In our area (the New Jersey shore), there is an active shore diving community, and I'm in the water a lot. Our dive club makes a number of efforts to mentor divers new to the area in the best practices for this sort of diving with online resources and group dives...
One thing that people have asked me about is how to use a dive flag float, so I took some photos to illustrate how I rig mine when diving near boat traffic. This is a big improvement over the large yellow plastic winder that comes with some of these, that you have to hold during the dive.
By using a reel (admittedly an additional expense!), it lets you easily adjust and lock the line at the desired length to the surface, considering your depth and desired scope. You then clip it off (e.g. to a hip D-ring) so that both of your hands will be free. I usually don't have any trouble getting tangled, but it is true by having it clipped to your BC it's easier to get your leg caught in the line. This should be easily addressable at depth by unclipping the reel.
Another advantage of this method is that if you want to stage the flag (for example, if you are going to be staying in one spot, or if you are diving only in an area where there is no traffic, it's pretty easy and secure to clip it off to an anchor point on the bottom.
But a problem with this is that if a boat snags your float, you are tied to it with cave line, which is pretty strong! And since you can't easily and instantly just drop the line like you could if you were holding it, you need to have a breakaway to avoid underwater water skiing if you are clipping it to your BC.
A standard regulator O-ring can serve as a breakaway point, and it's strong enough to keep it from breaking with normal usage. By putting it a few feet from the bottom of the float, even if the top of the float line gets tangled in a boat prop, it will still work.
I had used the same O-ring for a number of years with no appreciable wear before recently changing it, and I never had it break by accident, even with some topside snags that involved me tugging on the line. I would recommend swapping it out if it looked like it was cracking. Probably better to avoid polyurethane rings since they are sensitive to UV light and could break down in this application, and stick with a standard fluorocarbon ring like Viton.
One thing that people have asked me about is how to use a dive flag float, so I took some photos to illustrate how I rig mine when diving near boat traffic. This is a big improvement over the large yellow plastic winder that comes with some of these, that you have to hold during the dive.
By using a reel (admittedly an additional expense!), it lets you easily adjust and lock the line at the desired length to the surface, considering your depth and desired scope. You then clip it off (e.g. to a hip D-ring) so that both of your hands will be free. I usually don't have any trouble getting tangled, but it is true by having it clipped to your BC it's easier to get your leg caught in the line. This should be easily addressable at depth by unclipping the reel.
Another advantage of this method is that if you want to stage the flag (for example, if you are going to be staying in one spot, or if you are diving only in an area where there is no traffic, it's pretty easy and secure to clip it off to an anchor point on the bottom.
But a problem with this is that if a boat snags your float, you are tied to it with cave line, which is pretty strong! And since you can't easily and instantly just drop the line like you could if you were holding it, you need to have a breakaway to avoid underwater water skiing if you are clipping it to your BC.
A standard regulator O-ring can serve as a breakaway point, and it's strong enough to keep it from breaking with normal usage. By putting it a few feet from the bottom of the float, even if the top of the float line gets tangled in a boat prop, it will still work.
I had used the same O-ring for a number of years with no appreciable wear before recently changing it, and I never had it break by accident, even with some topside snags that involved me tugging on the line. I would recommend swapping it out if it looked like it was cracking. Probably better to avoid polyurethane rings since they are sensitive to UV light and could break down in this application, and stick with a standard fluorocarbon ring like Viton.
