Replace zodiac with DPVs
Looking for some opinions, I got a 17’ zodiac a couple years ago for diving around Monterey. It’s an older boat but it has newer tubes, a 90hp evinrude DI 2-stroke and a galvanized trailer. I did some upgrades to it and all in I’m about $16,000 invested. We’ve taken it out a dozen times but this year it’s sat in the garage all year. I have a 4-year old so it takes a lot of coordination to be able to use it. We either have to bring one of our parents along to watch her or we have to find another couple to dive with us, or we have to take turns diving and only do 1 dive each. On top of that, the added cleanup is often discouraging. Driving home on a Sunday afternoon and having to clean gear AND the boat is not fun. I am considering selling it and getting two or three DPV’s instead. is this a reasonable idea? We strictly do rec diving and I don’t take the boat very far offshore anyway. My intent when I bought the boat was to access more dive sites but so far we haven’t really explored much due to the time it takes to get to those sites. Namely monastery, it takes almost an hour to drive a boat there from San Carlos launch. Same with point lobos, I can’t launch from point lobos so getting there from the nearest launch is at least an hour on a good day, on a bad day it’s too risky to even try.
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u/achthonictonic Tech 1d ago
You are likely not going to be able to put in enough time (given your child care responsibilities) on the DPVs to get good enough at nav to be able to access as many sites as you can with the boat. With DPV platformed shore dving, I find that gas planning around here should be 1/3rds or even 1/4ths or towing a scooter. Most of the local DPV divers I dive with are running at least doubles, usually doubles + stage or CCR. This is sth that most DPV classes don't cover correctly: you do not have surface support, most classes assume there's a boat to go back to/who will look for you. We have shit viz most of the time, you should be planning for team separation and a disabled DPV as your emergency.
It is very difficult to get weekend reservations at lobos as it is -- it's the safest and best entry point for dpv diving. In a way, DPV diving here is more restrictive than non-dpv shore diving as you increase your complexity, decrease your tolerance for bad entries/exits.
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u/burt921 1d ago
Good points indeed. I do enjoy the boat but I’m starting to resent the fact that it’s just sitting in the garage taking up space. If I get rid of it I would reinvest that into diving. Otherwise it’s going to be at least 6 more years until she is old enough to go with us as a diver, at which point my oldest daughter will be in her early twenties so we’ll be in the same predicament of having to find another diver to go with us or take turns with her until she’s old enough to captain.
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u/achthonictonic Tech 14h ago
this whole thing seems to be a technical solution to a babysitting issue. Can the oldest babysit? I remember when I was 14 I was babysitting for my parent's friends.
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u/burt921 8h ago
We need a minimum of three people on the boat. Leaving the boat unattended is out of the question, diving solo is also out of the question. Leaving a 16yo with a 4 year old on a boat in the ocean is also out of the question. Once she’s 18 absolutely but not a day sooner.
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u/achthonictonic Tech 7h ago
leave the kids at home and take another adult? I think that's what I've seen other folks do when participating in sports/activities inappropriate for kids. I waited until mine were out of the house before getting super crazy with the diving. Or just go on the beachhopper?
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u/SoupCatDiver_JJ UW Photography 1d ago
You might be rethinking your decisions when you end up crawling out of monastery with 40 extra pounds of dive gear XD
You havent mentioned your experience level with DPVs, have you ever operated one previously? While they give a massive amount of freedom to explore, they also make diving a substantial amount more complicated. Navigation, dive planning, team dynamics all change dramatically. And if you hate traveling by boat for an hour to get to a dive site, traveling for an hour underwater to get to a site isn't much better.
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u/burt921 1d ago
I got trained earlier this year. That’s what’s prompting this consideration. My wife and older daughter would need to get trained either by me or through our shop but I’ve already factored that in. As for the travel by boat vs dpv, after using one for a weekend I can tell you first hand that traveling by dpv is by far the easier option. I’d rather scoot for an hour than pound my back and kidneys for an hour while getting hearing damage and sunburned.
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u/achthonictonic Tech 1d ago
who did you train with? there are very very few qualified people instructing this style of DPV diving in Monterey.
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u/burt921 1d ago
POS in concord. They are using lefeets. I would go for something more robust like suex or dive extras. Someone mentioned seacraft and after looking then up I would opt for their Go! Model. I figure if I can sell my zodiac for around 12-15k I can get two of those and some extra batteries. I’d also get half of my garage space back.
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u/SoupCatDiver_JJ UW Photography 1d ago
You got your dpv cert on a lefeet? That's pretty neat. I dont know anyone with extra batteries for the gos, seen em run for 3+ hours at a time and opening them up isnt super fun, I made this video breaking down a bunch of popular scooters you might find interesting.
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u/lo5t5heep 1d ago
How does one choose a dpv instructor here? My .02 is to make sure any dpv instructor is actively doing local dpv dives.
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u/achthonictonic Tech 1d ago
I think you know what I'm going to say here :)
But anyways, I believe that our type of DPV diving has more in common with cave DPV than recreational DPV. I would at the very least expect the instructor to be cave dpv certified, as well as in the water in Monterey a lot. Even though i'm a bit of an apostate, DPV 1 at lobos was the best introduction specifically to Monterey shore-based DPV diving.
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u/lo5t5heep 1d ago
We are mostly in agreement , our dpv dives are best done tech style. Not sure I agree about the cave aspect; there are similarities and differences that are very important, e.g., Ocean isn’t caves and caves aren’t the ocean. 1/3rds in a cave is borderline insane (especially without flow) 1/3rds in the ocean is tolerable. Not sure who you are but I’m sure I’ll see ya out at worm patch ;)
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u/achthonictonic Tech 20h ago
idk, my first dpv "class" was a PADI class in the red sea: we basically didn't do any gas planning at all, towing was a joke, etc.
As far as I can tell, there is a huge gap in dpv training between "here's an underwater spinny thing and an afternoon, glhf" and "here's 5 days of cave DPV". Why I bring up cave dpv, is the extensive work on towing and resource planning does have relevance. Lobos (and our other sites) is certainly not a cave. I would never dpv into a cave without a tow dpv, but I go with just one dpv at lobos all the time. However, the environment is much less casual than what I saw happening in the red sea. If a recreational instructor is going to be teaching dpv, i would hope they had cave dpv training (and I don't mean that they would be teaching at that level, just that they themselves are comfortable at that level), because that's really the only place with a robust, formalized curriculum.
I'm sure we'll cross paths in real life at some point, I don't think we have yet.
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u/EnvironmentalCare900 1d ago
Let me ask you;
You DPV out to a site, you have a regulator failure, flooded dry suit, or any other imaginal problem, do you feel equipped to handle it by yourself while floating in the water? No radio no cell phone, maybe a Garmin inreach if you can keep it out of the water while deploying it.
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u/burt921 1d ago
That’s one of my considerations. The odds of having two DPVs both fail at the same time is very slim. For any other equipment failure we would have a procedure in place for that. I am rescue certified so I am prepared to handle most problems. We never dive solo so I will always have a backup DPV capable of towing a second diver in an emergency.
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u/EnvironmentalCare900 1d ago
I’m not saying don’t do this, I love my DPV and I shore dive with it often. I’m just trying to point out what you probably already are tracking. You will not be able to get on a boat to solve your problems. You will have to solve all problems either underwater or floating on the surface. This includes equipment and personal issues whatever those might be, there is no where to go and no one waiting to help.
As long as you are aware and plan for this, have fun!
Edit: get a DPV with some serious range, I think mine is spec’d to cruise for 11 miles or something insane like that
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u/burt921 1d ago
Thanks, yeah Im looking at Suex or dive xtras. What do you have?
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u/EnvironmentalCare900 1d ago
SeaCraft Future, I know it’s not for everyone but I love it. Only downside is the size and because of that I am going to be purchasing an additional DPV just for diving off of boats in the ocean, because of my future I’m going to go with the Seacraft Go. My main diving is caves so the future is perfect for that.
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u/bluemarauder Tech 17h ago
I see how your child is a limitations to use the boat. I don't see how a DPV is going to fix that...
