How to animate a path over time + with arrow shape object and a repeater

[Karolina29385938fq3x]

Hello there!
For the life of me I can't figure out how to animate a path with some repeated arrows on it.. I have a shot of a diver and I need to illustrate a water current. The problem is - the diver changes position, so I need to adjust the path according to where he is (I want the arrows to adapt to the divers movement, position and the object he's holding, so they don't clip together).
The way I did it is:

1. draw paths, copy those into positions of each arrow shaped layer

2. add a repeater to each arrow shape layer

I see a problem due to the positon keyframes ending before the shot ends and that creates a loop where the repeater creates the looping animation... (Screenshot attached)
I wanted to manually keyframe the keyframes copied from a path, but it doesn't work - the whole cycle gets adjusted.
I'm sure there's a better way to do it. Can anyone help me, please?

[Mylenium]

I would simply use text on paths based on a dingbat font with an arrow shape. There are indeed limitations to doing this with shape layers. Otherwise some particle system would be an option, even the old Particle Playground, but it's always a lot of effort to set up.

Mylenium