Fins For Beach Dives

[Nemrod]

Have you ever seen those bass lures that burble and churn and pop, pop, pop and then a big fish swallows it, yeah, kinda like a scuba diver swimming in FF on the surface, slap, plop, slap, slap, burble and then a big gray fish eats him. Something about making a lot of surface commotion disturbs me when old man bull shark is about. YRMV. N

 

[meesier42]

I just don't know what you are talking about here, I have been using ForceFins for at least 10 years know, have been doing surface swims sometimes in excess of a mile with full gear and never had that problem. Its a technique thing, not a problem for me to do. Not to mention that I know play u/w hockey in them, where a large portion of the time is spent moving about on the surface and I haven't even a faint of an issue with slap.

For fine point precision maneuvers- ie photog's FF are fantastic, specially in surge. I did a proof test with a friend a year to two back, the test was in a mild (just over 1 knot) current, the test was to put our noses about 2 inches from what we were looking at, then rotate from horizontal, to vertical, to horizontal on the other side (upside down) then rotate face down and rotate a helicopter style around it. Needless to say, as soon as his nose was no longer directly into the current he (Jets) was washed off the point.

 

[themagni]

Every dive but 2 has been a shore dive, and all but my OW course were in Force Fins (or a knockoff, which convinced me to get the real ones.)

Force Fins don and doff so nicely that that alone is worth the price of admission. With the bungy strap, it's 3-4 seconds per fin, max.

Then you get into the water. Surface swimming is tricky; backstroke-style is best, with a modified bicycle kick works best on the surface. Once you get used to the technique, they'll push you along without problems and you'll be keeping up with people who say "I swim fast".

Underwater, they do a good job in any kind of surf I've found myself in. The advantage is that when you have to move, you can use your big thigh muscles.

Plus they come in bright yellow, which is great for low-vis shore dives.