Shallow diving without a BCD?

[Eric Sedletzky]

I cleaned boat bottoms for years with just a back pack. I never once used a BC, why? Just more to clean and get all the stick men (skeleton shrimp) out of every nook and cranny.
Weight yourself so you are slightly positive at the beginning of the dive. You want to float up and let buoyancy help pin you against the boat. Kind of like reverse gravity because you’ll he laying facing up. Don’t use big heavy steels, use aluminum 80’s or steel 72,s. Big heavy negatively buoyant steels will kill your shoulders when you are inverted under a boat. Do yourself a favor too, get a big suction cup to hang onto otherwise you’ll be all over the place trying to get leverage with nothing to hang onto.
I use one made for pulling dents in auto body shops. Works great!
Have fun

 

[drbill]

I didn't use a BCD for nearly 30 years (although I love them now). Of course my max depth usually exceeded 2 m! Make sure you are properly weighted and you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[gypsyjim]

no wet suit no need for a bcd in this example.

Diving off ME and MA in the 70's we had both thermal protection (plenty), and a good bit of lead, but somehow we still dived without BCDs.
We were also younger, and had not yet learned that adding buoyancy at depth was even a possibility.

 

[nolatom]

I have done it only with a bc, and once I got semi-neutral, I found "breathing" myself up and down was sufficient for the four to five feet of draft I had to scrub on the sailboat, didn't really have to use the inflate/deflate, except on the surface at the end I inflated more.
The suction cup was key! Get one that is strong enough to hold you against your brush-pressure, but weak enough to "slide" from place to place without having to release and re-suction every time you move location. I used a miniature toilet plunger I got from a Mardi Gras parade (thank you Krewe of Tucks), which worked just right.
I suppose you could use rocks in your pockets, as disposable weight, but haven't tried that.