We tried out our new Brownies Hookah diving system at the dock.  A Hookah system is a surface supplied air or “tankless” diving system.  Our Hookah system consists of a .75HP variable speed sealed DC motor driving an oilless compressor.  The system runs off 12VDC so we can use the boat house battery bank.  It comes with a 40′ downline and another 20′ extension with the 2nd stage regulator attached.  It supports 2 divers by putting a Y valve at the end of the downline and using two extensions with regulators.  We want this for our cruise to the south pacific for recreational diving, so figured it would be good to buy it now to get used to it.  Also, about a year ago we got a line wrapped around the prop and I had to free dive (sans mask, fins, weights) to cut it, which took many dives to accomplish.

Our immediate use will be for hull cleaning and maintenance.  It’s been 3 years since the boat was hauled out for bottom paint and zincs.  Since the boat is moored in fresh water, the bottom paint has held up well but we noticed when we were in the San Juans recently that the prop zinc was missing.  For my first Hookah dive, I wore a wetsuit and used the dive gear I had from when I was doing SCUBA diving about 15 years ago.  The Hookah worked great and I was able to replace all 6 zincs and clean the algae off the bottom in about an hour.

Here are some images from the Brownies website: