Strong Current but No Hook?

The best diving with exciting marine life experiences is usually to be found where there are strong currents. Normal thinking is for a diver to hook into the substrate with a reef hook and, so anchored, enjoy the show.

Alas, so many divers have proved inexpert deploying these simple solutions to diving in a swift current by damaging living reef in the process, that the latest trend in some locations is to ban the use of reef hooks.

So, what's the option? Generally speaking, few divers can sustain swimming against more than a one-knot current, and then not for long, so the answer is to go with the flow and enjoy the ride. However, some techniques can enable you to be more than an item of flotsam drifting along in the stream.

Look for reef out-crops that the water flows over or around, and then shelter in the eddy formed behind it. If you have dived the passes of French Polynesia or Aldabra, you will be familiar with this technique. Duck out of the flow. Find your spot and loiter there.

Often, a reef (or indeed a wreck) will have a current point where everything happens, but just around the corner, the water will be quiet. Currents are usually caused by a tidal flow, which you wouldn't notice out in the blue of the ocean, but the water has to speed up to get around topographical details like sea mounts or reefs. Remember, such currents can also flow upward or downward.

This tidal flow is especially noticeable in channels that lead into lagoons. The sensible diver only enters these channels during a rising tide so that he later ends up in the lagoon rather than lost somewhere at sea. The narrower the channel, the faster the water.

Finally, I should mention the lady I once dived with who could vector her body in such a way that she hovered stationary in the flow. Very impressive. I could never do that.

John Bantin