Property Recovery- Thinking Forward

[spectrum]

Not to sound completely idiotic, but what major dangers around docks are you referring?

Ship to shore power can be sketchy, concentrations of sewerage, gasoline etc can find you, overhead traffic, more klutzes dropping stuff. Essentially you're diving under what can be an active community. Also as mentioned lost stuff that can snag & entangle, high likelihood of silt outs and currents.

Obviously the term dock covers a wide gamut of circumstances. Diving near a private 1 slip dock and in a marina are 2 very different assignments.

 

[RIteen]

Gotcha! Yea, we have mostly 1-2 slip docks.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

One fairly low risk recovery at which even a "basic diver" can actually make a few dollars is retrieving golf balls from ponds on or near golf courses. You just need to know a person in charge of that activity for golf course who will hire you. It's mostly done by feel- as most ponds will be zero viz. Other than that, search and recovery is not a high demand market for the casual diver to enter.
DivemasterDennis

 

[RIteen]

Ill bet not too many people volunteer for that duty! Lol...

 

[Nwcid]

Not sure how large your area is or what kind of population or rescue services you have. One possible way to help offset cost is to see if your area has a volunteer dive team. See what their requirements are. If you do then you could "take up diving with the goal of joining the dive team" which means it should be tax deductible. Any training gear or travel you do for achieving that goal could be used as a write off for you, obviously talk to an accountant. I know I do many "volunteer" jobs, Ski Patrol, Dive Team, Fire Dept, ect and I am able to write a lot of stuff off due to it.

Now if you choose to use your skills and gear to have fun on top of that goal more power to you.

 

[RIteen]

Yea, its a small town with said dive teams. Fire Department to be precise. The only snag I may run into is the age, as they most likely require you to be 18+, since they are the ones that usually pull bodies!

However as anything, I shall look into it.

I shall also look into the local golf course.

 

[Wookie]

Once upon a time when I was younger and hungrier, I put my name in at the local commercial fish house. Fishing boats have to have their keel coolers and wheels/nozzles cleaned a couple of times a year. It's a dirty, low vis, laying in the mud, crappy job that used to bring a few hundred to a grand a day (I don't think I could work that hard now) on the weekends. You'll need to invent your own tools, but can start basic with a scraper and chain (the chain is for pipe keel coolers) and you'll need to do an excellent job. Point Judith is where to go for that. Cleaning rope out of fishing boat wheels is also a fast way to make a few hundred, but you will have to get very good at it. Fishing boats tend to melt the rope into a poly blob. It takes sharp chisels (wood chisels) to cut the blob, and you don't want to mar the shaft.

Good luck, have fun. I did.

 

[RIteen]

^Im a ways from Pt. Judith unfortunately... probably 1hr each way, and I don't have my license yet (parents blunder!)

 

[boulderjohn]

I just spent a lot of time talking to someone who does this sort of thing regularly. He is a public service diver with a public service diving team. Their primary purpose is dive rescue, body recovery, searching for evidence of crimes, etc., but they do other stuff as well. They just recovered a very expensive ring for someone. THey don't charge for their services, but they accept donations.

These are very highly trained people who are used to working in water with zero visibility. They have a lot of very expensive equipment, including sonar and metal detectors. They do the work for free.

If there is anything like that near you, then you should know what your competition is.

 

[RIteen]

We have nothing THAT organised...! Ours are all volunteer. Hell, the police diver often brings them back both Lobster and a body.. lol.