Line skills

[ucfdiver]

3500 Pathfinder Reel (no line) -- SCUBA Diving equipment from Hydrapro



but thankfully then this

Halcyon Pathfinder Primary Reel by Halcyon

But wow, they sure aint givin' this stuff away huh?

J

Call Cave Excursions East. They're one of the largest dealers for Light Monkey and I think typically can give you a great deal on one. That's where I got my reel from.

 

[scubagoldmc]

J,

Talk about clumsy. In cavern class I was trying to switch hands with the reel and dropped it. Was expecting a lecture on that on and didn't get it. I did recover and just sunk slowly to the reel and continued.

Good luck,

Mike

 

[SkimFisher]

I think everyone has a good reel story from when they first started out. The thing with using reels (and really any additional tool, I guess) is the task loading. The diving part of it has to become secondary - your buoyancy/technique has to be second nature - meaning you're not thinking about it, you're just DOING it.

Practice, practice, practice. Some people get it better and quicker than others. Some don't. Just practice.

 

[boulderjohn]

Ralph Hood/Larry Green reels are pretty good and much cheaper. You will have to call Larry for prices. They are also for sale through other distributors.

 

[Blackwood]

3500 Pathfinder Reel (no line) -- SCUBA Diving equipment from Hydrapro

LOL. Your hand would fall off after using that for very long

I even find 800' fatiguing. I can't even imagine 3,500'.

Blackwood kindly provided me some short videos discussing tying which I think will also prove useful.

That's a Salvo 400' reel I'm using, BTW. As may have been mentioned, they're now branded as Light Monkey, and the screw is on the far side (annoying). I like the classic configuration better. Halcyon still does it right (hah).

 

[InTheDrink]

I think everyone has a good reel story from when they first started out. The thing with using reels (and really any additional tool, I guess) is the task loading. The diving part of it has to become secondary - your buoyancy/technique has to be second nature - meaning you're not thinking about it, you're just DOING it.

Practice, practice, practice. Some people get it better and quicker than others. Some don't. Just practice.

It's a very good point. The motor skills required to dive need to be completely automatic and internalised such that no effort or thought is required to simply dive. I'm definitely not there yet, but probably not too far off either. And practise practise practise is right. I was quite annoyed last week to find that my back finning skills seem to have deteriorated. The muscles seem to have forgotten how to get the rhythm of it properly. Annoying but a pure symptom of not practising. It'll come back next week but annoying that something that felt fairly easy is now somewhat hard again and requires concentration.

I think that working with reels prior to diving will be particularly important for me. I've got myself pretty well snagged in the past; e.g. deploying my SMB, passing my finger reel from left to right, getting it caught in my camera lanyard, passing it right to left and oops! A beautiful lattice-work with me in the middle. In trying to untangle it managed to put a pretty impressive knot around my second stage hose (naturally with the SMB launching north). Thankfully it was at the start of the dive and not after an hour at 30m so I was able to surface. I'd got my knife handy just in case anyhow. Not exactly how I'd want to deal with that kind of situation in an overhead env.

So it's clear I have something of a talent for wrapping myself up in line so practising at home where all that can get dented is my pride probably isn't a terrible idea

Cheers,
J

 

[Dive-aholic]

Rather than work on skills you haven't been taught yet, you would be better off working on your buoyancy. And not just swimming around, but while task loaded. Practice doing things under water that require more than minor attention and see if you can hold your buoyancy and trim during the task. This is much more important than line skills.

 

[BabyDuck]

that's what i was going to say - trim & buoyancy, spot-on and without conscious effort even while task loaded, are the most important skills to have going into cavern. play with lines, sure, but the key is the buoyancy. if you're moving any in the water column while playing with lines, then buoyancy is what you really need to be focusing on, not linework.

 

[Peter Guy]

InTheDrink - re what Rob (above) has to write -- good advice. IF you have a camera, you may want to go diving with it and practice taking macro shots (of nothing in particular, the shots don't matter) while being in absolute control of where you are. Want to move in three inches? Move in three inches BUT NO FURTHER -- move out four inches -- Move out but no further. Oh, and what is your depth at the moment and where is your buddy and what is he doing -- all while making sure your shot is framed!

Control of where you are in the water is the key -- the rest is easy.

 

[boulderjohn]

I fully agree with the last posts. Ideally you should be able to focus on whatever you are doing while your buoyancy takes care of itself because you have it dialed in automatically.