Posted by tleemay on January 02, 2002 at 17:35:06:
In Reply to: Scooters- Good, Bad or Indifferent? posted by Steve on January 02, 2002 at 16:34:10:
Scooters are a valuable tool used by those
who recognize what they can and cannot do
effectively. Popping in and out of holes
looking for lobtser, or chasing down fish to
spear are really not effective uses of a
scooter and scootering. It can be done, but
scooters motors and props are noisy and
scare fish away. Some of the worlds'most
amazing video clips have been shot off the
nose of scooters. Not too effective for still
shots, but very effective for full motion.
If you are on a search and recovery team and
your target area of search is large, or you
bottom time is limited, the scooter is the
perfect tool for a team to use since it enables
a large area to be searched with minimal effort
and gas usage. The only real drawback to such
a search is vis. The better the vis, the larger
the area that can be viewed underwater. On the
other side, the poorer the vis, the less effective
it is.
Another beneficial application is obviously
deep long penetrations such as mandated by
the work the WKPP has done and continue to
do. On the eastern seaboard there are deeper
wrecks that are 600'+ long where the use of
a scooter would enable long surveys to be
done.
For basic hunting or still photography,
scootering is not the best way of UW
conveyance. For scootering completely around
Bird Rock and seeing awesome 80' walls
covered in gergorian sea fans, or
circum-navagating Ithsmus Reef and seeing
clouds of bat rays swiming it can't be beat.