Don't Sink Your Hooka

Don't sink a Hooka!!
Posted By: Royal (198.208.223.35)
Date: Thursday, 20 June 2002, at 8:30 a.m.
As I have mentioned before, I use a Hooka for most of my diving. The hooka is a surface supply of air. Instead of wearing tanks, which limit my down time to about an hour, I use the Hooka which gives me about 4 hours on a tank of gas.
They can be seen at
http://www.browniedive.com/hooka/exp460.shtml
The Brownie is the type I use. Mine will supply one man at 90 ft and 2 at 60 and 3 at 45. I rarely use it with anyone else as most of my diving is solo. I have been diving for 24 years and have logged over 750 dives and have never had a problem I needed a partner to get out of. That is the best way to do it I figure, be prepared for problems both physically and mentally and don't go beyond that without a partner. I don't usually go below 30 or 35 ft without a partner but since I am usually detecting, it is not a problem.
My hooka is made up of a 3.5 hp gas motor and a twin cylinder air compressor. The compressor is oil free as the oil can really mess you up if it gets in your lungs. I have a regulator on the end of a 60 ft air hose. The regulator end is clipped to my weightbelt and I pop the mouthpiece in my mouth and am on my way.
This all floats in a truck innertube. The original tube was a two cell tube so if you sprung a leak the other one would still keep the thing afloat. Of course the truck is all or nothing.
I was diving in Lake Charlevoix, off Boyne City about 9 years ago with it. I had the original tube at that time. I was in about10 or 12 ft of water and started getting a bit of water in my regulator. That had never happened before. I kept spitting it out and when I inhaled I could sense the water in the hose by a slight bubbling noise.
It was one heck of a windy day with pretty big waves. I finally came to the surface and could hardly see the hooka, as it was floating so low in the water. Oh, Crap! I thought. I didn't know what was wrong but I figured I better start a stroking for the shore. This is normaly easy as the hooka floats high without much resistance but this time I had to drag the thing.
I finally reached shore and hauled the thing up by the hose to see what had happened. About 6 inches of the seam of the outer cell, which is the largest, had blown out. The inner ring had saved the thing from a dunking. I had to go to an auto store and buy my first of about a half dozen truck tubes to replace it. I say first of a half dozen as the things don't usually last over two years and sometimes less.
The second time I had float problems was a little more serious and could have been much worse than it was.
I had read in a detecting mag about a guy hunting some beach with pretty darned good success. As I read the story his description of the beach seemed a bit familiar. In fact it was an old beach I had swam at as a kid in the 50's. It was called Sandy Beach on Loon Lake, near Pontiac Michigan.
This was one of the most popular beaches back then. I could not usually get in there as it cost a half buck and there were few half dollars found around my house back then. The place was always jammed on the summer weekends and after school let out for the summer, it was packed from open to close. Now it was all converted to condos and few remember its past glory days.
The guy that wrote the story was a beach hunter and did pretty good at it. He also said he had hunted in the water but there was little there. Now that did not make any sense to me. There had to be a bunch in the water. The beach had been there in the late 30's so there had to be silver!
I kept thinking about it and it ate at me. I could not get in by the land but there was a boat landing on the lake. One day I loaded up my bass boat with my hooka and all the necessary diving equiptment.
I bought the bass boat just for diving. It is a very stable platform and will really get me across the lake in a hurry. Dang thing will beat your brains out on rough water but it serves my purposes.
I launched at the landing and headed across the lake. The full length of the condos is still private beach for the owners. As long as I anchor off the beach, I can dive the beach legally. I go out of my way not to offend the property owners but I know my rights. It is usually not a problem. I have only had a problem one time but that is another story J I generally will not dive a beach that has a bunch of swimmers. I just wait for a nasty day.
I dropped my anchor in about 5 ft of water and set the thing. I usually try for 4 or 5 ft as it is much easier to get into the boat after the dive with all the equipment.
The water was nice and calm on the first dive. I had to search for where the old dock was but when I finally found it, there was treasure all over the place. I found rings and a bunch of silver coins. This was my first dive there but this story is not about the treasure.
The beach had a gentil slope out from shore. Now it is just a long narrow beach but in the Sandy Beach days there was a long dock, running from shore to the edge of the drop-off. On the edge of the drop was a diving platform of which the base is still there, under about 6 ft of water. It is 6ft to the top of the base but there is room to swim under it. It is a bit tight but I have found quite a bit of silver under there.
Immediately, out from the base is the drop-off. It goes from about 10 or 12 ft to over 75 ft on a 75 or 80 degree angle. Not quite a cliff but pretty darned steep. I don't know just how deep it goes to but I have been down there 75 ft on tanks and it goes a bit deeper.
