Search results

mb and I and her parents are scheduled to land in Bonaire in three days, 13 hours, 13 minutes (give or take air travel delays) for two weeks at Den Laman. Let's see... Her parents are joining us at tonight's pool fun dive night to get a last-minute gear check. I've just finished going back...

When I'm with students or newer divers, I'm strongly on the sharing side. They don't know how to see the amazing things that are down there (out of Panama City, FL, almost all the cool stuff is tiny and the rest hides well), and I have great fun watching their eyes light up. I consider it part...

My LDS will ask for a card if you're getting an air fill and they don't know you yet. If you're getting a fill for paintballing or remote work with pneumatic tools, that's no problem at all. They don't ask for a card because they're scuba police. They ask for evidence of certification or...

I have cylinders of several different service pressures that all use the same valves. They have different burst disks depending on the service pressure, but the valves themselves are identical. It does not surprise me that valve makers do not have completely separate lines for each potential...

What's the viz like at Dutch Springs? In low-viz murk, I like to have lots o' lumens. On the other hand, on most of my night dives, a 4-AA pocket-size light is overkill, so I spend most of the dive with it shining through my fingers (so I can continuously modulate the light output). Having a...

To be precise, a patched Gekko is still a Gekko, no more and no less. It does not have gauge mode, etc. The only thing the patch does is change the name the computer calls itself when you download it. It calls itself "Vyper", but in functionality (and in data provided) it is 100% Gekko. (The...

My drysuit is *never* 100% dry thanks to condensation or just plain sweat, but it's a general dampness on the whole surface (or throughout, if I was diving 42°F water and doing my stops in 85°F water with the sun beating down). Just like hiking, you wear a wicking layer and keep cotton away...

Actually, as long as you pack it in a zipper bag or vacuum pack, it's not bad. I'd recommend soups that taste decent at water temperature. Pureed soups or risotto-like soups work well, but chicken-noodle-style may not flow as well -- the solids can separate from the liquids (which would only...

Are you using a snorkel keeper like these (Innovative Scuba Concepts brand): (For those who haven't used one before, the snorkel goes through both holes in the keeper, making a capital letter "D" with the snorkel as the straight part and the keeper as the round part. The round part of the...

Mine seems to be the lite version, although when you're on a dive and your mask is fogging up, pulling it off and giving it a good licking can actually work wonders. Doesn't taste great, but the fogging problem goes away. (I have yet to find anything else that works as well *during* a dive.)

Although it may appear wax-like, it's not actually a wax. It's just a solid (or semisolid) surfactant. (The distinction doesn't have to matter in general, but it's on topic here, so hey.) Theoretically, you could buff your mask lens with a bar of Zest, even, although I have not tried and I...

Actually, defog works almost exactly *opposite* how wax on a car works. A well-waxed car has a nice hydrophobic coating, which prevents it from being wet by the water. The surface tension of the water makes the water bead up, and it runs off. Defog works in the opposite direction. It works...

Those weights look like standard rubber-coated cast iron or steel weights. If you use them in the water, I can pretty much guarantee they *will* leave rust stains all over. I've used similar weights (in a variety of shapes) for various temporary uses both in diving and paddling, and the rubber...

When my significant buddy and I are diving, we'll analyze the mixes jointly. One person with the analyzer calling out mixes, one person with the pressure gauge calling out pressures, each measurement witnessed by the other diver, and all data written on fresh and dated tape on each cylinder...

I sliced the printed top off the cardboard backing and laminated that. Then I laminated all of the cards individually. I left enough laminate off the edge that I could punch holes in the laminate but *not* through the paper inside, as that keeps the cards from being waterlogged. Each set...

I sling my pony on my left, as I am right-handed. Conveniently, this also means my right-side octo is not at all obstructed (although "pony with or without octo" is a whole 'nother thread, hehe).

The second stage body (diaphragm, exhaust, etc.) never has significant pressure across it. There's a significant pressure difference between the hose and breathing sides of the actual valve in the second stage, but the diaphragm and body will have at most a few inches of water pressure on them...

What about when the safe diving practices of one of your certifications directly conflict with the safe diving practices of another of your certifications? I have a collection of safe diving practices that come from various sources, but they cannot map one-to-one to the safe diving practices of...

I'm certainly in there with everyone else on the "Anyone can call any dive at any time for any reason..." concept. On one weekend trip, my wonderful buddy could not get warm enough after her first dive to stop shivering (it was November, frigid, and *windy*). I told her I would not do the dive...

Leisure Pro sells both yoke and DIN "equalizers". (If you want the most flexibility, you could always buy the DIN one and two yoke adapters, I suppose, but the yoke-yoke one is significantly cheaper.) I'll generally remove all the sling hardware from my pony and re-viz it every year...