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Scuba

SandPhantom

SandPhantom

Member
How many of you scuba with a detector?
 
I hookah! Dont' like the weight of the tanks to and from the water and don't like trying to find a place to get air. Never need to go deep. Have 100' hoses. Not for depth but lateral movement. Have one that runs on batteries and a 3/4HP electric motor. It's quiet and I don't make myself noticeable and obvious. Never maxed out the batteries yet. I get tired before they do. Have put as much as 3 hours on them and still had juice left. Jim
 
Same thing we use to dredge just with gas engines. Im interested in your setup also. Please provide some details.

Thanks!
 
hey mee too...id like to know:clapping::detecting:
 
Grumpyolman is probably out detecting somewhere so I will excuse my self and pardon myself and jump in here.

Grumpyolman is first and foremost into safe under water excursions. He believes everyone who enters the water with a regulator in their mouth should have been professionally trained in safe diving techniques and under water survival training. He cares for folks, you can lose your life or watch someone else diving with you lose theirs if you do not know what you are doing, period! So with that out of the way check this out.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?26,1054086,1054086#msg-1054086

This is what the man is in to and like I said he believes in [size=x-large]Safety First[/size]


Kind Regards,
Your humble servant,[size=x-small]Steve[/size]
 
I live in the same part of the country as Grumpy and ToniSteve. I dive and snorkel, depends on the time of year as
that determines the working depth I want. Have found lots of goodies just snorkeling. Some times if there is or has
been wooden structures on the beach area, I need to get out a little deeper to get away from some of the nails. If I
feel ambitious, use the machine with a smaller coil and work the nails.
Deepseeker
 
now i like that equipment..id say thats the ticket..:clapping::clapping::thumbup::detecting::minelab::garrett:
 
I have 11 tanks and can spend 3 hours at a time on a tank. ONLY way to go as far as I am concerned. I have a gas hookah and have never used it. Good luck in your decision. I have been certified since 1980 and am very comfortable in the water. NO matter if on hookah or SCUBA, have a HUGE float with a HUGE dive flag if your in inland lakes. I use a tube that is pulled behind boats. The key is BE SAFE. Boaters have NO idea what a dive flag is. Put diver down on the float sides OR a diver silloette on the flag. OR both.

Good Luck and happy hunting
 
125 lbs of battery, the weight of the tank and compressor, the hoselines, and still being tethered to a fixed point at the surface.

I just don't see how this is a step forward in anything. I dive, and have no problem (even in land-locked Oklahoma) getting air fills. One AL-80 would last me over 2 hours at those depths, and my whole diving rig only weighs about 35 lbs. It takes up a lot less space than that hookah does.
 
I thank Steve for answering up for me and posting the URL. Sorry I a haven't checked back for awhile.

The advantage to me with the hookah is I don't have the weight on my back to and from the water like I would if it was SCUBA. I did SCUBA with 50's as they were lighter than 80s or 100s and I could get 2-3 hours out of them working shallow. I am pretty comfortable in the water and have never consumed air like my buddies do.

I pull the gear to the water on the wagon and the only weight I put on is the dive weights and that's one of the last things I do before I enter the water. I merely clip a floating (hookah) line to my back and off I go. Also, I live in the sticks. It's a least an hour or two for me to deviate from my regular route to find air...if they are open that time of the day and that day of the week. I just turned in 4 aluminum 50's as I didn't want the expense of the annual inspection and the hydro every five years. Whatever works for you, do it. The important part is do it and do it safely.

I am a safety nut. I sold my Gas hookah on the forum but put in the ad I would not sell it to anyone who did not prove to me they were a trained diver. Got a wonderful Boston diving police officer who bought it from me. She's a gem and knows her stuff.
 
