Cooper River Question

[Clark Fletcher]

This seemed like the best place to ask this question.

In another post I mentioned that at some point in the future I plan to dive the Cooper River. I've talked to a bunch of different folks about the Cooper regarding the logistics and techniques for diving the Cooper. I'm very detail oriented and don't like to leave a lot of stuff to chance.

One of the things that comes up from time-to-time when talking to folks who have experience diving the Cooper is that they have sometimes gotten into situations where their goody bag was so heavy they had to leave stuff on the bottom (weight belts, weights) to get buoyant enough to get themselves and the goody bag to the surface.

So, for those of you who have experienced this before, how did you handle it? Did you drop weight? Did you carry a lift bag with you?

I don't currently have a lift bag but, I thought that I could attach my finger reel to the goody bag, raise my signal sausage, and then recover the sausage and goody bag from the surface after the boat picks me up.

Or I could just pony up for a lift bag. They aren't that expensive.

Any ideas, suggestions, comments?

Thanks.

 

[Doby45]

I am not by choice leaving any of my gear, anywhere. Goody bag full of meg teeth or my gear, decision is easy. If you "think" you might run into that issue I would carry a lift bag.

 

[Cville_Diver]

We just dove the Cooper and while we got some good stuff, we didn't come close to needing a lift bag. The guys on our trip came back with bags of teeth, and they didn't need a lift bag either. FYI - you are required to have a hobby license from SCIAA and lift bags are specifically forbidden:

Is anyone allowed to use buoyancy equipment like air bags to recover heavy artifacts?

No. The only permissible buoyancy equipment is a personal buoyancy compensator. If you can't lift it legally with your BCD, leave it on the bottom.​