Need To Add Reef Hook To My Scuba Diving Gear
I’ll be writing a detailed article along with videos on the big Raja Ampat liveaboard dive trip I just returned from but in the meantime, here’s a quick post on a piece of dive gear that I want to buy for next season. This piece is a reef hook which I never used before but borrowed one from the Lady Denok boat dive staff for several dives at Raja Ampat. Where a reef hook comes in handy is during dives where we want to stay in one place in the face of currents strong enough to move you and kicking against them would be too tough and tiring.
I never ran into this situation before even in drift dives in Cozumel and other dive sites where there were currents. But at Raja Ampat, there were several instances where the currents were fairly strong and we purposely wanted to stay at one spot because big schools of fish including baraccuda, jack and other large species were there. Many fish enjoy being in currents and schools of them would be seen facing the currents since food like plankton is blown in.
During such drift dives, we were to engage reef hooks to stay at a few different spots to observe marine life. Sure we could try to use our hands to grab onto rocks which is what I first did but soon realized that using a reef hook was easier. This would be especially the case for divers taking photos or videos as reef hooks will enable them to keep two hands on their underwater cameras.
Dive sites where reef hooks would be handy seem to be in the Indo-Pacific region like Raja Ampat, Komodo and Palau. In fact, Palau was where the use of reef hooks started. The only other place where I think a reef hook would have been useful is at Galapagos particularly at Wolf and Darwin Islands where huge schools of sharks and other fish are. These Galapagos dive sites had very wicked strong currents where negative entires were needed. I don’t recall any dive destinations in the Caribbean that would require reef hooks.
I do plan to travel to more Indo-Pacific dive destinations like Komodo in the future so getting my own reef hook would be a nice addition to my scuba dive gear.
