Least Favorite Piece of Equipment

[northernone]

On me I dislike anything creating drag (bc,weights, extra gear, exposure suit. In warm enough water I love diving a rope slung tank, mask, reg and fins. Nothing like that freedom and lack of drag. Reminds me of my freediving day.

On others, I am horribly annoyed by bangers and rattles. Especially if I'm unfortunately caught on rebreather between two flocks of divers with zealous DMs. Could humbly suggest adding a rhythm to the incessant duet?

For the love of diving,
Cameron

 

[tridacna]

Most annoying item used by other divers?

1. Divers who use muck sticks and have no clue why or how they should be used. I've seen divers poke, seahorses, cuttlefish, and anything else pokeable. Objects of destruction. If you're not allowed to use gloves, you should not be able to use these either.

2. Gopro Poles. Same reasons as above and more. I was diving in Verde Island, saw a tiny tiny Frogfish and made the mistake of pointing it out to a Gopro Pole diver. He shoved his camera into the fish who scuttled away and he punched a hole in the Montipora coral instead. Hilarity ensued after the dive. I was not happy.

 

[george_austin]

bcd's are needless in warm to temperate water (diving wet) - if I'm single hose diving, I always have the snorkel attached to the mask strap. By far though, the BCD facilitates shortcuts through proper weighting instruction.
I just want mask, fins, snorkel and the tank/harness/reg set up. I'll need a weightbelt with a wetsuit and if I'm at a resort with AL80's

 

[stuartv]

Many of these posts make me feel really lucky! Not that I am especially experienced, but I have never heard anyone banging one of the tank bangers that y'all keep talking about.

 

[george_austin]

Question for people who think the snorkel is unnecessary:
Maybe it's a regional thing but how do you get a decent airway if you're liveboating for instance and you're out in the middle of the sea, after the dive, with chop and a 6 ft swell and it's going to be 10 or fifteen minutes before the boat arrives at your location for the pick? The other is - on beach dives, don't you want to save your "back gas" for the actual dive and snorkel out, face down to your descent area?
It's kind of humiliating to be one of those folks with a BCD on and their mask turned backward, backkicking out to the drop area. JMHO

 

[george_austin]

I was watching an old diving movie a few days ago, and I noticed that they had no BCDs like you were saying. I learned to dive as a kid in 1999, and honestly just assumed there was no other way to dive. How did they control buoyancy? Wouldn't you constantly be fighting to stay down or off the bottom? The diving seemed like constant kicking and exhausting, but that could have just been the movie. I would love to go as minimal as possible.

+1 for wetsuit (especially putting it on wet)

Watch Thunderball. Spectre combat divers are all in full rubber with hoods, doubled up steel 72's, weightbelts, no BCD's and seem to be doing pretty good out there. Yes, they're constantly moving and that's another change in the sport - you have all kinds of people at various fitness levels nowadays where long ago it was kind of mostly the "two fisted, frogman" type that went down there and killed game fish that actually fought them for survival. Not saying now is any less than then - just different.

 

[TMHeimer]

I've never heard anyone using a tank banger or any noise maker either.
IMO there are uses for a snorkel and times when you can't possibly need it. Depends on the type of diving. Enough threads on that.

 

[Landau]

Weight belt - always slipping down over my drysuit. I put as much weight in the BCD integrated pockets as possible. Closely followed by hood and thick gloves.

Diving in the tropics with all weight in the BCD no hood, gloves or boots is wonderful by comparison.

 

[sbijou]

Question for people who think the snorkel is unnecessary:
Maybe it's a regional thing but how do you get a decent airway if you're liveboating for instance and you're out in the middle of the sea, after the dive, with chop and a 6 ft swell and it's going to be 10 or fifteen minutes before the boat arrives at your location for the pick? The other is - on beach dives, don't you want to save your "back gas" for the actual dive and snorkel out, face down to your descent area?
It's kind of humiliating to be one of those folks with a BCD on and their mask turned backward, backkicking out to the drop area. JMHO

I get what you're saying about the necessity of a snorkel in open water, but one of my greatest joys is actually conversing with my dive buddies , back kicking to the dive area on the surface.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Thanks for the participation everyone. I got to thinking about something simple like my first writing tool. It was a slate with a pencil. After diving, I'd clean it with Comet. My dive buddy, Mark, and I would use it a lot when we were kids.

The slate turned into Wetnotes I'd buy from West Marine. Using those waterproof pages was expensive so my teammates and I would rarely communicate. Most of my pages were used for students.

The Wetnotes turned into the deluxe notebook style that look like an organizer. It carried a Swiss Tech Products Micromax, spare necklace, spare bolt snap with loop line, IANTD air + 50% Nx deco tables, signal mirror, survey compass, spare truck key, pencils, and I once had laminated swimsuit pics of my ex-girlfriend who was a fitness model to pass around during deco or diver's playing cards. The bulk made it more difficult to get past the back-up mask and safety spools when wearing dry gloves.

I returned to the Wetnotes without the deluxe organizer. Maybe I just need a slate?