I love shore dives. They are often shallower but depth isn't an aim in itself, right? And there can still be awesome amounts of life to watch. I still go back occasionally to the resort where the Scuba Team first got me hooked, and I still love it (th-cam.com/video/O6tUoH1yV3c/w-d-xo.html if you're interested). It also taught me the value of open heel fins and boots. When the sun is beating down and the sand is burning hot it's difficult to emerge from the sea looking like James Bond if you're hopping along going OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!
You prolly dont care at all but does any of you know a method to get back into an instagram account? I was stupid lost my account password. I love any tips you can give me
@Dorian Deshawn Thanks for your reply. I got to the site on google and Im trying it out now. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
It is always easy to dive from a boat in one of the popular dive spot.. But for me "true" diving is shore diving, it is more like adventure not like a tourist trip. Best greetings in 2022 👌
Lot's of good points. I used to teach and dive SoCal, and beach/shore diving is what you do. Depending on the beach and terrain around it you need to plan appropriately the night before, right before the dive, and on the dive itself. Always appraise and reevaluate things, you never know when it can change on you. Especially during the dive itself. High slack tide is the best time to get into the water, make sure you show up with plenty of time beforehand so that you hit the water right at the peak. One thing to do is check the tide charts, they are invaluable for beach/shore diving. If you do have some surf/swell/surge at the dive site get to a high place to get an overall view to make sure you see the whole scene. Time sets and do enough sets to see the pattern, you never know when you might get a bigger wave than what you expect or shorten periods in between waves. You do all this even with dive sites you are familiar with.
Any tips on researching tide charts and currents? Is that something that you can just google? Or do you need to buy charts? How do you read the charts?
@@davelee5066, You can Google for Tide charts and the location/area you want to dive. For example, search for "Tide Chart Laguna Beach" and you will get multiple links. Check a couple out and if they show a graph with the tide change (high/low) with times and size of them then you can plan accordingly. I just looked at this and on Saturday/Sunday the tides look favorable mid-day (11am-2pm PDT). Kinda big changes, but the high slack looks to have a high tide (which means deeper water and possibility of flatter water/good vis during that time). Again, do your planning before you go to the beach and then evaluate and plan the dive accordingly to conditions and you & your buddies capabilities.
@@davelee5066, Disregard my earlier response about diving this weekend in Laguna, unless you want to do a twilight/night dive. The high slack starts around 8pm. The low is at 10:30 am with a big rise in water level most the afternoon. Everything else I said about getting chart information and reading it is okay. I just misquoted the times.
I just moved to Florida…the combination of the dive flag, solo diving, and sidemounting was a challenge doing a shore entry. Took a few minutes of looking at my fins, flag, and two tanks in the sand to get a plan together
This is the first time I have seen your channel, and let me qualify my statements by saying I have been diving since July 1969 , Diving all over the world I have thousands of dives under my ( weight ) Belt, I am a PADI Master Instructor, A NAUI specialty Instructor, Ex- Sheriff search and rescue Dive team member.And a EMT, and have taught many, many students. And what you had to say was SPOT ON ! I love seeing people pushing safety in SCUBA ! Im sure you must be an Instructor because yours is a voice screams experience. Please keep making these videos, This is what the sport is all about ... safety, fun, learning and sharing of your experiences ! There is no place for macho idiots. Thank you for sharing your excellent knowledge ! I just subbed you.
Wow! Thank you so much :) I really appreciate connecting with other instructors here so we can all learn from each other and ward off the macho idiots 😆 Thanks for subscribing. I hope you enjoy some of the newer stuff on the channel.
@@AzulUnlimited hello, I have been going to your other videos and they are all great! It does my heart good to see someone as yourself young and passionate about life and SCUBA! Keep up the great work! Stay safe ! We need more people like you in this industry. People willing to help others learn safely and with some fun in the equation. We are all human and make mistakes diving at times , but as long as you try to learn from it, then you are doing just that .. learning!
