Hookah diving

[77mako23]

Hope everyone is doing well. Im new so please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong place. Thinking about buying a hookah for shalllw dives under 30’. Mostly 8’-20’. We would use it mostly for scalloping and lobstering in the Keys. I’m leaning towards Hookah Maxs 12v system. Does anyone have any experience with them or any others you’d recommend?

Those who hookah would you recommend the 50’ or 100’ hoses? Not sure if the 100’ would be tough to manage with 2 divers.

Also, some of the units are designed to stay in the boat but I’ve seen some folks will float them. Does anyone have any recommendations for floats and how you organize it?

Thanks everyone.

Nick

 

[underwatermatt]

Why do you want to be on hookah rather than scuba? just curious what your rationale would be, my experiences with surface supplied diving is that it ends up giving you a whole new set of problems. Don't get me wrong, it's a valuable tool for specific uses, I'm just trying to understand your rationale so I can best advise.

 

[77mako23]

Why do you want to be on hookah rather than scuba? just curious what your rationale would be, my experiences with surface supplied diving is that it ends up giving you a whole new set of problems. Don't get me wrong, it's a valuable tool for specific uses, I'm just trying to understand your rationale so I can best advise.

Thanks for the response. I went through the online NAUI diving class up to the water portion and Covid hit so they canceled the dives and I never rescheduled. Then the dive shop went out of business so I need to get with a new dive shop and start over.

We live close to some good scallloping areas and we usually just snorkel but I thought having a hookah would be fun on those days.

We are also going on a family vacation in August to the Keys and I felt this would be a nice way to get a little more time under the water (still being shallow) to catch those pesky bugs vs snorkeling and free diving. And we have a bay boat so it would be nice to not have to lug out a ton of dive gear on a crowded boat.

Those are kinda my thoughts.

 

[Waterwulf]

I think the 100 foot hose will be to much to manage unless you have a surface line tender or maybe float the slack part with floats. Have fun learning about it. I'm starting out in it too. I'll be using tanks as the air supply because I have the tanks.

 

[underwatermatt]

Thanks for the response. I went through the online NAUI diving class up to the water portion and Covid hit so they canceled the dives and I never rescheduled. Then the dive shop went out of business so I need to get with a new dive shop and start over.

We live close to some good scallloping areas and we usually just snorkel but I thought having a hookah would be fun on those days.

We are also going on a family vacation in August to the Keys and I felt this would be a nice way to get a little more time under the water (still being shallow) to catch those pesky bugs vs snorkeling and free diving. And we have a bay boat so it would be nice to not have to lug out a ton of dive gear on a crowded boat.

Those are kinda my thoughts.

Just so i am understanding, you are not a certified diver?

 

[high_order1]

Those who hookah would you recommend the 50’ or 100’ hoses? Not sure if the 100’ would be tough to manage with 2 divers.

Remember, you are not going straight down. That 50 will be like a dog leash. Is it enough, even if the bottom is only 10-15'?

Far as the unit, there are two types, battery and gas. Both have their pluses and minuses. Neither are really better than the other in my limited opinion (I've been researching them for awhile now).

The battery ones in a float generally are pool toys. I would be careful using them, they don't really seem to have a lot of buffer built in.

I do think that having one with a tank is smarter.

I will say that the battery float ones generally are way cheaper than the gas ones. They are almost all built off pumps that weren't designed to be for breathing air.

Good luck

 

[happy-diver]

With two divers 100 ft each I would make sure I had back up and only invite fit people and also take a gas motor

https://www.deepseaclassifieds.com/antique-diving-equipment/ant-draeger-taucher-luftversorgungspumpe.html

 

[USdiver1]

Ages ago, back when I worked as a harbor diver, we experimented with Hooka for scrubbing vessel hulls. Ours was mounted on the tender boat and we were tethered to it as we made our way around vessels 450' to 700' in length. Our diving was at most 30' - 33' deep.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to the Hooka. Advantages: we could stay in the water for many hours without surfacing [great for the boss to get the most out of the crew]; No need to fill / carry / load / store / unload / etc. the normal 24 scuba cylinders that we needed each day; Less gear to clean after every day's labor.
Disadvantages: Feeling like a dog on a leash; Work seemed to progress more slowly as little things which we could scamper off and do on scuba were now just out of reach; hoses would snag on keels, around the bow, prop, [you get the idea]; If the motor went out, so did all divers ability to work.
We returned to scuba after our experiment of a week or two with Hooka, never looked back.

Just my $0.02, YMMV.

 

[Waterwulf]

With two divers 100 ft each I would make sure I had back up and only invite fit people and also take a gas motor

View attachment 897197

https://www.deepseaclassifieds.com/antique-diving-equipment/ant-draeger-taucher-luftversorgungspumpe.html

Well, that pump brings back some memories! It was about 1969 and I was gonna be a SCUBA diver. I had my brother in the rubber boat jumping up and down on an air pump while I sat on the bottom ten feet below with my legs stuck thru cinder blocks as weights to hold me down. It worked! I was holding a garden hose in my mouth, breathing air and watching fish swim by. Then my %*((%@^% brother stopped pumping because he got tired. My legs were scraped bloody from trying to get out of my cinder block weight system when the air stopped. He got smacked several times and I got in trouble for trying to breath underwater again. It did work out though in a kind of odd way. Mom sent me to divers school so I could get some real schooling so maybe I wouldn't drown myself.