Nomad-Swapping the inflator hose with the rear dump

[carrielsal]

Just curious, what do you thing the rec sidemount class involves?

Rob,
I had rigging and skill questions related to sm that were not covered in the PADI SM course, such as rigging in stage bottles. I had no interest in a cert card.
I ended up talking to a local sm instructor (the one I told you about who is a wreck diver) who has a lot of practical experience in the sm config. Instead of taking the PADI approved course, we just headed to the lake so he could take a look at my config and trim and went from there. He tore apart the circle bungees and made them into the traditional bungees and helped me move things around a bit. We have made some changes to some of my hose lengths and bottle rigging. He has shown me numerous little tricks I hadn't thought of that has made a huge difference to my trim and comfort level.
We never discussed exactly how to add the stage bottle. On our 3rd dive he just handed it to me and watched me struggle. Thank god no one was around with a video camera. I tried reaching around my left tank and pulling it in close to reach bottom D ring. I must have struggled for about 10 minutes (completely lost trim and silted up the bottom to almost zero viz) and bruised the heck out of the inside of my left arm before I realized that was never going to work and ended up unclipping the left tank completely to get the stage bottle on. When we were back on the surface he told me that the reason he did that was so I could see for myself what didn't work (he knows how hard headed I can be). Then he showed me how to push my sm tank back to attach the deco bottle. Jeez, why didn't I think of that.
The money I spent for training with him was money well spent. I'm not sure that he charged me enough!
I spent Sat out practicing with my regular recreational buddy who told me that I looked just like the sm divers in the videos
We're going out one more time tonight to help me fine tune a few more things. Tomorrow I am going out with a local charter service on our lake to practice getting on and off a boat, then Saturday I'm off to Hawaii with my Nomad! My buddy who lives there tells me that no one there dives sidemount and his regular crew is anxious to see this.

 

[Dive-aholic]

There is no sidemount manual currently out there that is really any good. I don't teach PADI's sidemount course and haven't seen there manual, but from what I've heard about the course, it has even less content to it than IANTD's course (the one I base my course on). I just finished up a 2 day sidemount course with a couple of students. I had them trimmed out the first dive. By dive 4 they were clipping and unclipping sidemount bottles, clipping on and off stage bottles, and holding they're position in the water. (Stage bottles are not a part of IANTD's course, but it's something I feel is important to include in a sidemount course.) And it sounds like you were trying to clip your stage bottle in front of your sidemount bottle. There's an easier, lower profile way of doing this...and it doesn't require unclipping or pushing your sidemount bottle anywhere. I'm glad you enjoyed your learning experience. Don't let it stop there. There's a lot more to sidemount diving...even in open water.