Shore diving equipment staging order?

[northernone]

I'm losing the battle on the minimalistic front. Equipment feature creep is getting me.

Rocky shore entry. What order do you stage your gear? It's more than one trip now.

Rebreather (bubble check, heavily negative on the bottom)
Bailouts
Scooter
Camera

Any order or tips to make this less of a carnival act? Particularly in surge.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[MichaelMc]

Are you progressively staging the gear on the bottom with a marker float?

I recently busted up a knee and have been fantasizing how, if I were up on side mount, I might get tanks, lead, and me into the water with a still weak leg. Not that it is any sort of a good idea with a weak leg, but pick a calm day, swim a float out, swim each tank out, swim out wearing my full lead, clip on, dive, reverse...

Insane ideas include a submersible gear sled/cart, and maybe a sea bottom anchor and shore to sea floating pulley system? Maybe stringing the gear along it one piece at at time.

 

[northernone]

Are you progressively staging the gear on the bottom with a marker float?

I recently busted up a knee and have been fantasizing how, if I were up on side mount, I might get tanks, lead, and me into the water with a still weak leg. Not that it is any sort of a good idea with a weak leg, but pick a calm day, swim a float out, swim each tank out, swim out wearing my full lead, clip on, dive, reverse...

Insane ideas include a submersible gear sled/cart, and maybe a sea bottom anchor and shore to sea floating pulley system? Maybe stringing the gear along it one piece at at time.

Ouch. Hope you have good physio. Getting a knee back into useable shape can be a rough process.

Staging it properly with a float and downline is a little grandiose for the low tech "dump it on the bottom in a pile and hunt for it later" approach I'm using. Water is clear here and not anything like real surf entries. Back home I'd never see the gear again.

Love the pully system idea! A little cumbersome to set up when it's not the same entry point every time.

My favorite gear staging is using child labor... It's surprising what curious teens flocking around are willing to do to feel part of this magical dive process. I've had people happy to haul tanks (short distances) and will babysit gear with joy.

An idea I know some people use is diving a pair of little bottles. Even two lp72s or smaller would be pretty nice without a ton extra lead. Open water sidemount is really easy to do badly. They might end up looking like belly bottles or saggy stages. But provided you can handle the entanglement hazard and the scorn of internet divers, it's fairly doable.

All ideas welcome!
Cameron

 

[g1138]

In the vintage days divers would use a surf mat (modern ones are sometimes called a surf rider) to haul their backpacks, spears, and sometimes even tanks past the Monterey, CA surf zones.
It looks like your floating pool mat but made of canvas or something more durable. Or that yellow black mat the kid was eaten off of in Jaws.

My former instructor said second hand that some would put a spare tank on it as well, to change out without having the haul all the way back up the beach. So I think you may be able to float the weight of the 2x small bails and camera and tow it out with the scooter.


You'll need to use DIY straps to keep the gear on the surf mat, and use a rope and 5lb lead weight to form a basic anchor to keep it in place on the surface.

 

[CT-Rich]

.....
Any order or tips to make this less of a carnival act? Particularly in surge.

Regards,
Cameron

Yeah.... A boat.

 

[CT-Rich]

I don't have has much to take in the water as you do, but I would suggest a innertube float. Hang the gear with carabiners. You walk it through the surf until you are clear and then swim it to deep water for gearing up. You can leave it anchored near shore for the post dive exit. I put a suicide clip off my float just so I have some place I can clip things off if I find an object that I don't want to have carry on a surface swim (like an anchor or dead instabuddy...)