Hit 300 dives last week and it changed how I see this job

I was always one of those divers who thought experience was just about time underwater. But hitting my 300th dive last Tuesday on a bridge inspection in Norfolk really made me stop. That number felt big because I remembered barely surviving my first 30 foot mud dive back in 2021. Now I notice little things like current patterns and silt behavior that I used to totally miss. Has anyone else felt a specific milestone shift their whole mindset about safety or technique?

2 comments

2 Comments

john_hunt22d ago

Barely made it past my 100th dive back in 2019 during a nasty current up in the Potomac. Ngl I used to think milestones were just numbers old timers bragged about. But hitting 200 really changed my mind last year. I started noticing things like how the bottom composition shifts with tide direction and how different light angles affect visibility. That kind of awareness keeps me away from stupid mistakes I used to make. Tbh the real safety shift happens when you stop thinking about the dive count and start feeling the small changes in the water.

paigewood2d ago

Did you have any specific drills or exercises that helped you tune into those small changes, @john_hunt2? For me, I started paying way more attention to my breathing on every single dive after I hit around 150. Like I would just focus on how my breath felt at different depths and currents, and it totally changed how I noticed things like water temp shifts or subtle changes in visibility way before they became a problem. It's funny how the numbers start to mean less but your brain just gets better at reading the water without thinking. I still remember the first time I felt a current change coming just from how the bubbles moved around my mask.