Retired Instructor out of action for 25 years, what's with the new gear?

[pauldw]

See also this thread: What has changed since early 80’s?

 

[HonuDeb]

Thanks so much for all the wonderful feedback!! We lost internet service (frequent where we live) and have no cell service. And yes, free diving a lot. I will get cracking posting individual replies.

And thanks pauldw for the link

 

[lowwall]

Thanks so much for all the wonderful feedback!! We lost internet service (frequent where we live) and have no cell service. And yes, free diving a lot. I will get cracking posting individual replies.

Welcome back. Ask about training instead of gear and the thread will be good for at least a dozen more pages

 

[HonuDeb]

Welcome back. Ask about training instead of gear and the thread will be good for at least a dozen more pages

What do you mean about training?

 

[HonuDeb]

T

Reg design had matured by the time you stopped diving, there's no particular functional advantage to the plastic stuff other than lower weight. Lots of people are happily using older metal seconds.

BC design has gone two ways. The jacket style has evolved more and more frills and higher and higher costs, although most manufacturers still have basic designs intended for shop rental fleets. Integrated octos are rare, but all mainstream jackets have some sort of integrated weight system. You don't have to use them though.

The other path for BCs is using a backplate and wing instead of a jacket. There were different variations of plates and/or harnesses from the '50s until the '90s, but what is commonly used now came out of Florida cave diving and consists of a nylon harness threaded through slots in a metal plate that goes on your back. Modular air bladders or "wings" are attached to the plate and the tank(s) are held on with nylon bands for single tank diving or metal straps for two tank. They are used with a weight belt or sometimes with small weight pouches added to the harness. Advantages of the BP/W is that it's easily adaptable to different configurations, less confining and more streamlined than jackets. It can also be cheaper. If you are interested, you can understand it better by looking at this good quality, yet inexpensive BP/W system: DGX Custom - DGX Singles Harness / Backplate / Wing Package | Dive Gear Express®

I should mention that the latest trend, especially for diving doubles, is called sidemount and consists of attaching the tanks along the side of your body instead of on the back. This has specialized harnesses. Since it's fairly new, it hasn't evolved into a standardized configuraion

Thanks so much for the detailed reply! Good to know about the regs, interesting about the bcs and will check out the DGX

 

[HonuDeb]

Diving has not changed all that dramatically in the last 25 years. For me, biggest changes were universal acceptance and availability of nitrox and the nearly universal use of the dive computer, both, very positive. I dive a 5 mm full wetsuit when visiting Hawaii, to remain warm during nice long dives, often several per day.

I still occasionally dive my Scubapro MK5/109 I bought in 1972

Good to know--Thanks!

 

[HonuDeb]

What's new? Some of the following may be from before 25 years ago. It has all been a big blur for me.

Technical dive training is readily available including cave and decompression diving using helium and high O2 nitrox for decompression.

Rebreathers are available but expensive.

Recreational Nitrox is now mainstream.

Sharkskin and Lavacore make zero buoyancy wet suits (equivalent to 2mm).

Drysuits are a big thing for cold water divers.

Way too many computers to pick from. (Almost everybody on here will tell you to just get a Shearwater computer)

Low volume masks.

All lights are now LED.

You can take your Gopro diving with the proper housing.

Knives got a lot smaller.

You're not supposed to touch anything underwater now.

Dive training got a lot shorter and you can do the classroom stuff online.

There are dozens of extra dive courses to take, now that the original training got shorter.

And I think that about covers it all. Oh wait, I heard there is a thing called split fins now too.

Like the horsecollar bc in your photo! Yes, lot's of talk of technical diving --perhaps later, but as I mentioned, all the interesting stuff off the shore is shallow.

 

[HonuDeb]

@HonuDeb
Welcome !

Happy for you that you and your husband retired at a reasonable age in a delightful location so to enjoy diving many years into the future.

I just completed reading your "Profile." Certainly interesting ! You have exceptional knowledge and experiences over and way above the normal population of this board . Your knowledge and experiences are indeed an asset.

I wish you well in retirement and may all your dives be in crystal clear warm water
SDM, III
LA Co UW instructor #11
NAUI # A 27
PADI # 241
etc etc
. .

Thanks for the well wishes! Maybe experiences, but knowledge a little rusty. What year did your complete the your LA County? Did you have ex Navy Seal instructors? Tough bunch. During our intro (spelling out how many of us wouldn't qualify and how many would actually pass the class) a dude straight outta "Top Gun" says he will be giving out out the most important award, the waterMANship award and glared at me (the only female). So now I had to work twice as hard to get the damn award and shame the instructor (I did)...

 

[lowwall]

Well.... [deep breath]

There's been a race to the bottom for dive training while you were on hiatus. The trend was for shorter and shorter classes and the internet has accelerated that since the agencies allow the classroom portion to be done online, mostly by watching videos. All the practice with tables is gone and all snorkeling/freediving/swimming is gone except the swim test. The confined water dives are typically completed in 2-4 short sessions or even one long day and then the 4 open water dives.

This format obviously doesn't give students much time to ask questions or get more than minimally proficient. In response to issues with divers trained like this, many operators limit divers to 60' unless you have completed AOW or can show additional experience.

There are of course instructors and courses that go well beyond these minimums, but it seems like most aspiring divers today are looking for the fastest (and often cheapest) way to get certified so they can get some cool Instagram pics before they move on to the next activity.

 

[HonuDeb]

Wow

I think @lowwall summed up the board's views on computers, though I have not paid attention to what the non-excursion non-shearwater favorite is, as what I have works fine. Recently, my battery went flaky at the start of a dive and I thought of 1) getting an excursion as a first/backup or 2) just finally getting a shearwater and having mine its backup.

+1 on BP/W for simplicity and adaptability.
As a single tank refinement on it, look at the Freedom plate on the board, though you would have to wait for it.
Freedom Plate Divers Roll Call: show us your rig!
The new Freedom Contour - The Rolex of backplates.
For Sale - Official Freedom Plate List: Please respond here.
Mine has not yet been wet, though is mostly rigged up now.

+1 on Deep6. Self service of their second is easy, though a ScubaPro 109 is even simpler. And Deep6 supports self servicing their regs.

On sidemount shore dives, think twin LP50s/AL40s/AL30s not twin AL80s. More of a fun free movement thing, or a redundancy or a carry one to the water at a time thing. But it is a little more setup on land. From your profile I'm not sure if you have the breadth of experience for it yet, . Maybe when you reach 20 dives or so, though they do teach it in OW.

While you are looking at backplates, look at the streamlined open water reg setup. It is more the way much of the board goes instead of the integrated octo-inflator route, though not exclusively. Also, you should know the board does not mirror the dive population in general. Perhaps even rarely does.

Welcome to the board.

Michael
(UC Berkeley Scientific diver)

Thanks Michael! Looks like I have some catching up to so with backplates and sidemounts. So what do your dives at UC Berkeley entail? I was a research diver at UCSB. We'd take the Boston Whalers out to the Channel Islands and basically be the grunt workers for the grad student's projects.