Diving with a rig in Galapagos - how to secure for heavy currents (or not?)

[OneYellowTang]

All,

I'll start by mentioning I've been to Cocos a couple of times and Malpelo once. Maybe once or twice on those trips I remember wishing I didn't have a large camera rig to deal with in a heavy current situation (which was always a temporary feeling).

We're headed for Galapagos in a couple of months (I know, wrong time of year for the big stuff, but my daughter's university break dictated the timing of this trip). I've been reading about potentially heavy current dives up at Darwin and Wolf, as well as potentially 1-2 other spots. I'm also aware that you could end up not experiencing these conditions as well. 

This isn't enough to likely to get me to leave my rig on the LoB, however I am thinking a bit on how I may want to secure the rig to my BCD and have it enough out of the way so I can have both hands free to anchor myself on the rocks, etc.

A single lanyard is an obvious starting point, however a Z8 in a Nauticam housing with dual strobes swinging around in a current (as your pulling yourself along hand over hand) may be secure, but doesn't seem ideal.

Thoughts on best practices here? I've dived in some reasonably heavy currents with my rig in the recent past (Shotgun & Castle Rock in Komodo, Devils Highway in the Solomons) without worrying about this, however Galapagos seems like it could present a next level challenge - maybe it's the rocks, or maybe I've been reading too much 😉

Looking for suggestions or any advice for those that have been before.
 

[TimG]

Good question.

 

Happily I've never actually had to deal with the issue but understand entirely where you are coming from.

 

The solution I developed for myself was to use two carabiners with detachable connectors (see photo). I clip a carabiner onto a D-ring on either side of the shoulder straps of my BCD; and the round snorkel retainers are fastened onto my strobe arms.

 

If I need to free my hands, clipping the connectors together leaves my system (a D500 with Retra strobes) hanging from my BCD and reasonably manageable.

 

[Dave_Hicks]

Those carabineer clips are the worst. They can be difficult to remove from a d-ring quickly. Suggest you get bolt-snaps instead.

 

I do a lot of high current diving including the places you mention and i have a big camera rig as well. I have found a single reinforced coiled lanyard to work very well. (A closed loop of bungie cord attached inside the coils ) Clip it off short when not holding, with the camera attached by the right side handle. Bolt snap clips it to your right BC shoulder d-ring.

 

Edited January 22 by Dave_Hicks

[RVBldr]

On the bolt snap topic, if you're wearing gloves, you can't beat the XDeep snaps! It's hard to make basic improvements on a bolt snap, but XDeep has modified the sliding latch to make it much more usable with your thumb as well as made the attach loop big enough to get a finger in there to orient the clip. null

[RomiK]

With experiences you have don't worry about Galapagos. Just keep the same habits you already have under your skin, nothing worse than complicate things with new stuff and then miss that whale shark swimming by over at Darwin arch... The most important thing will be your gloves and familiarity operating your rig with them. You will use your gloves to hold on to rocks at the current situations, tie downs are not being used at Galapagos as often you are perpendicular to the current so they aren't practical like at channel Maldives dives for example. Darwin and Wolf are all rocks no corrals so the way it goes is if there is bigger current you wedge yourself in between rocks, free up your hands and start operating the camera. My rig is same as yours and at times I had to minimize its profile and drag it behind me but that's nothing extraordinary. Basically all dives were one handed where my right hand never let camera go and left was used to manipulate my body. And then when wedged I was ready to ambush hammerheads 😂. The currents over there are no mask rippers, yes they may be stronger sometimes but no mask rippers... Darwin and Wolf are simple but the iguanas dive over at Fernandina could be a real washing machine so watch out 🤣 . Enjoy that beautiful place!

[fruehaufsteher2]

I can understand the problem, but I see the difficulties more with night dives than with drift dives. I have an attachment similar to Dave Hicks', but it is no longer available new. I have now ordered one from Mares which I hope will work just as well. The advantage is that it can be used as a hand strap as well as for attaching to the BCD and with the stainless steel cable inside it should be strong enough.

https://www.tradeinn.com/diveinn/de/mares-lanyard-stainless-steel-spiral-verlangerung/11461/p

Edited Monday at 11:44 AM by fruehaufsteher2

[humu9679]

On 1/22/2025 at 5:51 AM, Dave_Hicks said:

Those carabineer clips are the worst. They can be difficult to remove from a d-ring quickly. Suggest you get bolt-snaps instead.

 

I do a lot of high current diving including the places you mention and i have a big camera rig as well. I have found a single reinforced coiled lanyard to work very well. (A closed loop of bungie cord attached inside the coils ) Clip it off short when not holding, with the camera attached by the right side handle. Bolt snap clips it to your right BC shoulder d-ring.

 

I've had a single coiled (unreinforced) cord break as it was clipped to a lanyard on the side of a zodiac. As I saw the rig escaping, it was luckily only 40 feet to a sandy bottom. I use doubles with quick release buckles a la TimG. Great for shore diving, too.

Edited Monday at 06:57 PM by humu9679

[Grm]

I’ve been to both and certainly thought currents were worse in Malpelo than Galapagos but that may just be timings, when I was in the Galapagos they frowned on using strobes as it tended to scare the sharks so I ditched them and just shot ambient light which minimised drag a lot. Only used strobes on bat fish / sea lion dives, iguanas are only 2-4 metres so no need for strobes there especially as there can be quite a bit of surge as you are so shallow

Typically most dives at Wolf/Darwin were only 20 metres and above which helps with light?

[Chris Ross]

23 hours ago, fruehaufsteher2 said:

I can understand the problem, but I see the difficulties more with night dives than with drift dives. I have an attachment similar to Dave Hicks', but it is no longer available new. I have now ordered one from Mares which I hope will work just as well. The advantage is that it can be used as a hand strap as well as for attaching to the BCD and with the stainless steel cable inside it should be strong enough.

https://www.tradeinn.com/diveinn/de/mares-lanyard-stainless-steel-spiral-verlangerung/11461/p

The cable I suspect is not the weak point- rather it's where the coiled lanyard attaches through those two plastic mouldings.  The plastic clip can also be an issue - I can say from experience they are quite difficult to unclip as the little cutout the wire clip seats in catches on your D-ring and needs two hands to unclip - at least one of which you want to be using to hold your rig.  This can be a lot of fun when you are bobbing around trying to stay by the boat and unclip to pass up your rig.

 

Combining one of these:

lanyard

with the lanyard most dive shops seem to sell to replace the coiled plastic would be much sturdier I think.  Adding a quality bolt snap instead of the plastic clip would complete the ideal lanyard I think.

[RomiK]

12 hours ago, Grm said:

I’ve been to both and certainly thought currents were worse in Malpelo than Galapagos but that may just be timings, when I was in the Galapagos they frowned on using strobes as it tended to scare the sharks so I ditched them and just shot ambient light which minimised drag a lot. Only used strobes on bat fish / sea lion dives, iguanas are only 2-4 metres so no need for strobes there especially as there can be quite a bit of surge as you are so shallow

Typically most dives at Wolf/Darwin were only 20 metres and above which helps with light?

 

Ambient video with CWB for sure, sharks hate video lights and they don't come close anyway, but if you want to get that wall picture you've got to use strobes. Plus hammers don't mind the strobes as much as they mind divers 🙂. The advice is to stay away from other divers, don't breath when one is coming and then pop and shoot. The ambush!🤣