Like I have said, I usually don't go deeper than 30 ft or so while alone. With a hooka I have to be careful of my down time and depth if I go below this depth and if I were to have a problem at depth, I just might need help. Ain't happened in 750 dives but what the hell. J On this day the water was very clear for lake diving. When you can see you extend yourself a bit more as it is just more fun.
I had been under the platform and came out on the deep side. This was the clearest I had seen it. I looked down the drop and could just make out some kind of man made something-or-other down there. I started down the drop to explore it.
I saw movement to my left and stopped. I could see at least 40 ft on this day which was exceptional. Maybe a little more. I have been diving in fresh water lakes with 1 ft visibility and this was a treat! What I had seen was a school of about 25 big carp, working my way on the drop. I just dug my heels in the soft, slanting bottom and sat watching them come my way.
Carp are very easily spooked. It is fun seeing them act natural, digging in the bottom for roots and critters. I tried to control my breathing so as not to spook them. The constant hum of the hooka seemed far off. I am not sure if you hear it of just sense it. They finally got within 15 ft of me and saw me. They probably weren't as spooky as normal as they could see too. The whole school just veered out to the deep water to avoid me and when they had passed me, came back into the drop to continue on their way.
That is one of the greatest things about diving to me. I sat there and saw something very few non-divers ever see. Nature acting natural. I have speared hundreds of carp for sport but it is much more fun to just watch them.
After they had passed I looked down at the thing I was to explore. I could now see it was the diving tower that was once bolted to the platform. I don't know how tall it was actually. Probably not over 20 or 25 ft. It was laying on it side, angling down toward the depths. I just swam the length of it, going deeper. As I got to the deep end I started getting resistance from my hose. I thought it was hung up on something and looked back to free it. Hell it was straight up! I had reached the end of my hose. I knew I had a 60 ft air hose on the thing and that had to be my depth. Because of the clarity of the water and my interest in my surroundings, I had not paid attention to things as I should have.
I immediately started up the drop as this was too damn deep on a hooka without a damn backup bottle. Normally I use a 15 CF bailout bottle in case of the hooka running out of gas. On this day I had not intended on going deeper than 20 ft or so so I just didn't strap one on. I was not even wearing a BC! Dumbass!
Well I shortly was at the top of the drop-off and could relax and continue my detecting. I had been down for a couple hours and the pickings were starting to get thin. I headed down the beach and was in only about 7 or 8 ft of water when I sensed something had changed. I didn't really know what but I listened for the hooka. I heard nothing. I took a tentative breath on the regulator and got a little resistance. Usually when you run out of gas there is a couple breaths left to get you to the surface. I thought, what the hell I should not be out of gas yet!!
I stood up and was shallow enough to just get my fact out of the water if I stood on the tips of my fins. I looked back where the hooka should have been and -no hooka. I could not believe it. I looked all over the place and no hooka! I started swimming to the boat but the hose stopped me. It was hooked to my weight belt so I just dropped it to the bottom. I then swam to the boat.
I boarded the boat and looked all around. I could see the hose floating on the surface but no hooka. There was a guy standing on shore, shilding his eyes from the sun, watching me. I yelled to him and with a laugh, asked him what the hell had happened. He said it had just disappeared. One minute it was running and the next it was gone!
I pulled anchor and paddled the boat to the hose. I pulled the hose and regulator, with the weight-belt attached to the boat. I the worked my way to the hooka. There it lay, in about 8 ft of water, looking sorta pitiful. I was really concerned because that motor was hot and I didn't know what would happen to it when the cold water his the cylinder. They are not cheap and I didn't want to have to buy another one.
I could not lift it in the boat from where it was so I just used the boat to pull it in to the shallows by the hose. I then jumped in the water and horsed the soggy mess over the side into the boat. About two ft of the seam had blown out of the tube and it must have sunk in a couple seconds!
When I got home I drained all the oil out of the motor and replaced it. I then pulled the sparkplug and dumped what water was in there too. I checked the block over for cracks but could not see any. I blew out the cylinder as best I could with air from my compressor. I blew out all the water I could from the carb and gas lines too. Of course I dumped the gas.
I let it set over night and the next morning, with doubts, I gassed it up and replaced the sparkplug with a new one. I choked the thing and gave a yank on the cord. It started on the first pull and made me a very happy diver. That was about 8 years ago and it is still running find.
I am one lucky guy that it had not blown 10 minutes earlier when I was down at 60 ft. I might have been able to get up but I sure don't ever want to be put to that test. I have come up from 35 ft when the thing ran out of gas but don't want to at 60!!