Tether to my son

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

My daughter was certified at age 10; in limited viz, such as Venice Beach in Fl shark tooth diving I attach a jon line to her BC and loop it in my hand, this is only due to viz issues....otherwise I would not do it....
 
on second thought you could take a small rope with you. You would NOT tether it, but the two of you could each hold one end of it once you are neutral. You could wrap it around your hand a few times so it won't come off and still be strong enough to yank on your son or him/you in the event of bad viz or something. if entanglement occurs just drop it. btw the rope would be like 3 feet long at best. this isn't what you had in mind but it would actually be fun to practice. I'd definitely start in a pool with this one and you should be the one that carries it.
 
I often dive with a body line and it has come in handy from time to time. Mostely diving with a new and very strong svimmer. He took of at roughly 10 mph so I just ceased svimming and let him drag me. ;) After a while he sort of got the idea that slow svimming was better.

However, diving with a bodyline takes skills. Basicly the line should never become under tension - IE: you should follow each other effortlessly and not relay on the line. So if you're not used to a line follow some of the other ideas. I bad visability and no body line I often insists on hand-holding :eyebrow: specially if the body is good looking.
 
My kids got certified when they were 12 and 14.
When they first started I over protected them by always being their buddy in additional classes and by always taking the lead on dives.
It didn't take long to figure this out and when I corrected this their diving skills quickly improved.
The other week my daughter and I have to help an over weighted hysterical person with a BC failure and frankly I think she did better than me(I got beat up and she didn't :) ).
I'm thinking that diving with a "leash" will stunt the growth of their skills.
Most kids are actually pretty bright.
 
My son was certified at 12 and we used a tether (don't panic I'll explain). He would simply kept a light grip on my left elbow. He always knew where I was and I knew where he was. When desired he would let go and then would return as we moved on. This was very simple and didn't have the entanglement problem of an actual line.
 
I've held an electrical cord between me and a buddy before. Only reason we did this is we didn't have rope. It still worked fine though. We both just held it, but it did come in helpful once. Give it a little tug if you are falling behind, and it gets your buddies attention real quick.

Matt
 
I was certified with my Dad when I was 13, and he held hands with me on every dive until I was 16.
 

Back
Top Bottom