mikeguerrero
Guest
Hi,
I decided to begin my own thread with this BC as no existing thread talks about the unit in detail. Much have inquired about its functionality but no one has really stepped up to purchase and evaluate one for this board.
A little background about myself, in my search for a BC I poundered left and right about what would be good for me. Lets see, I want a strong cold water BC for Monterey water, I want to be a recreational diver and ocassionally fly to Florida to visit mom and dive in warmer water.
I had read up on the reviews regarding how well the i3 had performed from diving magazines with voluteered divers, it had out performed all other BC's in its class.
As my search kept me trying on many BC's at my LDS, I never got a thumbs up from any of the sales team, they called it a risk BC for it's innovation design not having the corrugated hose.
So I fish tailed away from it and mentioned it once again while doing my pool dives, my instructor again told me stay away and fed me the same scenario that my LDS had told me.
So again I steered clear and I dove a Malibu back inflate during my pool dives, I did quite well and since I had inquired on jacket inflate my instructor brought an old jacket inflate that didn't have integrated weights, I really didn't like that one since the jacket would ride up under your arms when fully inflated.
During my ocean dives at BW in Monterey I forgot my air two hose for my Malibu and was forced to rent a Cressi jacket inflate. I mastered the Cressi in minutes during my ocean dives and passed all my skills.
I had tried three BC's all with different feels in a matter of just 2 weeks. So I was destined to find the correct BC.
I had my heart set on the Balance and came close to getting that one for it's ability to go warm and cold water. But the more I talked on the board the more everyone pushed Apeks and Dive rite both of which are supreme in quality and design.
Only problem was I just wanted to stay on the recreational diving scene and shared little intrest on becomming a Tec diver.
So I started following the threads on the i3 and I kept comming up short.
I then called Aqualung and they directed me to a LDS that had one in stock, my size and I raced out to visit the shop. I instantly fell in love with the BC as I tried on a medium large.
It had a robust feel yet was still contoured/slim on the sides to not make me feel so bulky. I didn't get a chance to oral inflate to feel how bulky she would get but I left content that I would pick one up.
Loyal to my dive shop I ordered one from them and they gave me a small discount and my BC arrived in 5 days; this is my experience:
She comes with an long inflate hose that you connect to your regulator, since I don't have a regulator yet, my dive shop connected the hose to my rental for me. The rentals come with a very short hose that connects to a standard inflate hose, the i3 has to be much longer as it follows a guided path through the jacket to it's connector.
It also has a protective cap when you disconnect the hose from the i3.
I was really nervous the night before since I had never dove this BC and I was very aprehensive when I got to BW. But I quickly calmed down and my dive buddies told they would do a trial run with me in shallow water to get the BC dialed in.
I was lucky that a dive shop worker came along with us and he was great about adjusting my BC while at the shop and while at BW.
I dove 22 lbs of weight, 8 in the trim back non ditchable and 7 lbs in each ditchable pocket.
As I walked down to the beach entrance with all my gear my hand kept going down to the i3 lever and I kept thinking how am I going to deploy that in this water, I was so use to the corroguted hose. But I said, I can do this and I did a couple of practice runs on dry water, piece of cake so far.
So I get in the water to place my fins on and inflate the BC no problem. We swim out to about 20 feet of water and our dive leader says, ready? They raise their hands out of the water traditional style and I hit the lever, next thing you know I'm descending very calm down to the sandy bottom.
I equalize my ears and we start exploring the kelp beds, they both have lights. I remained neutrally bouyant throughout my dive and then my buddy had trouble with his Diamond BC and we had to resurface.
My dive leader says wow Mike you are under control of that i3 nicely and we end our dive with a little more exploration.
After an hour lunch break we are out again but this time to view the Metridiums which are out in about 60-65 ft of water.
We launch again from shore and make it down to 20 ft of water, then our dive leader finds the pipe line that goes out to the Metridiums, I continue following my dive leader in front and kept noticing how he arches his back to dump air and then goes back to swimming very calm and elegant and never loses control.
I on the other hand do not arch my back, but rather hit the lever and the dumps simultaneously eject air and I'm neutrally bouyant once again as we continue to hit deeper water and are forced to add air to the BC.
Just about 45 feet I notice a huge rock that looks odd, at closer inspection as we approached it, it becomes apparant what it is, a huge, huge male sea lion, it's dead on the floor and not moving, no critters around so it looks like a fresh kill.
As we approach closer to it we look for bite marks and can not find any, only the tail looks beaten up. So my dive buddy takes a quick picture of it and we continue on to the Metridiums. Once we get to 63 feet there they appear in all their glory.
