Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
If I was doing what you do I would be using a scooter.
Where I dive it's just almost logistically impossible.
Just Sunday I decided to go do a freedive for abalone.
I parked on the side of the road and hiked about 1/2 mile down a hill and across a cow pasture in a 7mm wetsuit with weightbelt and all my other freedive gear in a float tube. Then when I got to the bluff I had to scale down a cliff to get to the water. It was a chore to hike down and back even with freedive gear. There were a lot of fish but I didn't bring a gun.
I figured I could do the hike with a steel 72 on a backpack next time and explore the area on scuba. But for me I wouldn't be able to hike anything more than a 72. A 100 would be too much.
In this case a scooter *might* make it down but there would be no way in hell I'd pack that sucker back up the hill with a stringer of fish and a tank on my back.
Most of the diving us locals do os remote shore based diving with a lot of trail hikes through the trees and across grassy fields. People do use private boats but places to launch are scarce and like in the case of where I dove Sunday, it would be a 25 mile boat ride from the closest port to get there unless you were set up to beach launch across a course sand beach with four wheel drive or use a very steep dirt road with a boulder beach. There are no charter boats in my area.
So as you can see we're pretty remote with steep rough terrain to get to the water, so scooters don't even make it on our radar.
Where I dive it's just almost logistically impossible.
Just Sunday I decided to go do a freedive for abalone.
I parked on the side of the road and hiked about 1/2 mile down a hill and across a cow pasture in a 7mm wetsuit with weightbelt and all my other freedive gear in a float tube. Then when I got to the bluff I had to scale down a cliff to get to the water. It was a chore to hike down and back even with freedive gear. There were a lot of fish but I didn't bring a gun.
I figured I could do the hike with a steel 72 on a backpack next time and explore the area on scuba. But for me I wouldn't be able to hike anything more than a 72. A 100 would be too much.
In this case a scooter *might* make it down but there would be no way in hell I'd pack that sucker back up the hill with a stringer of fish and a tank on my back.
Most of the diving us locals do os remote shore based diving with a lot of trail hikes through the trees and across grassy fields. People do use private boats but places to launch are scarce and like in the case of where I dove Sunday, it would be a 25 mile boat ride from the closest port to get there unless you were set up to beach launch across a course sand beach with four wheel drive or use a very steep dirt road with a boulder beach. There are no charter boats in my area.
So as you can see we're pretty remote with steep rough terrain to get to the water, so scooters don't even make it on our radar.