Lake hunters beware:
I am both a scuba diver and a MD treasure hunter. I decided to do some late fall deep water beach hunting. For many northern lakes, this is where the sand disappears and the silt and weeds begin. Things get very challenging. You get a promising hit but water clarity prevents you from seeing the location. You need sufficient weight do get down on the bottom with a pinpointer and plastic silt scoop to retrieve your item. Here-in lies the danger. As I approached the day, I decided to wear my buoyancy control vest (BCD), tank, and full scuba gear other than fins. In a full drysuit and ice-diving undergarment, I needed 32 pounds of lead in my vest to be able to sink. Even with this, I submerged very slowly and only by completely purging the air out of the suite and BCD. Since one does not swim very effectively without fins with all of this gear I decided to clip my fins to my vest with a carabiner. Into the deep I waded.
Within 5 minutes of working chest-deep 41 degree waters, I had several coins and had collected more weeds than King Neptune. I was amazed at the difficulty of maintaining my footing in the weeds. Things were going well until I stepped (more accurately slid) into a drop-off and into 10 feet of water. Since I had my regulator mouthpiece held loosely in my teeth, I was able to press it into my mouth and begin breathing. I found myself "in" the bottom (18" of silt) with a sand scoop on my left hand, Excalibur II strapped to my right on a steep silty slope that made it impossible to walk to shallower water. I was in a curious dilemma, I couldn't release the fins from my vest while holding onto the detector equipment, I couldn't walk in the muck, and surfacing without fins on my feet would accomplish little. With an hour worth of air, I wasn't panicked or even worried - I was amused and thankful I had taken the precautions I had. Without them, I would have been jettisoning lead diving weights and anything else that was holding me down.
I ended up taking the Excalibur off totally by feel as the silt reduced visibility to zero and secured it to my left arm. This took 5 minutes as I was in dry gloves and dexterity was not the best. Once that was accomplished, it allowed me to detach my swim fins from where they were hanging from my vest. Holding them, I then inflated my BCD and floated to the surface. There I flopped around like a wounded whale while getting the fins on my feet. With 4-5 quick kicks and I was back to wading depth with 27 cents worth of coins........
I was very surprised how this turned into a potentially gear-shedding expensive event at best or life threatening event had I not prepared for the worst. On the bright side, I had the hunting site all to myself.
A wetsuit yes but hipwaders, forget it.