Abalone Diving, Flotation

Anytime you strap on heavy weights and venture into waters over your head, supplemental flotation is a wise accessory. It's much less of question of whether you'll have that additional flotation nearby as it is what type. This section will amply demonstrate the large assortment of choices available to meet your needs here.

Floats

Very traditional, abalone floats are rubber inner tubes with some kind of cover. Originally, the covers were gunny sacks. Over time, the cover has evolved from the gunny sack era to netting to today's nylon fabric covers complete zipper closures and backpack style shoulder straps.

The advantages of a traditional abalone float include:

being able to wear like a backpack after stuffing them with dive gear; this advantage is particularly noticeable when climbing up or down steep trails to the dive site,
having enough flotation to allow a tired diver to climb almost completely out of the water onto them,
having a center well for storing the abalone that have been harvested,

The disadvantages of a traditional abalone float include:

they're fairly expensive,
they plow through the water rather than skim along the top.

Surf Mats/Boogie Boards

Inflatable surf mats or foam boogie boards are a popular alternative to the traditional abalone floats. With attachment clips added for game bag and ab gear, the advantage of these devices is their tendency to glide over the water rather than plow through like ab floats. This is especially true if the diver is attempting to ride on top of their flotation.

Keep in mind, with this alternative, that the flotation afforded by a boogie board is quite small.

Boats

In this category, the discussion is limited to boats that can be launched over sandy beaches and/or down steep inclines; that is, we're talking about dive boats commonly encountered on the north coast. Hardhull boats don't qualify because they're pretty rarely used. Off the Sonoma Coast, there are very few launch sites for hardhull boats and most of those are a long ways away from good abalone diving areas. The situation in Mendocino County is better but, still, it's rare to see a hard hull being used for ab diving. What you do see being used are dive kayaks and Zodiac-style inflatable boats and they're what I'm referring to in this discussion of Boats and Flotation.

Sit-on-top-kayaks, wave skis, Royaks, and Moulot [sic] boards are all first cousins and excellent personal dive platforms commonly used by abalone divers. They allow you to get away from areas accessed by the many into places enjoyed by just a few. Some of those locations are mere minutes of paddling time from the entry point. More adventurous types can spend a full day ranging far and wide. There aren't many better experiences than a day on a calm ocean in mid-winter with whales passing close along the coast. I enjoy it enough that I've dedicated an entire section of this web site to the subject of Kayak Diving. 'nuff said.

Inflatable boats are almost as popular on the north coast as dive kayaks. Popular sizes are the 11.5' trailered boat with a 25+ horsepower outboard; smaller rigs are occasionally seen but are clearly not as popular. With sand wheels, the 11.5' boat can be hauled over sand beaches with the help of a few strong divers. Once in the water, anywhere from 1 to 8 divers pile on and motor on out to their favorite dive site. Inflatable boats definitely have their advantages and few divers pass up a chance to ride along. They let you get completely out of the water. Task loading isn't much of a problem. And the bottom of the boat provides a lot of space to dump abalone.


	Buddy Boatstm
	In a nod to innovation and determination, a north coast diver has developed a fisherman's float/paddle board/kayak cross. Twenty-two pounds of plastic, it looks like an interesting alternative to traditional flotation. Particularly appealing is the ability to get up and completely out of the water to rest. New divers will find that a very comforting option. If someone gives it a try, please let me know their impressions. I hope to check one out myself this dive season.

Bouys

Hard core abalone divers who want to range far and wide without constantly dragging along their boat/float often resort to boat or fishing bouys. A clip stringer is attached to the bouy and abalone are strung using the respiratory holes in the shell. Because those holes tend to be smaller than most off-the-shelf products, a custom made stringer using thinner wire stock is made for this use. If this all sounds rather involved and complicated, you're probably right. That doesn't mean that there aren't more than a few divers who go through all of this work; they do.

Inflatable Vests

There are inflatable vests on the market. They're very similiar to older aviation flotation vests and early SCUBA bouyancy compensators. Inflation is done by manually blowing into an inflator tube. When no flotation is needed, the inflation tube can be opened to let all the air out.

For freedivers who don't want to be limited in search area by the flotation they're dragging around, these inflatable vests might serve a useful purpose. But I see very few people using them.

I am aware that an individual is working on a flotation vest that automatically inflates if submerged too long. This is a development out of the world of freediving which has seen quite a few (at least too many) divers stay down too long to make it back to the surface safely. There's still some work to be done on it and, even then, I'm not sure how appropriate it'll be for use in kelp beds. I'll update this information as more details emerge.

{norcadiver@sonic.net}

Abalone DivingFlotation

Abalone Diving
Flotation