We take several pictures and notice that we are low on air and our dive leader brings out his dive sausage inflates it and it rockets to the surface while on a fish line reel. He heard boats above as we were about to do our ascent.
I grasp my computer and make sure I'm going to make my ascend no too fast, and with one hand on the i3 it kept me from inflating too quickly and I was relaxed all the way to the surface.
We were so far out and the current started to pull so it was to each diver to paddle long and hard back to the shore, I was scared being out so far and being so tired. I only had 500 psi left and the shore was very far away.
They both had back inflates and were ahead of me and as I layed on my back I could feel that the jacket keeps me more horizontal than my back inflate did while on the surface. But I just didn't have the energy to keep back paddling. So I did a mixture of all different types of swimming until we finally got to the shallow, enough for me to exit.
As we all rested and talked together my dive leader which is the sales person at my shop said, Mike you really dialed into that BC you were completely neutrally bouyant more so than you partner. I really felt proud of this BC and am very happy with all the reviews I have heard on mastering the bouyancy on this type of BC.
I'm yet to hear about an owner that slams this jacket, just divers that hear what others want to promote; one way is best for all...
The only complaint I have is that I had a very hard time opening the pockets, they are too much on the side and not up in the front like the Cressi. Only good thing about this, is you don't feel the squeeze since it inflates outward and not inward, they are right about that.
Plus the octo I was using is not the once designed for this BC, so I had it on a steel D-ring next to the pocket. The slim ABS octo that markets with it goes on the inside of a special design pocket that I can deploy in a second. And my outside pockets are free of obstruction.
Oh lastly, this BC doesn't come with 6 steel D-rings that is a miss print from Aqua lung on their website, the manual clearly states 5 steel D-rings and I confirmed that, so I was a little upset about I thought I was getting 6.
Overall this BC gets a thumbs up from a novice diver like me and a thumbs up from my dive leader that really didn't want to sell me one. He told me, Mike you did really well with this BC, you were dialed in nicely.
I felt confident and did another dive with my dive buddy as our dive leader had to take off.
Here is as pic I took of my BC before I took it out on Sunday. You will notice I purchased the Deep See knife and installed it on the left side, came in really handy as I got stuck on some kelp.
MG
I decided to begin my own thread with this BC as no existing thread talks about the unit in detail. Much have inquired about its functionality but no one has really stepped up to purchase and evaluate one for this board.
A little background about myself, in my search for a BC I poundered left and right about what would be good for me. Lets see, I want a strong cold water BC for Monterey water, I want to be a recreational diver and ocassionally fly to Florida to visit mom and dive in warmer water.
I had read up on the reviews regarding how well the i3 had performed from diving magazines with voluteered divers, it had out performed all other BC's in its class.
As my search kept me trying on many BC's at my LDS, I never got a thumbs up from any of the sales team, they called it a risk BC for it's innovation design not having the corrugated hose.
So I fish tailed away from it and mentioned it once again while doing my pool dives, my instructor again told me stay away and fed me the same scenario that my LDS had told me.
So again I steered clear and I dove a Malibu back inflate during my pool dives, I did quite well and since I had inquired on jacket inflate my instructor brought an old jacket inflate that didn't have integrated weights, I really didn't like that one since the jacket would ride up under your arms when fully inflated.
During my ocean dives at BW in Monterey I forgot my air two hose for my Malibu and was forced to rent a Cressi jacket inflate. I mastered the Cressi in minutes during my ocean dives and passed all my skills.
I had tried three BC's all with different feels in a matter of just 2 weeks. So I was destined to find the correct BC.
I had my heart set on the Balance and came close to getting that one for it's ability to go warm and cold water. But the more I talked on the board the more everyone pushed Apeks and Dive rite both of which are supreme in quality and design.
Only problem was I just wanted to stay on the recreational diving scene and shared little intrest on becomming a Tec diver.
So I started following the threads on the i3 and I kept comming up short.
I then called Aqualung and they directed me to a LDS that had one in stock, my size and I raced out to visit the shop. I instantly fell in love with the BC as I tried on a medium large.
It had a robust feel yet was still contoured/slim on the sides to not make me feel so bulky. I didn't get a chance to oral inflate to feel how bulky she would get but I left content that I would pick one up.
Loyal to my dive shop I ordered one from them and they gave me a small discount and my BC arrived in 5 days; this is my experience:
She comes with an long inflate hose that you connect to your regulator, since I don't have a regulator yet, my dive shop connected the hose to my rental for me. The rentals come with a very short hose that connects to a standard inflate hose, the i3 has to be much longer as it follows a guided path through the jacket to it's connector.
