Interesting suggestion
beanojones, I didn't want to mess with my setup constantly going from single to double and vice versa. But trying to source Air2 mod on a non Scubapro BC could be difficult?
Side Mount Divers, what you do when travelling?
- Thread starter mulla
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Interesting suggestion
There are far too many destinations to make a blanket statement about them. I am usually cave diving, even when I'm traveling. That Aruba trip happened to be a beach trip that I did some dives on not a dive trip.
beanojones:
How is this a problem? I simply took my left side reg set and added one of my stage hoses and 2nd stage reg to it. Did the switch before the trip. Undid it when I got back home. No problem. Also, even with the inflator hose coming off the bottom, you can still use the rig as a backmount rig. I use my Nomad with BM doubles and keep the inflator coming off the bottom. It actually makes it easier to exhaust since I don't have to hike my a$$ up to get the bottom of the wing higher.
Hm... I'm still a "newbie" when it comes to messing around with taking gear apart. I've seen my LDS put my SM regs together and it looks very easy. But you know the stage when you think you can do it but still scared of messing things up :S Maybe I can ask my LDS for a supervised session of me taking regs apart!
billgraham
Contributor
Yeah, we were doing "two tank dives" so I just used the same two tanks for both dives. (My argument was "I get two tanks, right? I can take them both in the water at the same time.")
I'd rather have the high pressure steel 100's as they have better bouyancy characteristics than the Al. 80's. Typically, you're only going to have yoke valves available so I bring some of the big metal Poseidon din to yoke converters. When you use those, it doesn't matter which way the valve is pointing, you can have the hand wheel up, valve facing in and put the bungee around the knob on the converter. You have to weight aluminum tanks so thread some three pounders on the cam bands near the buckle (and put the clip right there too). You can then have all that stuff on the inside near your leg to lessen the line trap.
Bring a ton of inner tube slices with you for hose holders, and you can slide a rolled up lift bag under them and clip to one. Good luck!
billgraham
Contributor
On the subject of switching regs around, once you forget about backmount, it's not a problem. I do mostly cave and technical diving and I've got six or seven Poseidon Odins all set up basically the same. All have six inch hp hoses, some have a long hose for cave diving, some have a shorter/longer inflator if I'm using them only for open circuit sidemount diving tanks. The rest have a "normal" sized inflator and regulator hoses and they work great for stages or CCR bail out bottles. It simplifies things tremendously to have everything basically the same.
Thank you billgraham for sharing your experience. That's what my throughts are, I should be allowed to take both tanks in at the same time if that's what we're allocated. I might hire 2x AL80s just to test and familiarise myself with the properties of them before I go on the trip. That's all dependant on if I can get myself comfortable with side mount before I go. I would love to SM on my trip to gain more experience but also don't want to hold up other people if I'm still not familiar with the kit yet.
billgraham
Contributor
Sidemount rigs require a lot of tweaking and I'm not sure I'd want to be messing with that on a trip. I'd borrow a couple of 80's and goof around in the pool to get it all worked out before trying to dive it off a boat. Also, remember that if you ask ten sidemounters, you'll get 12 different answers and a lot of things are configured to suit individual preferences, which you'll figure out through diving it.
beanojones
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I guess the degree of futzing is relative. I have a reg set that can go diving back mount on one dive and without any changes go sidemount for the next. SO that there are no tools at all involved even from one dive to next at the beach, where I do not want to be using tools at all.
beanojones
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wmperry
Contributor
I ran into some pushback from an operator in the Bahamas on using two tanks. Their rule was that they would not let a diver back into the water with less than 3000psi in a tank. And they weren't real excited about the idea of refilling two tanks for one diver (it was a liveaboard) between every dive. They had not seen much sidemount and I didn't want to push it so I just sidemounted a single AL80 for the week.
Coming up the ladder with two tanks if you have a decently wide ladder on the boat isn't usually an issue. And for really small boats in the Andaman Islands I've had them request us to take off backmount BCDs and hand them up, so they probably wouldn't mind being able to pull up cylinders with stage straps and let you climb up with your SM gear on - easier on the boat guys.
Coming up the ladder with two tanks if you have a decently wide ladder on the boat isn't usually an issue. And for really small boats in the Andaman Islands I've had them request us to take off backmount BCDs and hand them up, so they probably wouldn't mind being able to pull up cylinders with stage straps and let you climb up with your SM gear on - easier on the boat guys.
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