Looking to start diving in sidemount or doubles. Which one first?

[MichaelMc]

LP85s are fairly ideal sidemount tanks, not really very negative, also not floaty.
(unless you really want extra weight.)

 

[rjack321]

Why is that? Do to the negative weighting specs of the steels?

that and you're going to get chilled on longer dives which is bad news.

Steel doubles (or SM) and a wetsuit are questionable under the best of circumstances.

 

[RainPilot]

However, the last one isn’t sitting idle. I haven’t figured out yet if he’s a reincarnated drug dealer getting me to bite off on more and more mind-altering SCUBA gear or just the Devil Bobby Boucher’s mother kept warning him about. But either way, he’s parked on my shoulder tempting me to run my debit card numbers every month like a high roller in Vegas. “C’mon, you got some bills left, let’s go see if we can run the tables in the drysuit lounge!”

You’ve seen my dive room, G.A.S. is also communicable

On the OP, I find that (given you are planning both, not trying to choose only one) there is a shallower learning curve on SM when it comes to valve drills and failure handling. It’s also a nice step into dealing with stage tanks later.

The challenge with SM is boat diving but I haven’t personally experienced all the issues people seem to have. That being said I am generally diving pretty flat water so handing tanks up is super simple, although I very rarely do that, most often I just go up the ladder with 2 tanks still on.

I have rolled in with 4 tanks and 2X DPV which was .... interesting. Doable but not every day.

 

[MichaelMc]

Steel doubles (or SM) and a wetsuit are questionable under the best of circumstances.

OP, read up on a balanced rig, as in, you can swim it up or ditch some if your BC fails. Also, LPs are not very negative, 3 mm suits do not have much buoyancy to lose at depth (5mm a bit more), and doubles and sidemount wings have dual bladder options (that might just kill you too ). A can of worms separate from your SM BM deliberations. Some agencies did/do? require drysuit or redundant wing for some tech classes. Some people now feel redundant bladders are bad as you may forget to check that they still work, so you have to use a drysuit, even in the tropics. See various threads on that. .

 

[divad]

One nice thing about doubles is it's not a fad.

 

[NothingClever]

BTW, one of my close dive buddies (54 y/o) exclusively swims a SM rig from a boat (day trips and LOBs) on our deep wall dives without any extra faffing about while entering or exiting so you’ll likely be able to get along just fine with OW dives.

 

[Searcaigh]

For certain dives I do twinset back mount, and while I can see the advantage of side mount in certain conditions I've not gone down that route, mainly because it meant buying new gear for starters.

I've dived with some side mount tech divers and my first thoughts were what a waste of space not having anything on your back. But hey each to their own.

Shore diving with side mount is certainly something I would avoid, any photographer diving Tulamben I'm sure would agree with me there.

Sidemount advantages would probably be fine for people with back problems who have issues climbing a ladder with a tank on their back.

 

[Mike1967]

One nice thing about doubles is it's not a fad.

Surely that's an attempt at humour, right?

 

[divad]

Surely that's an attempt at humour, right?

Wrong.

 

[Mike1967]

Wrong.

How long does it have to be around for it not to be a fad? In your opinion.