Diving Without BCD

[Stoo]

IMO, someone with less than 25 dives should not be experimenting as yet. BCDs were designed for a reason.

Those of us that have been doing this for "a while" all started that way. When I took my basic course, my Instructor (who was NAUI #107!) help up a little vest with 12# of lift and with complete disdain in his voice said, "This is a life vest. Some people use them!". It wasn't meant to be used as a buoyancy compensator, but as a surface flotation device in an emergency.

Having said that, diving then kinda sucked and people died a lot. There are lots of light weight options in travel BCDs which would make your minimalist dives more comfortable and significantly safer. As others have pointed out, with your level of experience, you're really only getting your fins wet.

 

[boat sju]

Sounds like the OP is a pretty experienced free diver and intends to stay shallow with smallish tanks. He's probably better prepared for this endeavor than most "experienced" scuba divers.

 

[pepperbelly]

I started diving in the late ‘60s/ early ‘70s. We had a backpack, 72cf steel tank, a reg with no octo or spg, weightbelt and a Mae West stule floatation device we could inflate orally or with a CO2 cartridge. It was only for use on the surface.
That was what we were trained to use. It did feel much more free that with a bcd, but I see the usefullness of one-I have a Zeagle Ranger.
Too often I see divers that are overweighted and using their bcd as a crutch to try to maintain buoyancy.
If you notice there are several minimalistic bcd’s available-because many divers want to be more streamlined. That is also why a bp/w is becoming popular.

 

[pepperbelly]

I started diving in the late ‘60s/ early ‘70s. We had a backpack, 72cf steel tank, a reg with no octo or spg, weightbelt and a Mae West stule floatation device we could inflate orally or with a CO2 cartridge. It was only for use on the surface.
That was what we were trained to use. It did feel much more free that with a bcd, but I see the usefullness of one-I have a Zeagle Ranger.
Too often I see divers that are overweighted and using their bcd as a crutch to try to maintain buoyancy.
If you notice there are several minimalistic bcd’s available-because many divers want to be more streamlined. That is also why a bp/w is becoming popular.

I forgot to add that I also started freediving, and often did that instead of lugging tanks around. The bottom of a muddy lake looks the same at 20’ as it does at 50’, and i had no trouble freediving to 40’ or more and being a teenage athlete could stay down over 2 minutes. It usually wasn’t worth the effort though.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

One of the firsts posts on diver.net is a treatise of sorts on the way of the California hunter:
A California Diving Culture - Lets start it out right...
There's some mention of no-BC diving as well.

It's certainly interesting to be on a boat with these guys.

I used to dive with the poster of that thread, Mike (“Seahunt”). He would come up to the Sea Ranch and we’d go ab diving. Then I’d meet up with him on Socal dive boats and we’d bug dive.
It’s all true, that is the culture. Just about the time of that post (1999) MHK and his band of DIR thugs descended down upon diver.net and declared war upon the California diver. The infamous west coast “DIR wars” were on! Lol
It didn’t end so well for them.
The California divers however are still alive and well, diving their butts off, still crazy as ever.