Those are good general hints for shore diving. I dive mainly in Laguna Beach, CA, mostly shallow shore dives with a max of 50 ft or so and we dive only on calm days with swells less than 2 feet and avoid heavy surf, so if we run low on air we can always surface and swim to shore on backs. The viz here is not good perhaps 5-20 ft so it's important to be slow and stay close. If a big surf wave comes it's good to go under as most of the energy is at the surface. On exiting I like to deflate the BC so when a wave comes it does not lift me up like a cork. Here the big problem is parking close to the beach stairs. My solution to this problem is to take an electric scooter. If I have to park away from the stairs I gear up and ride in on the scooter to the top of the stairs. I just lock the scooter to a rail and clip the key to a D ring on my BC.
Great video. The entrance and exit parts are super important. If you’ve ever dove North Monastery in Carmel, you know. Great dive site but the entrance and exit requires focus and nerve
I did a shore dive for my two day dive exam. It was rough getting in and extremely rough getting out with steep rocks in the water and uneven walking paths.
That's always the toughest thing. Sometimes a simple entry can turn into a challenging and dangerous exit! I've seen many people lose equipment over it and get bashed up in the process. Glad you got through it safely! Thanks for watching 🙏🏻
Thanks Sarah... I always appreciate these videos. We’re cautiously optimistic on a trip to Bonaire in late Spring.. but we’ll see. Looking forward to more shore diving and “independent” diving as well. Thanks for the information... especially key security!
Any tips on researching tide charts and currents? Is that something that you can just google? Or do you need to buy charts? How do you read the charts?
There are lots of online resources for getting tide charts and current reports depending on where you are located. There's "Plan Your Dive", "Surf Report", "Windy". Some resources are better with certain areas. For example, in the PNW you can set your watch to the tides. So having a physical tide logbook is quite handy. My friends who dive there us planyourdive.com to get hourly tide reports for all the different dive sites in the area. In Hawaii, you should go with a surf report since high and low tide aren't the concern, but rather the surf and size of the waves. I hope this helps to get you started!
Hi Max! Yeah I normally dive solo too, use to dive also with a pony until I changed for sidemount configuration. Not easy to find buddies outside the weekends.
@@AzulUnlimited I don't know much about sidemount. I've seen it before but didn't even know what it was called. I dive in an area where there are a lot of tech divers and they are usually very focused on putting their tri-mix gear together and planning their dives. I'm just a recreational/sport diver and I don't like to be distracted, so I figure with them it's times ten, so I don't ask...lol
Thnx for sharing your video, they are always great to watch and have clear details in it. Here in Holland we are doing almost only shore dives, in fresh water but also in salt water with current and tides. This needs additional training and theory lessons for those divers, because the tides can be really spooky and dangerous if you are not aware of it. I hope to come to Indonesia again this year (my wife is Indonesian) and also visit you guys on Komodo, then I like to do some sidemount diving if that is possible, then I bring my SM rigg and regs
Absolutely! Tides and currents are by far the trickiest things about dive planning on your own. We hope you can make it to us very soon! This pandemic will be over some day soon and we would love to take you sidemount diving in Komodo!!! Email us if you'd like more information: azulunlimited@gmail.com
Great video, as usual! ;) i put the car keys in what we call an „egg“, a small waterproof container you can take with you underwater. Of of course inside rhe dry suit
those egg containers suck, the O-ring inside is too thin and does not close it waterproof, so if you are putting in keys with a transponder they can me damaged. I have an analog drivers door key on a boldsnap and clip it on a D-ring of my wing, that works much better
About car key: I struggled a lot about where to keep it and one day came across this waterproof bag for cell phone that came as a gift with my new dry mesh bag. I made an experiment - i borrowed some lego bricks from my son, put together in the +/- shape of my car key and wrapped a paper towel around it to see any leak. Then I put the dummy key inside, closed the bag (squeesing the air out of it) and took for a 30m deep dive. It worked perfectly, and I still use this bag to take the car key with me on the dives. NOTE: TEST YOUR BAG FIRST!!
@@AzulUnlimited Thank you for your content and sunny appearance! It is pleasure to watch your videos. As my instructor used to say: "Lock box will protect only from honest people " - meaning it can be open within seconds. How are the conditions now ? It must be rain season over there. I miss the diving in salty water. Here in Austria we have only lakes (nice cold water and limited fauna/flora). Diving in Indonesia stays a happy dream so far with all this pandemic restrictions...
