whats your favourite position?

[Air Guzzler]

This hand signal always confuses them but the words say it all

[Hickdive]

Supreme Maximum Leader of my own oil-rich state.










Oh, we're talking about diving, I'm sorry...

[NeilB]

Depends if we are swimming with the reef on the left or on the right and who is more experienced.

If I am leading a less experienced buddy then I like them between me and the reef. Then they can't swim off into the blue without first going past me.
If I am leading a similarly experienced buddy then it does not really matter as they will be watching where I am as much as I am watching where they are.
Here in the blue water without a hood on you can usually hear your buddy breathing from 5m away anyway. It's a good indication as to how relaxed they are as well.

[Richard Mason]

Him/her on the left, as I have a slightly stiffer neck on my right hand side.,

Just lately, in fact ever since I got my Mares Volos Powers, I've had to take great care, or else I find myself 10m ahead, especially if I lose concentration.

If I can digress slightly, on this score, I had my own minor moment of triumph yesterday.

I've been with my current club, Tas Scuba Diving Club since 1998, on and off, although I went AWOL for a few years. The first buddy I dived with was James, then a recently qualified youngish (26 yo whippersnapper) and I had great difficulties as he sipped air whilst finning at prodigious speed, me trying to keep up in my then 20 yr old Cressi jets. If I kept up, I ran out of air early and we'd call the dive whilst he still had 100 odd bars left.

Yesterday, dived with J again, (he's now Club Pres, I'm Vice Pres). We were doing Scallop Surveys, (voluntary sorta) for the State Fisheries Dept, prior to the opening of the Recreational Scallop Season in a couple of weeks. We do this every year, in return for a substantial "out of pocket costs" donation.

The survey involves swimming along a 100m transect line on each site and picking up every scallop within a metre each side of the line; these are then boated, speciated, counted and sized.

Anyway, three times, I looked over my left shoulder - "where's James?" and each time, I saw his bubbles rising some way back, before he appeared out of the murk.

Yes yes, tsk tsk, I know, out of order on my part but I just couldn't help it. And quite rightly, back at the surface, James admonished me slightly, asked why I was in such a screamimg hurry. Truth is I wasn't, it was just normal pace in these fins.

I have to say though, after all these years, I did feel a bit of a triumphant smirk coming on.

Same thing happened to Digital Steve a couple of weeks back too.