Monkey Rig 2.0

I recently went to Mexico and had been needing to finish my monkey rig. Wanting to dive double AL80's in Mexico, I needed some lift.
I found this little bladder and slapped a few parts on it, then tied it to my monkey rig with bungee. Monkey Rig 2.0 was born!

I ran a quick test on it in shallow water one evening and it worked well down to 20ft. My butt was a little floaty with 2 AL80's, so I added a 2lb weight to each tank's cam band to hold them down. Perfect!

I got to dive the Taj Mahal (Tajma Ha) Cenote and had a spectacular dive. The rig worked perfectly and I no issues on either dive.
I also did a reef dive the next day with a single AL80 side mounted and it worked great jumping off a boat.

Here's a few pics of the rig along with my entire travel setup I took with me. It all fit into a large duffel bag, and came in at 48lbs. (which JetBlue let me check Free)

The only thing left I need to do is swap the hard weights for my soft weight pockets, and then sew everything together (which will remove all of the keepers from being needed) and trim the excess webbing.

Total invested in this rig is $120

What do you call a "monkey rig" ? Because this looks very much like any other SM gear I've seen.

Doesn't the air in the bcd move around too much with it being in that position? As in, if you're slightly off trim, all the air goes to the highest point, making you even more out of trim?

Patoux01:

What do you call a "monkey rig" ? Because this looks very much like any other SM gear I've seen.

Doesn't the air in the bcd move around too much with it being in that position? As in, if you're slightly off trim, all the air goes to the highest point, making you even more out of trim?

Click to expand...

I dove this with no bladder for a couple years. It was my go-to rig for shore diving and shallower boat dives. I just strap on a single AL80 sidemount and jump in. That's basically what "monkey diving" is. (google it, it's been around for many many years). It's a lot of fun and very free feeling to dive this way.

It eventually progressed into adding the bladder so I could dive doubles with it. For most of my uses though, I will just remove the bladder as it's not even needed.

As for the trim, there's no issues regardless of where the air is. It fills up pretty evenly. It's a very small bladder, just enough to take the edge off a pair of AL80's. I also don't ever have buoyancy or trim issues, so this setup works well for me for any type of diving or configuration.

It's the ultimate travel rig for me.

corvettejoe:

I dove this with no bladder for a couple years. It was my go-to rig for shore diving and shallower boat dives. I just strap on a single AL80 sidemount and jump in. That's basically what "monkey diving" is. (google it, it's been around for many many years). It's a lot of fun and very free feeling to dive this way.

Click to expand...

Yup, that's about what i'd call monkey diving as well, except you brought it to the point that i can hardly see the difference between the monkey 2.0 and a system like the ultimate + deco equipment wing, which i'd more call a perfectly decent SM rig . Or basically any minimalistic rig.

As for the trim, there's no issues regardless of where the air is. It fills up pretty evenly. It's a very small bladder, just enough to take the edge off a pair of AL80's. I also don't ever have buoyancy or trim issues, so this setup works well for me for any type of diving or configuration.

Click to expand...

It sure does look big enough to have air moving, but you're the one who dove it, so I assume you'd have felt it . Not even the slightest "bulk" when being completely vertical on surface?

It looks quite a bit like the wing from deco equipment, which is 22#, how much is this one that you say it's "just enough to take the edge off a pair of AL80's" ?

Patoux01:

Yup, that's about what i'd call monkey diving as well, except you brought it to the point that i can hardly see the difference between the monkey 2.0 and a system like the ultimate + deco equipment wing, which i'd more call a perfectly decent SM rig . Or basically any minimalistic rig.

It sure does look big enough to have air moving, but you're the one who dove it, so I assume you'd have felt it . Not even the slightest "bulk" when being completely vertical on surface?

It looks quite a bit like the wing from deco equipment, which is 22#, how much is this one that you say it's "just enough to take the edge off a pair of AL80's" ?

Click to expand...

Found my receipt, I got it here:
DECO - Dive Equipment Company - Sidemount Bladder 22#
It arrived in an Oxycheq box, but it doesn't say that anywhere on the Deco Equipment website.

I know what you mean by the "bulk" feeling, yes if you fully inflate it on the surface you feel it a little. While diving, I never really noticed it being there.


FYI I just call it Monkey 2.0 as a joke. It's certainly nothing I came up with on my own. My buddies and I all built monkey harnesses years ago and some of us are constantly modifying them to out-do each other. One of my buddies dives with an MSR bag he orally inflates, but I wanted something I could attach/detach easily with a power inflator for ease of use and had been looking for a bladder or small wing for a while now. There's no way I was going to pay $100's for one of those small wings from some of those companies. I really just wanted the old diverite butt lift, but nobody really sells those anymore... and one day a buddy pointed me to this little bladder and I immediately ordered one.

This isn't my main rig, it's just something I do for fun dives. I have a couple other BCs I use for other needs.

My main goal was to build something as cheap and as functional as possible that met all my needs and I achieved that goal finally (the bladder was the last long searched for part I was wanting to add).