Hookha is the economic way to go if money is tight. When I got my hookha rig on my gold dredge, I went to the famous Hal Watts SCUBA for lessons. Hal asked me how deep was I diving and said it was 10 or 15 feet. Hal explained that only common sense was necessary as I wasn't dealing in compression time tables. Hal said don't fill your lungs with air, hold it and shoot to the surface or you'd get the "bends".
I used my hookha for over 20 years in water from 3 feet to 15 feet. Sadly, State of Florida outlawed use of recreational dredging and cost of permits were too high and I sold my dredge but kept the hookha assembly in a floating mount.
Anyone can build their own hookha unit from components found in Keene Engineering (use search engine). You'll need a used 3 to 5 hp side shaft gas motor with a 6 inch pulley, a T-80 oil-less compressor with a 3 inch pulley, a engine/compressor mounting plate with a ribbed belt, a compressor snorkle to keep gas fumes away from air intake, mount the plate inside a donut tube mount that slips into a 20 inch truck tire. Attach a 3 foot pig-tail hose to the compressor with a quick release like used on air tools. Next attach a plastic air bottle into the line, this cools the air, maintains constant pressure should the motor slows down for any reason and gives about a minute of air should the motor run out of gas. Next a 30 to 500 foot air line is screwed onto the other end of the air bottle and a quick release is added to couple the air line to the regulator harness.
The quick release is a safety factor. Should the air line become snagged just as the motor runs out of gas,
you can reach around and free yourself so you can surface. Been there and done that a couple of times. You can build your own hookha rig for about a third of the ones sold in the stores.
I did it this way because I didn't have $2500 to splurge on a Brownie 3rd Lung, 20 years ago. I considered selling my rig but now I think I'll just buy a new compressor and keep it.
You can still use a dredge in saltwater for recovering finds. Talk it over with a SCUBA Master about Hookha diving and see what he says. My advice came from Hal Watts over 20 years ago, he might say different now.
Read David McCracken's gold dredging books as hookha is still used in that hobby and there are a lot of tips I listed here that came from those books.
Be Safe, always dive with a buddy at the surface who is holding a safety line, 3 pulls means to pull my butt up.
Don't take my word as gospel. Read all you can, talk to experts then make your own decision that's what I did.