Hmm it sounds like it's overly complicated, but it's actually pretty straightforward. In these parts it's actually rare to boat dive. We only do that on hollidays. Fresh water lakes aren't overly complicated. Just setup your gear in your car and in 15 minutes you can be in the water. In the ocean you really want to check the tides and conditions. Getting in and out of the water can be difficult sometimes. Having to climb over a dike, wall and getting into the water over slippery rocks with nothing to hold on to might be challenging with heavy gear (or without gear).
Sounds very complicated is people is just get use to dive from a boat or only in tropical destinations, but once you do t a few times from shore.... is very straightforward, with a few tips, a checklist and some good dive buddies is a piece of cake.
Just did my first shore dive in San Diego at La Jolla Cove, It kicked my butt.. It was the first time diving in 64 degree water and with a 8mm wet suit and carrying 30 lbs of additional weight. Very taxing just putting my fins on just past the shore break. Visibility was poor and the wave surge action was very prevalent as well. From where we staged our gear to the beach was about 200 yards and down a flight of stairs... After exiting the water, gravity took on a new meaning, them we had to go back up that flight of stairs. This gave me a new appreciation for going off the back of a dive boat. Really did not enjoy the dive.
oh no... i know that dive (and that walk) well. I'm sorry it wasn't a good experience. that dive can actually be super beautiful but if you caught it on a bad viz day... yeah. those stairs are no joke. If you're in SD again, you can jump onto the boat with Waterhorse Charters and check out the wrecks or go diving in mexico!
These eggs sometimes leak. You might want to put your key in a water resistant zip bag inside that egg to make sure your car will start after your dive if your egg leakes.
I like to hid my keys inside the wheel well of my car I unscrew the liner and put in inside that and then screw it back on. another good spot is exhaust pipes lol and no not inside it lmfao hang it off where the exhaust is hanging from. ps you might have to do a bit of crawling lol.
There is no way I will pull buoy on surface, I don't care about local law, that sucks and most people don't know how dive buoy or flag looks like, I do my dive and then on end of my dive I deploy DSMB if I exit in blue or I just go to shore and don't shoot DSMB at all
@@AzulUnlimited local law is to have buoy with flag on it, and I never carry it becouse there is no point in having buoy if you are more than 5m down, having DSMB is enough. Ofc I prefere having PDS uniform in car just in case😂
Ask us your shore diving questions here! 👇🏽
And get yourself the BEST eco products on the market! 🍃bit.ly/EcoRoots
I love shore dives. They are often shallower but depth isn't an aim in itself, right? And there can still be awesome amounts of life to watch. I still go back occasionally to the resort where the Scuba Team first got me hooked, and I still love it (th-cam.com/video/O6tUoH1yV3c/w-d-xo.html if you're interested). It also taught me the value of open heel fins and boots. When the sun is beating down and the sand is burning hot it's difficult to emerge from the sea looking like James Bond if you're hopping along going OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!
@@timgosling6189 hahahaha that's a great point!!! Thank you so much for watching 🙏🏻
You prolly dont care at all but does any of you know a method to get back into an instagram account?
I was stupid lost my account password. I love any tips you can give me
@Tony Davis instablaster ;)
@Dorian Deshawn Thanks for your reply. I got to the site on google and Im trying it out now.
Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
It is always easy to dive from a boat in one of the popular dive spot.. But for me "true" diving is shore diving, it is more like adventure not like a tourist trip.
Best greetings in 2022 👌
Shore diving is fun, but sometimes not for everyone. One of my favorite things about this sport is that it's so accessible.
Lot's of good points. I used to teach and dive SoCal, and beach/shore diving is what you do. Depending on the beach and terrain around it you need to plan appropriately the night before, right before the dive, and on the dive itself. Always appraise and reevaluate things, you never know when it can change on you. Especially during the dive itself. High slack tide is the best time to get into the water, make sure you show up with plenty of time beforehand so that you hit the water right at the peak. One thing to do is check the tide charts, they are invaluable for beach/shore diving. If you do have some surf/swell/surge at the dive site get to a high place to get an overall view to make sure you see the whole scene. Time sets and do enough sets to see the pattern, you never know when you might get a bigger wave than what you expect or shorten periods in between waves.
