The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
I got the chance to dive my Nomad LTZ this past week in the Socorro Islands off of the Nautilus Belle Amie. I was reminded again how assumptions seem to cause problems even with the best of systems. I got the dual bladder option with inflators on both the left (traditional) and the right. I often dive without a dry or wet suit, and I feel that having back up buoyancy is a must for steel tanks. Unfortunately, when I came to a safety stop, I couldn't deflate my bladder unless I held the inflator open and arched my back against the bladder. The corrugated hose comes from underneath, so there's no simply holding it up to do this and the top and side dumps failed to vent anything. It was frustrating to hold my safety stop by constantly exhaling but I managed to do that even in surge. After the second dive, I sat down on the deck and sussed this out. Here's what I found...
Once I got that figured out, I really, really loved this BC. I added a pull string to the right lower dump so that I could deflate it if needed. Sure, it took a bit of retraining to get used to the inflator being on the right. I have to say that the bungee that holds each inflator in place is brilliant. I couldn't imagine a more perfect position for it. This is also the most comfortable BCD I have ever worn, back or side mounted. I must say that I haven't been a big fan of multi-pieced harnesses until this one. In the water, getting trim is incredibly easy. Gone are my shoulder weights with this set up. Since the butt plate sits even with the harness and does not sit on back of the bladder, it's always easy to get to your tanks and your reels. No matter how full your bladder gets, it's way easy to find everything back there. I find this to be the easiest side mount BCD to attach the bottom of my tanks to. I use the ring method with butterfly clips zip tied to the neck of the tanks. It takes less than ten seconds per side to accomplish and the RIB was perfect for this. I dove with sixteen pounds of weight on this trip. 4 on the tail of each AL80 and 8 in my weight harness. I'm thinking, of putting two Dive Rite weight pockets on the sidemount rather than use the harness. I'm also going to rethink where I put my can for my light. I might have room for it on the butt plate as well rather than bungeed to the left waist belt. I'll be posting pictures from the trip soon.
- The right side inflator goes to the primary (back) bladder.
- Both the top and the left lower dumps (with strings) ventilate the primary bladder.
- The left side (traditional) inflator goes to the secondary (front) bladder.
- The right lower dump (no strings) ventilates the secondary bladder.
- The secondary bladder seems to be smaller than the primary.
Once I got that figured out, I really, really loved this BC. I added a pull string to the right lower dump so that I could deflate it if needed. Sure, it took a bit of retraining to get used to the inflator being on the right. I have to say that the bungee that holds each inflator in place is brilliant. I couldn't imagine a more perfect position for it. This is also the most comfortable BCD I have ever worn, back or side mounted. I must say that I haven't been a big fan of multi-pieced harnesses until this one. In the water, getting trim is incredibly easy. Gone are my shoulder weights with this set up. Since the butt plate sits even with the harness and does not sit on back of the bladder, it's always easy to get to your tanks and your reels. No matter how full your bladder gets, it's way easy to find everything back there. I find this to be the easiest side mount BCD to attach the bottom of my tanks to. I use the ring method with butterfly clips zip tied to the neck of the tanks. It takes less than ten seconds per side to accomplish and the RIB was perfect for this. I dove with sixteen pounds of weight on this trip. 4 on the tail of each AL80 and 8 in my weight harness. I'm thinking, of putting two Dive Rite weight pockets on the sidemount rather than use the harness. I'm also going to rethink where I put my can for my light. I might have room for it on the butt plate as well rather than bungeed to the left waist belt. I'll be posting pictures from the trip soon.
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