Shore diving advice needed

[Lizard Leg]

I am posting this in the advanced section, because well, I guess you really need to understand all of the issues involved to help me with this issue. It also really pricks my pride to ask this. But I'm at a loss.

Did some shore dives in Pensacola's Ft. Pickens yesterday. Wasn't terribly impressed but that's neither here nor there - I was underwater and making bubbles. The problem was the "shore" in shore dive. I am a right below knee amputee and the walking foot does not tolerate sand very well. Sand, carbon fiber, and the kevlar "socks" that help eliminate friction and noise inside of the foot shell = $$ in replacement and repair costs. Ask me how I know this

The dive leg I have works great in the water - but not on land. The weight limit of me and a full kit is about 90 lbs over the max this thing can handle - it's made for water, not land.

On a boat, I tell the DM that I do a seated face roll entry and need my kit handed down to me once I am seated on the deck. I sit as close to the platform as possible so they don't have to carry my rig the length of the boat - they literally just have to pick up my kit, turn around and drop it down behind me. One time, I was close enough I dropped it off the back and just jumped in after it and geared up in the water. On the exit, I hand my fins up, chicken wing out of my kit, hand it up, and then generally swim back out for a second to let the next diver in line out while I get the foot back into the walking position and then exit normally.

Yesterday, I arrived, unloaded my gear onto the wall, geared up and stood there staring at the minor hop skip and jump down to the water, while mentally calculating the weight, the unvenness of the sand - and the cost of this ankle. I tried anyway and almost made it. A good samaratian finally took pity on me - I was so embarassed and I just wanted to get off of the crowded beach and into the water.

Plan in my head so far. Get another set of 3mm long boots to slide on over the walking foot and zip strip down hard to try to keep as much sand as possible out. Walk a 4x6 or so lightweight rubber mat down as close to tide line as possible. Hump down my kit, weights, fins, etc. Back to vehicle and swap over to dive leg. Here's where I get stalled - I still have that 10-30' to get in the water, without dragging regs through the sand, breaking the dive leg or making a fool of myself. For the life of me I can't come up with a solution that doesn't involve another person holding and carrying something down for me.

I absolutely hate admitting I have limitations, and the quickest way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't. With this, it's not that I can't - it's a gear limitation, with no commercialy available options to rectify.

Any suggestions on getting a kit to water with the least amount of extra gear - by myself?

[Paladin]

I don't know if this will help but, back in the late 1960s, a diver I knew had a condition that was causing his muscles to atrophy slowly. He continued to dive almost right up to the end of his life. What he did was take a small piece of a tarp and attach a loop of rope to two of the eyelets to make a drag. He placed his gear on the tarp and dragged it to the water. At the water, he rolled the tarp and rope into a roll and fastened it to his tank. He then put on his gear and dived. At the end of the dive, he reversed the process.

[Lizard Leg]

That's a great idea!

[3D diver]

I've been thinking of wheels, carts, kayak/boats/floats with wheels, etc., but haven't come up with anything better than this:

http://www.amazon.com/Wheeled-Scuba-.../dp/B00282O43W

Seems like something better could be DYI'ed. The trick would be wheels that didn't totally mess up your boyancy. Maybe rigid plastic wheels with holes that allow water inside.

These folks sell wheels:

Beach Carts, Kayak Carts, Boat Dolly, Boat Dollies, Canoe Carts, Balloon Wheels, Beach Wheels, All-Terrain Wheelchairs and Wheeleez products- from Wheeleez, Inc.#

[Lizard Leg]

I was thinking of something along those lines, with some extra octo hangers up high to keep reg/computer/etc out of the sand and tucked nicely to the front of the BC. I'm just trying to make this as easy as I can and still be able to be independent when it comes to getting in the water.

The wheel idea - seems with 80 lbs of kit, through the sand, it would be more of a hassle trying to keep it balanced. How long would it handle getting banged around as well? Would need to be built tough as hell IMHO.

[TSandM]

I have a great idea, and it's one I've used in a variety of situations.

Find a dive buddy who doesn't mind helping you with your gear. You still have the issue of how to get YOURSELF into the water without damaging your leg -- but perhaps the "diving leg" is more tolerant of sand?

At any rate, although it won't work where there is big surf, if you take your personal gear out past the shorebreak, and your buddy comes in with your tank and BC and weights and you gear up in the water, he can go back and get his own kit and come join you. I have done this any number of times when doing shore dives involving deco bottles and scooters, because the combination of the three weighs about 50 lbs more than I do, and I can't manage any kind of uneven or slippery entry while handling all that weight.

I hate admitting there is anything I can't do, but being a 120 lb, 58 year old woman who breaks when she falls down (and is the self-employed breadwinner for my household) is a set of realities I just have to cope with. Pride's the easiest thing to change.

[Lizard Leg]

If it was my wife or my son (mainly my son) I guess it would be easier to ask that, as they gnereally don't give me the option I think my wife is tired of paying the repair bills when I blow up another prosthetic, and my son just wants me in the water so we can get on our way .

But this trip was just me, meeting a group of 20 somethings I had never met before, and...

Pride got me. I didn't want to be the "Old Man" of the group who needed his cane and rocking chair to go dive. I was so stressed out after finally getting in the water, trying to wrangle a dive flag while trying to get fins, mask and an unfamilar BC on (I hated that thing by the end of the dive) in pretty mild current and waves, then a surface swim over to the drop down point - I was stressed, tired, embarassed, frustrated and "these guys must think I forged my C-Card" - that I sucked my tank down twice as fast as anyone else.

I have limitations. I know this, but do not accept it easily, if at all. That is a personal shortcoming - I prefer tenacious, my wife prefers bullheaded I was told for so long that I'd never run again (although most of it was walking REAL fast, I did my first 5K a few months back - and finished in the middle of the pack), would walk with a limp the rest of my life (on dry land with long pants on even my friends can't tell which leg is which now), etc. etc. that even though I accept I have limitations, I try to find ways around them.

I have no problem asking others more experienced than myself for advice in an effort to make the limitations I have, well, to not be so limiting.

[oldogre]

I know I am completely different (79 yo.), but people are often keen to help if approached.

[TSandM]

You know, I tell my students that diving is a buddy sport in more than the fact that you swim side by side. Buddies help with unreachable or recalcitrant zippers, or with hoses which have gotten tangled, or any number of other simple things that are manageable alone but just EASIER with two.

When I do some shore diving with challenging access with my favorite dive buddy, I carry the deco bottles to the beach for both of us. He carries the doubles . . . he doesn't mind, and it makes my life easier.

Having rehabbed a number of serious injuries myself (none like yours, of course) I understand the absolute determination and perseverance that it takes to do what you have done. But I think if you are running races as an amputee, and diving, that you have little to nothing left to prove, and you can ask your dive buddy for a little help with the gearing up process. Maybe that's actually a bit of rehab that diving is bringing you -- accepting who you are to an extent that it doesn't embarrass you to request or accept help

[gmanstan]

I know if I was in that group I would jump at the chance to help or buddy with you. I'd be so impressed by your resolute to dive "leg or not" I'd be proud just to dive & tell friends about this dude who doesn't take no for an answer.If your ever in North Cali to dive don't hesitate to hit me up as a buddy.