It also has a protective cap when you disconnect the hose from the i3.
I was really nervous the night before since I had never dove this BC and I was very aprehensive when I got to BW. But I quickly calmed down and my dive buddies told they would do a trial run with me in shallow water to get the BC dialed in.
I was lucky that a dive shop worker came along with us and he was great about adjusting my BC while at the shop and while at BW.
I dove 22 lbs of weight, 8 in the trim back non ditchable and 7 lbs in each ditchable pocket.
As I walked down to the beach entrance with all my gear my hand kept going down to the i3 lever and I kept thinking how am I going to deploy that in this water, I was so use to the corroguted hose. But I said, I can do this and I did a couple of practice runs on dry water, piece of cake so far.
So I get in the water to place my fins on and inflate the BC no problem. We swim out to about 20 feet of water and our dive leader says, ready? They raise their hands out of the water traditional style and I hit the lever, next thing you know I'm descending very calm down to the sandy bottom.
I equalize my ears and we start exploring the kelp beds, they both have lights. I remained neutrally bouyant throughout my dive and then my buddy had trouble with his Diamond BC and we had to resurface.
My dive leader says wow Mike you are under control of that i3 nicely and we end our dive with a little more exploration.
After an hour lunch break we are out again but this time to view the Metridiums which are out in about 60-65 ft of water.
We launch again from shore and make it down to 20 ft of water, then our dive leader finds the pipe line that goes out to the Metridiums, I continue following my dive leader in front and kept noticing how he arches his back to dump air and then goes back to swimming very calm and elegant and never loses control.
I on the other hand do not arch my back, but rather hit the lever and the dumps simultaneously eject air and I'm neutrally bouyant once again as we continue to hit deeper water and are forced to add air to the BC.
Just about 45 feet I notice a huge rock that looks odd, at closer inspection as we approached it, it becomes apparant what it is, a huge, huge male sea lion, it's dead on the floor and not moving, no critters around so it looks like a fresh kill.
As we approach closer to it we look for bite marks and can not find any, only the tail looks beaten up. So my dive buddy takes a quick picture of it and we continue on to the Metridiums. Once we get to 63 feet there they appear in all their glory.
We take several pictures and notice that we are low on air and our dive leader brings out his dive sausage inflates it and it rockets to the surface while on a fish line reel. He heard boats above as we were about to do our ascent.
I grasp my computer and make sure I'm going to make my ascend no too fast, and with one hand on the i3 it kept me from inflating too quickly and I was relaxed all the way to the surface.
We were so far out and the current started to pull so it was to each diver to paddle long and hard back to the shore, I was scared being out so far and being so tired. I only had 500 psi left and the shore was very far away.
They both had back inflates and were ahead of me and as I layed on my back I could feel that the jacket keeps me more horizontal than my back inflate did while on the surface. But I just didn't have the energy to keep back paddling. So I did a mixture of all different types of swimming until we finally got to the shallow, enough for me to exit.
As we all rested and talked together my dive leader which is the sales person at my shop said, Mike you really dialed into that BC you were completely neutrally bouyant more so than you partner. I really felt proud of this BC and am very happy with all the reviews I have heard on mastering the bouyancy on this type of BC.
I'm yet to hear about an owner that slams this jacket, just divers that hear what others want to promote; one way is best for all...
The only complaint I have is that I had a very hard time opening the pockets, they are too much on the side and not up in the front like the Cressi. Only good thing about this, is you don't feel the squeeze since it inflates outward and not inward, they are right about that.
Plus the octo I was using is not the once designed for this BC, so I had it on a steel D-ring next to the pocket. The slim ABS octo that markets with it goes on the inside of a special design pocket that I can deploy in a second. And my outside pockets are free of obstruction.
Oh lastly, this BC doesn't come with 6 steel D-rings that is a miss print from Aqua lung on their website, the manual clearly states 5 steel D-rings and I confirmed that, so I was a little upset about I thought I was getting 6.
Overall this BC gets a thumbs up from a novice diver like me and a thumbs up from my dive leader that really didn't want to sell me one. He told me, Mike you did really well with this BC, you were dialed in nicely.
I felt confident and did another dive with my dive buddy as our dive leader had to take off.
Here is as pic I took of my BC before I took it out on Sunday. You will notice I purchased the Deep See knife and installed it on the left side, came in really handy as I got stuck on some kelp.
MG
Ya didn't let them get you down on that new design. And you learned how to use it just fine. I'm sure, like me, with time you'll come to appreciate having the inflator on your vest even more.
