Beach diving with a scooter

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Only way to dive, my buddy and I did a late afternoon/early evening lobster dive from the beach (Ft Lauderdale). 100 minutes of bottom time, traveled over 2.5 miles, and over 1/2 mile from shore. 7 keepers and came up within minimum gas requirements. Our SAC rates were under .4. Better yet, we surfaced exactly were we left from! (that was my buddy's doing)

If you are looking to extend your diving, get a scooter!View attachment 682535

I'm surprised we haven't bumped into eachother. I usually do the same with my buddy. I take my Piranha for a swim out there pretty often. I only ever bumped into another scooter diver out at Oakland Reef maybe 2.5 ish years ago.
 
Sounds reasonably safe to me. If both failed and you swam back in would you be able to locate the tossed machines (I assume you wouldn't be dragging them back on your swim?)?


What AJ said, they are coming back with us. They are just about neutral in the water, easier to tow than our bag full of lobsters.
 
One day. I would love a scooter to go shire diving in Florida. That is definitely the way to do it. I wish I could justify the cost.
 
Do you worry about your scooter failing while your are far away from exit point? What plans do you have to handle this situation?

Proper scooter training would include:

Learning how to tow or be towed while also towing the disabled scooter.

Learning how to prepare for and handle a flooded scooter (which becomes very negatively buoyant).

Learning how to plan your dive with a scooter so that, if a scooter becomes disabled, you know you have the battery reserves for the other scooter to tow both divers and the disabled scooter to a safe exit.

Dive planning usually only has 3 consumables to plan for and monitor: Breathing gas, NDL (or max bottom time), and Total Run Time. But, batteries are also consumables that the plan should cover (if applicable) - whether it's lights, heat, DPV, or whatever.

I wonder if the advent of the (very affordable) BlackTip is changing the stats on numbers of divers with scooters who have actually gotten proper training on how to dive with a DPV - and if we will start to see disproportionately more reports of dive accidents that have "no or improper DPV training" as a contributing factor.

It sounds like @jadairiii had his dive well-planned. He didn't mention it, but if I were doing that dive, I would also have my PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) on me. For "just in case".
 

Back
Top Bottom