You do all this even with dive sites you are familiar with.
Any tips on researching tide charts and currents? Is that something that you can just google? Or do you need to buy charts? How do you read the charts?
@@davelee5066,
You can Google for Tide charts and the location/area you want to dive. For example, search for "Tide Chart Laguna Beach" and you will get multiple links. Check a couple out and if they show a graph with the tide change (high/low) with times and size of them then you can plan accordingly. I just looked at this and on Saturday/Sunday the tides look favorable mid-day (11am-2pm PDT). Kinda big changes, but the high slack looks to have a high tide (which means deeper water and possibility of flatter water/good vis during that time).
Again, do your planning before you go to the beach and then evaluate and plan the dive accordingly to conditions and you & your buddies capabilities.
@@davelee5066,
Disregard my earlier response about diving this weekend in Laguna, unless you want to do a twilight/night dive. The high slack starts around 8pm. The low is at 10:30 am with a big rise in water level most the afternoon.
Everything else I said about getting chart information and reading it is okay. I just misquoted the times.
I just moved to Florida…the combination of the dive flag, solo diving, and sidemounting was a challenge doing a shore entry. Took a few minutes of looking at my fins, flag, and two tanks in the sand to get a plan together
Hahaha oh I know that struggle. Good job figuring it out
This is the first time I have seen your channel, and let me qualify my statements by saying I have been diving since July 1969 , Diving all over the world I have thousands of dives under my ( weight ) Belt, I am a PADI Master Instructor, A NAUI specialty Instructor, Ex- Sheriff search and rescue Dive team member.And a EMT, and have taught many, many students. And what you had to say was SPOT ON ! I love seeing people pushing safety in SCUBA ! Im sure you must be an Instructor because yours is a voice screams experience. Please keep making these videos, This is what the sport is all about ... safety, fun, learning and sharing of your experiences ! There is no place for macho idiots. Thank you for sharing your excellent knowledge ! I just subbed you.
Wow! Thank you so much :) I really appreciate connecting with other instructors here so we can all learn from each other and ward off the macho idiots 😆 Thanks for subscribing. I hope you enjoy some of the newer stuff on the channel.
@@AzulUnlimited hello, I have been going to your other videos and they are all great! It does my heart good to see someone as yourself young and passionate about life and SCUBA! Keep up the great work! Stay safe ! We need more people like you in this industry. People willing to help others learn safely and with some fun in the equation. We are all human and make mistakes diving at times , but as long as you try to learn from it, then you are doing just that .. learning!
Thank You for a very useful and informative Intro to shore diving. Very well done.
Thanks so much for watching! Glad I could help :)
Those are good general hints for shore diving. I dive mainly in Laguna Beach, CA, mostly shallow shore dives with a max of 50 ft or so and we dive only on calm days with swells less than 2 feet and avoid heavy surf, so if we run low on air we can always surface and swim to shore on backs. The viz here is not good perhaps 5-20 ft so it's important to be slow and stay close.
If a big surf wave comes it's good to go under as most of the energy is at the surface. On exiting I like to deflate the BC so when a wave comes it does not lift me up like a cork.
Here the big problem is parking close to the beach stairs. My solution to this problem is to take an electric scooter. If I have to park away from the stairs I gear up and ride in on the scooter to the top of the stairs. I just lock the scooter to a rail and clip the key to a D ring on my BC.
Oooo love the scooter tip! I’ve never seen anyone do that🤘
Great video. The entrance and exit parts are super important. If you’ve ever dove North Monastery in Carmel, you know. Great dive site but the entrance and exit requires focus and nerve
YES! That place can be a mess. Stay safe out there!!
I did a shore dive for my two day dive exam. It was rough getting in and extremely rough getting out with steep rocks in the water and uneven walking paths.
That's always the toughest thing. Sometimes a simple entry can turn into a challenging and dangerous exit! I've seen many people lose equipment over it and get bashed up in the process. Glad you got through it safely! Thanks for watching 🙏🏻
great security and responsibility tips!!
