Diving from a Kayak

[divezero]

Anyone into Kayak Diving out there?

I just bought a Cobra Navigator, and took it down a creek for fun...well so I thought. Went down some unexpected rapids, put a hole in the kayak, filled up with water, etc...

So now it's fixing time...just wondering if anyone has patched up plastic before on a kayak or anything else and how did you go about doing it...

Also I am new to Kayak Diving...read it in a magazine, coming back from one of our film trips, and thought eh...looks like fun. I am based out of Canada, so we dont have any crystal clear water, but any advice on kayak diving would be helpful.

Thank you.

Luke

 

[scubajcf]

Anyone into Kayak Diving out there?

I just bought a Cobra Navigator, and took it down a creek for fun...well so I thought. Went down some unexpected rapids, put a hole in the kayak, filled up with water, etc...

So now it's fixing time...just wondering if anyone has patched up plastic before on a kayak or anything else and how did you go about doing it...

Also I am new to Kayak Diving...read it in a magazine, coming back from one of our film trips, and thought eh...looks like fun. I am based out of Canada, so we dont have any crystal clear water, but any advice on kayak diving would be helpful.

Thank you.

Luke

Hi Luke,

The owner of Contact Us - Yuma Scuba Store and Yuma Scuba Classes by Scuba Cowboys does a fair amount of Kayak Dive instruction. You may want to email him. He might be able to help.

John

 

[astrofunk]

I'm just getting into kayak diving myself (in northern California). I found these two resources to be enormously helpful:

KAYAK DIVING & FISHING, Surfing, Exploring, and Play!

kayak diving

I believe the e-book for sale at that first link includes information on repairs; so did the owners manual that came with my boat. Also, search for "kayaks" in the boating forum. There are a number of useful discussions with tips & procedures in there.

Best,
Steve

 

[Nemrod]

The kayak you have is the roto molded material. A kayak shop that sells that brand should have the "welding" rod and skills to repair the yak.

Your Cobra Navigator is not intended for white water as you probably learned.

N

 

[Peter_C]

Kayak diving is not a big deal and requires logic along with a few skills to do it safely. Obviously you will need to don and doff your gear in the water. Something you should practice once in a while anyhow. The kayak will need to be set up for kayak diving, but that is not a big deal. Perform a search on this board for "kayak" and you will have a little reading to do, but kayak diving is not common, or at least not discussed very often.

 

[DOkie]

My husband purchased an Ocean Kayak a few years ago for diving (we also have a 17' Bayliner but you cannot beat diving off a kayak for the hard to reach areas). It was shipped from Florida and when it arrived it had a forklift hole in it. We took pictures and called the company and it ended up being the freight company's responsibility to reimburse us. The kayak company sent us a free patch kit, a buddy of mine owns a car repair shop and here we are two years later we have a free kayak that we've had a blast on (and has never leaked) all for a case of beer. Ours was basically a plastic weld so it was a pretty easy fix.

Kayak diving is truly a lot of fun. We've dragged that thing to places that we thought were impossible to reach, had picnic lunches on shores that were completely to ourselves and dove in places that folks don't normally go. Of course you have to remember that whatever you lug down to your launch site, you have to lug back up later... We spent a half an hour in the car with the air on after one particular dive.... That's a whole different story.... Hope you get your kayak fixed and have a GREAT time discovering all kinds of places....

 

[DaFireMedic]

I'm just getting into kayak diving myself (in northern California). I found these two resources to be enormously helpful:

KAYAK DIVING & FISHING, Surfing, Exploring, and Play!


IBest,
Steve

I ordered his CD. Gobs of good info.

 

[danvolker]

If you take your kayak into a river or place you could impact with an object which could cause a leak, bring a roll of duct tape. You can immediately repair the leak, and get back to running the river....I would not repair and then paddle 3 miles out into the ocean---the repair is good, but you may need to dump water once every hour...or it may be perfectly dry....


Dan

 

[Aeropl]

I'm not familiar with that model of kayak but I have a Ocean Kayak which is roto molded plastic and I am curious as to what type of natural material managed to puncture your hull. These things can take a lot of damage. Like DOkie my kayak had a forklift hole, which was about six inches by four inches. With a piece of excess plastic and a tube of 3M Marine Silicone, the hole was repaired in no time and it has lasted 10 years now without a single leak. As for kayak diving, you can read about it first but the only way to get good at it is getting out there and trying it.

 

[AQUACOP]

I just bought a Malibu X-Factor and have made several dives from it. I absolutly love diving from it. I have had it 5 miles off shore in PCB several times now with no problemos. I highly recomend the X-Factor for big water diving.