[Paul B]

I do most of my diving in New York near the city. Our visability is usually measured in inches and rarely reaches four feet. I think most divers who usually dive in pristine water would panic here. On one of my Caribbean dives when my daughter was getting certified the instructor surfaced immediately obviousely frightened because he said there was no visability when I could clearly see him at thirty feet down. We have to do everything by feel and were 1/4" wet suits which limits turning your neck. I believe that if you can dive here, you can dive anywhere with no fear and be very competent in clear water. I myself have a couple of hundred dives in tropical water but the real diving is here. Hand signals are useless here so we bang on the tank, if you dive with a buddy, he is tied to you with a line, if he is not tied to you , you are diving alone.
Obviousley, we do not dive here to look at the beautiful fish, we dive for lobsters and there are 200 shipwercks around Long Island and because of the visability most of the stuff is still on them. We do often get stuck in fishing line and must use a knife or take off your tank, we also swim into large pipes or ship boilers without realizing it. When you stop swimming, the mud overtakes you so that 10" of visability becomes zero.
I do dive with an inflatable surface buoy. If the boat disappears, my wife is in trouble, it's my boat.
Paul