives.

I do have another question and hope this is not poor decorum to ask (and hope it will not be perceived as prying for valued techniques) - I am sorting out other threads where guys have stated that the waters and conditions are better in the morning or evenings. Some accounted for calming of winds, swells, temps and all sorts of hypothesis. Others swear that the fish are more active in the morning/feeding and will be easier to see. Some are stating that evenings/late afternoons fish are more docile and clamp down for the day and will not be as active. I understand that different fish will have different behavior but I am asking in general if the morning/evening theory has any validity - it would be interesting to get the various inputs from your diving experiences.

Thanks Guys!

-Dave

[mjmoore83]

It depends on the current buddy. Morning and late afternoon is generally best for finding grouper feeding and actively swimming around the rocks. Early and late afternoon also seems like the hogfish are near the ledge or rocks and then go out to the grass and sponge/sea fan flats to feed during the day. But again it depends on depth and what kind of bottom you are hunting.

There is what I call the a "Goldie Lockes Syndrome" to finding active fish; again this is where I hunt and might not be applicable to where you hunt. But I have seen this happen from the Keys north to NC. When the current is ripping grouper are spending so much energy fighting the current; more then they are intaking(feeding)so they hole up. When the current is still or slack they hole up because the bait fish are not active picking at plankton coming by in the current so the food is not active. You see the bait holding near structure when the current is not moving if not migrating. Hint the "Goldie Lockes Syndrome" not to much and not too little.

I hope this helps but if you find predators like jacks and little tunny pushing bait down toward the bottom get ready because those grouper are coming up from the bottom and attack the bait from below this seems to be the time when they are the most stupid and easy for the pickings.

[sirspearsalot]

Hi Chronikle, I'm a newbie too and I have yet to figure out this equation. This would also be better asked in the socal section on the site.

I always check out the malibu conditions thread on this site (or find one close to your location in socal)

http://spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=145865

and also Malibu divers on the twitter

https://twitter.com/MalibuDivers

this surfer dude post live reports ever morning and I use that too

http://www.facebook.com/george.clout.5

Its never a guarantee though, and also you might have to do a little window shopping when you head out to your local spot. It might be bad in one place but it might be decent a little up the road. Shop around. I know a few eel grass shallow spots that are always clear and have good schools of fish as a back up if my other spots don't work out.

Find out what works for you in your area.