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spearfishing from a boat

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Jonny250

Job 41:7 can you?
Sep 8, 2007
2,820
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ok so now that i have a new toy to go fishing from (Quicksilver 640 ph), i'm thinking about getting some dives further afield eg at offshore banks/reefs or drifts;
what do you guys do for marker floats if you're offshore? obviously a normal float will do, but with 2 or 3 spearos in the water over possibly several hundred metres, they could well be hard to keep track of..? Do tank divers use different floats? or do they stay tethered with those dive reels?
any suggestions? or is it a case of just 'staying together'?
any other spearo related boat-tips?
cheers
 
I use a dan buoy for my scuba smb Jonny. Most everyone else uses pot bobbers or fenders both of which I rate as pathetic. A good dan with a flag sits high in the water but has little drag due to it's slim shape. Makes it easy to see and easy to tow. Never use those inflatable markers and reels over here, not for scuba anyway. You need a good smb for boat diving and you need to be careful. In the past I've dived with 2 separated divers in the water but I now only ever have one when boat diving. If I had 2 I'd only do that with both buddied up on one line. Guernsey has some of the strongest tides in the world and its easy to get lost from the boat. Don't say you shouldn't do it but just be careful.

Dave.
 
Reactions: Jonny250
That's the sort of SMB I don't like. Basically it's designed to be used where you scuba dive with no SMB until you're ready to surface. You take the system down with you and inflate this tube /pole shaped bouy with air from your regulator. You then let is asend using line off a reel. The idea is the boat hangs around guessing where you are and then spots you just before you surface indicated by your surfacing tube bouy. Don't work with tide. We always have tide.

I have a brand new one (bouy and reel) which I found after some diver lost it. No name and no success in tracing the owner so it's in my shed if you want to see/try it.

Dave.
 
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I have had a few goes as boatman when divers are down but I simply did not enjoy the responsibility, it is so very easy to loose sight of a buoy.
Being boatman is a very responsible position - diver down, strong tide, swells, motor wont start, fog comes in all equal drowned brother!! nope not my idea of fun...
A easy example could be when you set a crab pot & watch the bobber disappear as soon as you throw it in the sea!
 
Foxfish has a very good point. I once lost a diver in rough seas for about 15 minutes. A very bad experience for both of us. Boat diving can be very safe, but it requires something of a dictatorial driver to make it so. I do almost exclusively boat diving when in salt water and the boat driver is the person in charge. If the divers get spread too far and/or are not following good buddy procedure the driver gets to order the divers around. A good driver can corral his divers and enforce safe diving, but it takes practice. Divers also carry responsibility to work together and with the driver. Given an experienced driver and responsible divers, I think boat diving is far safer, and easier to be safe, than non boat diving.

Connor
 
Thanks guys, you've pretty much reinforced what i thought was the biggest issue, i..e keeping track of the divers; Dave i'd be interested to see the smb, am i right in thinking that the tall sausage ones stick up, i.e. weighted at one end, rather than lying down. that's got to be alot easier to see than a standard spearo float?
perhaps a better solution is for the divers to clip into the inflatable boat tender (and leave a handheld vhf in it)..
 
ok so following some time with omd i have put together a #1 dan-buoy float... it's only a first effort and i think the chain will go when i can find enough lead. it will be interesting to see how much drag there is on the immersed part..
I have added some solas reflective tape too.
will see how it is tomorrow...
 
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