DIR- Generic NC meg tooth diving, DIR-style

[jrgregory]

Hey all, I'm back with another noob question.

My buddy and I recently booked a charter to the megalodon tooth ledges off Wrightsville Beach NC. Off-shore, 90'-105' depths. Never done one of these before, pretty excited about it.

Looking at a few GoPro videos on YouTube, I'm seeing some common practices that give me a bit of pause:
- Running a wreck reel without doing secondary tie-offs or placements, letting loose line lay untensioned in the sand
- Laying the reel down in the sand in your search area (or maybe worse, holding the reel untensioned while searching?)
- Spreading out a bit from teammate to search for teeth, with both of you purposefully fanning up a bunch of silt
- Waving arms around doing a bunch of work at 100' on EAN
- Messing about with a drawstring bag

Has anyone done these dives? Any tips/techniques?
Obviously at the end of the day this is a 100' MDL open water rec dive - but I'd like to make sure my teammate and I are being safe and avoiding "normalization of deviance" as much as possible.

 

[PfcAJ]

What’s the reel for?

I’ve done a good handful of dig in the dirt dives and never really had a need for a reel.

Stay close enough to communicate, know where each other is, and enjoy your day. It’s just dirt.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Is this a zero-vis dive?

 

[Tracy]

What’s the reel for?

I’ve done a good handful of dig in the dirt dives and never really had a need for a reel.

Stay close enough to communicate, know where each other is, and enjoy your day. It’s just dirt.

You tie in to the anchor line and spread out to look for teeth. Once everybody has been digging for 30 minutes, it is zero vis and the reel leads you back to the anchor line.

 

[Tracy]

- Running a wreck reel without doing secondary tie-offs or placements, letting loose line lay untensioned in the sand

A secondary tie off when your primary is an anchor is never a good plan. Anchors drag and it will snap your reel line. You aren't tying off on a tree going into a cave.

 

[sabbe]

If you're doing it right, you'll definitely want a bag for your haul. Far more than I could fit into a BC pocket. We used wreck reels which lock when released so putting them down wasn't a problem. If yours doesn't auto lock, lock it before putting it down. Each buddy pair headed off in different directions, but buddy pairs stuck relatively close. Even if I couldn't see my buddy I could see the cloud of silt he was creating. Fins, or even better a DPV were better at moving silt than hands.

Watch your gas and time closely.

I had a blast and can't wait to go back.

 

[jrgregory]

A secondary tie off when your primary is an anchor is never a good plan. Anchors drag and it will snap your reel line. You aren't tying off on a tree going into a cave.

This is really good point I would not have thought of.
I'm assuming if I was to put primary tie-off on nearby rock instead of anchor, it is still best practice to do secondary and placements where possible?


And @sabbe thanks for emphasizing the bags.
I just ordered a couple bags from divegeekbags.com
Pretty cool product - no drawstrings, just velcro or zipper and a grommet for boltsnap.

 

[Tracy]

This is really good point I would not have thought of.
I'm assuming if I was to put primary tie-off on nearby rock instead of anchor, it is still best practice to do secondary and placements where possible?

You could do that, but it would defeat the purpose of running a reel.
Again, the goal of the reel is to return to the anchor line. Anchors move. Sometimes they move a lot. Returning to a rock near where the anchor used to be isn't going to be helpful.

 

[bpodbielski]

Was just out on a meg charter there about a month ago. Charter instructions were to tie off on the anchor line for all of the reasons that @Tracy just stated. Also any rock that you might find sticking out above the sand for a secondary tie-in has a chance of being blown away by another diver using a DPV to do some digging.

Which is actually something that I would recommend you consider. Waving your hand is ok, but using a DPV is a cheat code for teeth. Another option would be to look at something like a swimming paddle for your hands. One of the guys on our boat had a custom metal one but one of the Speedo ones would be pretty good too.

Oh and I know you already ordered a bag, but threw a bolt snap on this one from Amazon and it worked great: https://a.co/d/0e41uCml

 

[jrgregory]

Excellent intel - thanks.
I'd feel too task-loaded with a DPV at this point, but the swim paddle seems about my speed.

Might as well get one of these Amazon bags too - the ones I ordered aren't going to be big enough to hold the 9" tooth I'm planning on finding!