Thank you🙏 really appreciate you watching🥰
Thanks Sarah... I always appreciate these videos. We’re cautiously optimistic on a trip to Bonaire in late Spring.. but we’ll see. Looking forward to more shore diving and “independent” diving as well. Thanks for the information... especially key security!
Here's to hoping by spring we'll all have a little more freedom!! 2021 🤞Thanks for watching!!
Do alot of shores dives off the coast of Florida...entry/exit points can make or break a dive...the less stress the better...
Hey Charles!
I would love to know if is any other techniques you use over there!!
Any tips on researching tide charts and currents? Is that something that you can just google? Or do you need to buy charts? How do you read the charts?
There are lots of online resources for getting tide charts and current reports depending on where you are located. There's "Plan Your Dive", "Surf Report", "Windy". Some resources are better with certain areas. For example, in the PNW you can set your watch to the tides. So having a physical tide logbook is quite handy. My friends who dive there us planyourdive.com to get hourly tide reports for all the different dive sites in the area. In Hawaii, you should go with a surf report since high and low tide aren't the concern, but rather the surf and size of the waves. I hope this helps to get you started!
@@AzulUnlimited thank you! I appreciate you!
Surfers use to leave their keys on top of one of their van's wheels🤣🤣
Yep! Done that one for sure
I found best advice I got when starting to work in Malta = before you get in to something, how you gonna get out?
I like it! short, sweet, to the point. Excellent stuff. Where are you working now?
@@AzulUnlimited I'm in Thailand. Not working at moment due to wp not ready. My wife (who is Thai) is pretty busy with all the new Thai divers.
I’ve met chuck on my way up to Monterey Bay from Los Angeles. Great Guy and nice shop.
Very cool! he has been supporting local divers for many years, great guy and great diver!
Great videos, Great tip use a valet key, and hide the electronic car key somewhere in the car.
Valet key. Much better term for that! 😂 Thanks for watching and commenting here. We appreciate you!
0:01 Fantastic af. If only donning exposure was this magical
Hahaha I know right?
I usually dive solo with a 30 cu pony bottle. We've got some great shore dives up here in the Puget Sound.
Hi Max! Yeah I normally dive solo too, use to dive also with a pony until I changed for sidemount configuration.
Not easy to find buddies outside the weekends.
@@AzulUnlimited I don't know much about sidemount. I've seen it before but didn't even know what it was called. I dive in an area where there are a lot of tech divers and they are usually very focused on putting their tri-mix gear together and planning their dives. I'm just a recreational/sport diver and I don't like to be distracted, so I figure with them it's times ten, so I don't ask...lol
Hey I see Refugio beach!!! I’m always diving over there how fun
Hehehe I love the place, also is close to where I live, so easy for a half day dive!!
Any easy access shore dives in the North of Italy you will recommend? Thanks for your tips!🤙
Ooo no idea but let me know if you find one!
@@AzulUnlimited What about south of France between Nice et Italian frontier?
@@littleplatypus8503 no idea. never been diving in Europe
@@AzulUnlimited ok cheers!
Thnx for sharing your video, they are always great to watch and have clear details in it. Here in Holland we are doing almost only shore dives, in fresh water but also in salt water with current and tides.
This needs additional training and theory lessons for those divers, because the tides can be really spooky and dangerous if you are not aware of it. I hope to come to Indonesia again this year (my wife is Indonesian) and also visit you guys on Komodo, then I like to do some sidemount diving if that is possible, then I bring my SM rigg and regs
Absolutely! Tides and currents are by far the trickiest things about dive planning on your own. We hope you can make it to us very soon! This pandemic will be over some day soon and we would love to take you sidemount diving in Komodo!!! Email us if you'd like more information: azulunlimited@gmail.com
Great video, as usual! ;) i put the car keys in what we call an „egg“, a small waterproof container you can take with you underwater. Of of course inside rhe dry suit
Oh nice!! Haven't gotten my hands on one of those. Sounds like a great system!
