LIft bag/sausage storage on BP

[O-ring]

anyone else have problems with those little two-piece plastic connectors with the storage pack?

Call EE and get replacements. My buddy has an older Halcyon wing/BP/SP and his are the plastic type with the plastic cam buckles. Mine was purchased this year and the cam straps are SS and the two piece attachments for the SP are also SS now...

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by metridium

I keep it folded tight and stuffed just inside the storage pack, clipped off to the aft D-ring. I must have an older SMB, because the leash is practically non-existent. It must've caught on something, because tugging on the boltsnap had no effect.

I'll try your back arching tip this weekend; I think that's what I've been doing, but will pay closer attention to form this time.

One last thing: anyone else have problems with those little two-piece plastic connectors with the storage pack?

Metridium... fold lengthwise in thirds with the exhaust valve on the inside of the folds. Take the bag folded thus and with it draped over your hand (the top of the bag at your wrist the rest over your fingers and at the back of your hand) stuff the thing up into the storage pack... since you have the lift bag without the leash leave the tail of the bag out of the pack about 6~8" and clip it off. Make sure that you have enough room between your canister and BP to reach back to your butt ring. The thing should pull right out once you unclip it.

It is a pain to practice this more than once during a dive since restuffing with the rig on is not gonna work... so do it at the end of every dive even if you are not going to shoot the bag.... practice getting it out.

 

[wetman]

Originally posted by Uncle Pug

...
Best to have it clipped off at the butt ring out of the way.

will have to try that. for some reason i thought it was hard to get to that d ring

 

[metridium]

Thanks, I'm looking forward to trying that with the wetsuit this weekend. I've been practicing SMB drills on almost every dive of late, and I'm getting more proficient. Still can't get a lot of air in it before it zooms up, but at least I'm still sticking to my stops regardless.

Lately I've been diving dry, and keeping the SMB (a 6' Halcyon Super Alert marker) in my drysuit pocket. It is so easily and quickly accessed there that I have no concerns about buoyancy. Is there any overriding reason not to continue this when diving dry?

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by metridium
Is there any overriding reason not to continue this when diving dry?

Not at all. In fact keeping it in your right thigh pocket with a spool already attached is a good idea... as long as you put the other stuff that falls out back once you have the bag out... you buddy can do this for you if he/she is a good buddy... but at the very least they should remind you.

I keep my 80# Halcyon lift bag in that pocket... but the Big dive marker likes to be in the back pack.

As for getting gas into the lift bag... this may seem obvious... but if you are in the correct horizontal position it really is not a big deal to go slightly head down and frog a little while filling the bag.... just don't get tangled in the line... unclip the spool before you start to fill the bag and hold it and the inflator valve with some bag material bunched around the valve in your right hand and press the inflator hose against it with your left hand.... let the spool go with the bag. The reason you want to bunch some material around the valve while you hold it is so that you don't rip the valve out of the bag... and if you only hold it by the valve... you will.

 

[metridium]

Originally posted by Uncle Pug

Not at all. In fact keeping it in your right thigh pocket with a spool already attached is a good idea...

Are you using a large bellows pocket on the right, or a small flat one?

Originally posted by Uncle Pug
The reason you want to bunch some material around the valve while you hold it is so that you don't rip the valve out of the bag... and if you only hold it by the valve... you will.

Good tip.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by metridium
Are you using a large bellows pocket on the right, or a small flat one?

One suit has the 5thD pockets... fairly large bellows... on both sides.

The other suit has DUI bellows pockets on both sides... slightly smaller that the 5thD pockets but they still hold:
Right pocket ~ a folded up bag & attached spool, P-valve bolt, and wetnotes each with its own bolt snap.

Left pocket ~ spare mask, shears, spare spool, dive alert... and whatever other spares I need on the dive.... each with its own bolt snap.

Tip... you should carry a spare bolt snap for the spool in case you drop one while winding in... you will drop one eventually... I have the bolt from my balanced P-valve zip tied to a small bolt snap and clip this off in my right pocket... if Shane should ever drop another bolt snap while winding in the spool on our lift bag I can get this one out and use it to secure the line to the spool.

 

[metridium]

Originally posted by Uncle Pug

One suit has the 5thD pockets... fairly large bellows... on both sides.

The other suit has DUI bellows pockets on both sides... slightly smaller that the 5thD pockets but they still hold:

Is that standard DIR configuration or personal preference? Elsewhere I'd been told that having large bellows on the left and smaller flat on the right (both with velcro) was DIR. Theory was that Wetnotes and deco tables went in the right, bulky items in the left.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by metridium
Theory was that Wetnotes and deco tables went in the right, bulky items in the left.

Things you will be using on the dive go into the right pocket...
Spares go in the left pocket.

 

[O-ring]

Things you will be using on the dive go into the right pocket...
Spares go in the left pocket.

I was thinking of mounting it on the left...