Maybe we could keep this going for awhile and some of the folks above who have talked about their hookahs can provide a picture or two and their impression of their set up.
The dive flag...I was a water instructor for a NAUI instructor. I'd take students out on their first open water dive. Had a mammoth flag identifying we were diving there. Was making a slow circling ascent with a student to check where we were. We were about 30' from the dive flag and I saw out to the side a very large object heading right towards us. We stopped and looked up as a 30' sailboat's massive heavy keel went scooting by us. There was a sailboat race and they decided to use our dive flag as a turn point. That's wasn't even fair. Sailboats make no noise when they are sailing. The Beach Master saw that happen and contacted the Coast Guard. The sailboats got chased off.
Don't need the flag in the roped swim areas. My hookah can be put into a small life raft and taken to deeper water but it always stays on the wagon at the edge of the water. I may move the wagon down the beach 75' for a second 'set' if I finish the first and aren't finding much.
Now I dive totally shallow, in fresh water, and in roped swim areas. I've been diving since 1962. There was no certification then. Luckily I took a college PE class that taught diving. Now I am 67 and I don't do deep. Especially for water hunting, the only reason I have found deep is of any advantage is if their is swim platform anchored 50' from shore or their is a diving platform out in deeper water. I can usually stand up with my head above water if I need to when doing my normal hunting. The highest percentage of goodies are lost where most of the people spend most of their time. That's usually not much deeper than the urinary relief valve. Jim
 
I feel as Grumpy does, most of the goodies are in fairly shallow water. As I said, I've found a lot of goodies,
including my only platinum with diamonds snorkeling.
I was with a dive/hunting buddy at a local lake a few years ago with a flag in the water and we were both on
shore when a boat came right in to our flag and another boater hollered at them that there were divers there.
So it be true, most boaters don't know a dive flag from Old Glory. Most of my water time is in the swim area,
spent ten years sight seeing and chasing crab. Safety and comfort first, altho I am going in to Lake
Washington tomorrow and it sure as hell isn't comfortable in January. Good hunting.
Deepseeker
 
Been into water hunting for years now, but seem to learn something new after reading here. I have an old gas hookah that one of my friends had. (did some trading on it). I used it a couple of times, but like they say it makes Noise. Maybe this year I will sell it and go electric after reading this post.
I have metal detected swim areas for years finding hundreds of peaces of jewelry. Mostly waded to my chin while detecting. Sold some of it a few years back to buy a cheap old aluminum boat, motor, and trailer that one of my friends was selling. So now I have a boat (floating platform) that I could take to any area of the lake with a hookah in it to detect. :bouncy:
 
Hello,
I built an all wood 16 foot flat bottom skiff designed after vintage lobster boats that go 40 miles out to sea. It is almost as wide as it is long and is a super stable work platform. The thing will go up on sand or gravel beaches in fresh or salt and is light. I built it for island hopping and sea camping. It would be great for going into beaches here and there. I think the laws in Washington are if you are in the water in fresh water your not trespassing. Salt I do not know. Swimming areas are off limit but one could anchor just off of those out of season and go in for the loot.

I will try to get a photo up of the thing.

Best Regards,
Steve
 
Good stuff. Thanks crew for the inputs and especially the safety items as that is #1.
 
I just wont to clarify something. When you say "drop-off" are you talking about a physical "cliff" underwater, or just a certain depth beyond wading?
 
With all that success maybe I'll have to rethink how deep I might need to go. However, the lakes in Michigan are much older, in terms of when people started using them, compared to the relatively new Lakes in Washington State. Had a dive friend who lived across the street from me and was a disabled vet. Diving was the one thing he could do without creating pain for himself. He'd usually burn up two 80s a day and found all kinds of good things just scrounging and swimming the break between shallow and deep. Found five silver ingots. Thought they were lead to start with. Reported the find to the police and in checking the serial numbers they were not reported stolen. He got them back in a month or so. He also found a bunch of cast brass antiques Buddhas. They were worth probably more than the silver ingots. He was the founder of the Lake Washington Braille Divers Club. I was a charter member but he's the one that scrounged all the goodies.
On Lake Union, (connected to Lake Washington via a canal), when Seattle was becoming a city, they had houses of ill-repute (their term not mine) along the lake. The city fathers finally decided that was not the right thing to do for an up and coming city so they outlawed them. When those places and their amenities were being dismantled much of it got thrown into the lake. My friend found a perfect porcelain bidet complete with all the brass fixtures. He brought it home, restored it, placed a circulating electric pump in it, and served punch from it at a Braille Diver picnic at his place. He had at least six 3 ring binders full of pictures of his finds, the dates, the depth, the bottom time and all. He has since passed and I lost contact with his family as they all have moved. If I could get my hands on those books I write a book about him and his finds. It'd be called, Lake Washington Braille Diver. RIP Bill. Jim
 
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