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u/burt921 7h ago
I initially failed to mention that my 16yo dives, we can shore dive two at a time with one of us staying behind with the 4yo. With the boat, we need a 4th person to watch our youngest while we go on the boat and take turns. I won’t leave the boat unattended so that is our only option. The dpvs wouldn’t necessarily fix the problem entirely but they would be a more usable option than the boat. It’s not an apples to apples comparison but rather would DPVs be a better choice than a boat. We would get more use out of them than we are now with the boat, they’re easier to transport, they won’t take up half of my garage, and I don’t have to spend nearly as much on maintenance and operation, not to mention registration and insurance. If I keep the boat, my youngest will eventually be able to join us on the boat but until then it’s not getting much use. I can sell the boat now and get some dpvs then when the time is right I can buy another boat.
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u/kwsni42 17h ago
Just make sure you do some emergency planning. If the boat engine stops working when you are out on the sea, at least you still have a floating platform and maybe a radio.
If a DPV breaks when you are out, you either need to tow each other or be prepared to have a long swim back. If that needs to be at the surface, it can be rough
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u/childlike_priesthood 1d ago
trading a boat for scooters honestly makes sense in your situation. a 4 year old and cleaning gear a boat after a dive day is a special kind of misery, been there
dpvs open up shore diving in a huge way around here. lobos, monastery, point breakwater all become way more accessible when you don't have to surface swim forever and you skip the boat logistics entirely. plus you can still do the whole "one dives one watches kid" thing but without trailering anything down the coast
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u/lo5t5heep 1d ago
I would say DPVs are of much less use for rec diving. I consider them problem amplifiers and tech gear / procedures become much more useful. Have you tried to get the Harbor master at Stillwater to launch your boat? You might get lucky.
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u/burt921 1d ago
I haven’t yet but I’ve heard mixed results from other people. If there’s anything wrong with the rig or they’re too busy then you just wasted an extra hour driving to pebble beach. Plus, parking is very limited. While I agree that the added task load is a factor, diving from a small boat is also an added task load. Donning and doffing gear in the water takes time and practice to get comfortable with, especially in choppy weather. We’ve had a couple of days where either my wife or my oldest daughter got motion sickness or a headache due to the chop. At a certain point you have to accept a certain amount of risk if you want to move beyond shore diving.
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u/lo5t5heep 1d ago
That’s fair , I would encourage you to consider redundancy to mitigate the increased risk; that could be as simple as slinging a pony or just really emphasizing proper DPV formation; separation happens fast here.
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u/lo5t5heep 1d ago
FWIW, my buddies and I are very active dpv (and tech CCR) divers around here. If you can grab one of the elusive lobos reservations on the weekend do so and then come chat us all up. I have lots of opinions but don’t want to get all preachy on the internet
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u/mredofcourse Rescue 1d ago
I'm a former boat owner (26' MacGregor) and yeah, it's a lot of work. I thought I was going to do a lot of diving from my boat... but in the 25 years of ownership, that didn't really work out.
I'm DPV certified and dive all of the same spots as you (but from shore), so I've been thinking about getting one, but need more dive buddies to go out with, specifically those with DPVs of their own too.
But to your question... yes, it makes a ton of sense. If anything I would question the need for DPV for some of those locations, but it can make things easier and give more access to areas.
In regards to the other thread in terms of safety...
I haven't gone out past where I could just swim back in an absolute emergency, but one of the reasons why I use my Apple Watch Ultra as a backup computer is because it has cellular connectivity.
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u/burt921 1d ago
Yeah I have a garmin inreach just for that reason. I’ll give you an example: when I did my dpv training we went to metridium fields from San Carlos. We all came back with at least 800psi on steel 80’s and we were underwater for 45 minutes. I’ve done it before without a dpv and it was very challenging and I had to surface like 400 yards from shore because I was down to 300 psi. with a dpv it was super easy and relaxing, I actually had to start kicking harder just to stay warm and we surfaced at the beach. Well if I do decide to get them I’ll dm you!
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u/suricatasuricata 1d ago
I do a lot of long range dpv diving in Monterey. My dream would be to own a boat instead of carrying 15K worth of DPVs and scootering underwater.
A boat with a fish finder gets you to a site, DPVing involves scootering across bare sand racking up deco to get to a site.