@@AzulUnlimited something like that for example: www.scubashop.ch/shop/default/materiel/104/107/l-oeuf-du-plongeur.html
@@ZSharky0815 Rad! Thanks for that!!
those egg containers suck, the O-ring inside is too thin and does not close it waterproof, so if you are putting in keys with a transponder they can me damaged. I have an analog drivers door key on a boldsnap and clip it on a D-ring of my wing, that works much better
@@EricBovelander the scubapro isnt the best example, I‘ll give you that. But there are good „eggs“ out there that are very reliable
About car key: I struggled a lot about where to keep it and one day came across this waterproof bag for cell phone that came as a gift with my new dry mesh bag. I made an experiment - i borrowed some lego bricks from my son, put together in the +/- shape of my car key and wrapped a paper towel around it to see any leak. Then I put the dummy key inside, closed the bag (squeesing the air out of it) and took for a 30m deep dive. It worked perfectly, and I still use this bag to take the car key with me on the dives. NOTE: TEST YOUR BAG FIRST!!
That's great. Yes, test your bag first is a must. I'm still partial to the lock box. Keeps things dry 100% of the time :) Thanks for watching!
@@AzulUnlimited Thank you for your content and sunny appearance! It is pleasure to watch your videos.
As my instructor used to say: "Lock box will protect only from honest people " - meaning it can be open within seconds.
How are the conditions now ? It must be rain season over there. I miss the diving in salty water. Here in Austria we have only lakes (nice cold water and limited fauna/flora).
Diving in Indonesia stays a happy dream so far with all this pandemic restrictions...
Use an analogue key that will unlock your car and keep your car keys hidden in your car.
@@maxkol4380 Unfortunately, I don't have any.
Hmm it sounds like it's overly complicated, but it's actually pretty straightforward. In these parts it's actually rare to boat dive. We only do that on hollidays. Fresh water lakes aren't overly complicated. Just setup your gear in your car and in 15 minutes you can be in the water. In the ocean you really want to check the tides and conditions. Getting in and out of the water can be difficult sometimes. Having to climb over a dike, wall and getting into the water over slippery rocks with nothing to hold on to might be challenging with heavy gear (or without gear).
Sounds very complicated is people is just get use to dive from a boat or only in tropical destinations, but once you do t a few times from shore.... is very straightforward, with a few tips, a checklist and some good dive buddies is a piece of cake.
you forgot the dry suit for the keys, just keep it in your pocket 😀
That's true!
Just did my first shore dive in San Diego at La Jolla Cove, It kicked my butt.. It was the first time diving in 64 degree water and with a 8mm wet suit and carrying 30 lbs of additional weight. Very taxing just putting my fins on just past the shore break. Visibility was poor and the wave surge action was very prevalent as well. From where we staged our gear to the beach was about 200 yards and down a flight of stairs... After exiting the water, gravity took on a new meaning, them we had to go back up that flight of stairs. This gave me a new appreciation for going off the back of a dive boat. Really did not enjoy the dive.
oh no... i know that dive (and that walk) well. I'm sorry it wasn't a good experience. that dive can actually be super beautiful but if you caught it on a bad viz day... yeah. those stairs are no joke. If you're in SD again, you can jump onto the boat with Waterhorse Charters and check out the wrecks or go diving in mexico!
Did that dive. Poor vis. Exhausting too!
A plastic egg or dry box works well for the car keys.
A case for the sunglasses also works, and a piece of velcro to hide it underneath the car.
These eggs sometimes leak. You might want to put your key in a water resistant zip bag inside that egg to make sure your car will start after your dive if your egg leakes.
I like to hid my keys inside the wheel well of my car I unscrew the liner and put in inside that and then screw it back on. another good spot is exhaust pipes lol and no not inside it lmfao hang it off where the exhaust is hanging from. ps you might have to do a bit of crawling lol.
hahaha those are great options. I love that i now drive such an old car that i can just take the key with me. Yay for low tech vehicles 😆
Keys are definitely an issue
I'm a big fan of the lock box technique
There is no way I will pull buoy on surface, I don't care about local law, that sucks and most people don't know how dive buoy or flag looks like, I do my dive and then on end of my dive I deploy DSMB if I exit in blue or I just go to shore and don't shoot DSMB at all
Like I said. Best to follow local laws and regulations so our sport is supported and respected
@@AzulUnlimited local law is to have buoy with flag on it, and I never carry it becouse there is no point in having buoy if you are more than 5m down, having DSMB is enough. Ofc I prefere having PDS uniform in car just in case😂