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ISSUE 13 ARCHIVE - FANCY A BIT ON THE SIDEMOUNT?Words: Ryby Stonehouse, Pictures: Andy GentOoer missus – are you thinking about fun & games in wet rubber ?You may be thinking right – but probably doing it wrong! And I'm not having a pop about the D.I.R. gang: though they almost certainly will poo-poo what I'm going to say – but I've been in this game long enough to ignore the well meaning criticism of just about anybody in the diving world! |
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I've dived twinsets for years (my back feels
as if it were decades) ever since I went to
Ginnie Springs in northern Florida to do the
IANTD Tech Nitrox and NACD Full Cave
course way back in 2000 – when I learnt
to dive 15L 'doubles'... I was an Air-Pig.
No hiding it! Then I went off on one, into
re-breather territory with TDI... and decided
that whilst it was very Gucci and all things
cool to every man and his underwater dog:
I'm still struggling with the fact that I could
have a pretty nice Alfa Romeo Spyder (or
similar) on the drive for every day use, or
a quiet little black box for weekends if the
dives aren't blown out on the south coast
of course.
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So I saved my money and went back to
twins... and eventually got myself sorted
with trim, and balance, and streamlining, and
a proper fin technique, and a list of boats
with hydraulic lifts so I had a fighting chance
of getting out of the water after a dive when
the weather was actually good.
So here I am ten years on, with a beaten up well dived twinset in the garage gathering a layer of dust. But WHY I hear you ask? The answer is simple, I've gone sidemount, and I ain't going back. I've done several thousands of dives in just about every environment except ice (coz I'm a wuss about getting cold lips) with a hundred metres TMx and some scarily serious cave penetrations logged on the way... all to come to the final conclusion, it's all bloody hard work with twins on your back. As a TEC Instructor for quite a while now, I've had students come along as very accomplished and confident divers, many of whom have been turned to gibbering wrecks after an hour in the pool with a twinset. Aha, a way to weed out the weaklings who'll never make it past forty metres... Seriously though, how many of you, as a sports diver, chucked a twinset on your back and had near perfect trim/streamlining/balance in the first fifteen minutes of diving it... Yeah right, me too, it takes time and quite a few adjustments of the bolts & bands (oh deep joy). Sidemount however, is a completely different experience, it's EASY... and I mean REALLY EASY. I've had dozens of sport divers jump in on a sidemount rig, and every one of them has been perfectly horizontal in the water within ten to fifteen minutes, relaxed and comfortable. Everybody wants more time underwater and to be safe as well as practical. As a recreational sports diver, sidemount gives you this with all the gas and redundancy you need, but none of the backache and micro-trim fiddling with spanners and socket sets. |
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As for TEC diving in sidemount, it really
IS the way forward; everything is where it
needs to be right in front of your face. No
more need for Mr Tickle arms to get to that
shutdown behind your left ear somewhere.
No more swimming along at a 45° angle as
the stages drag your hips down. Fully loaded
TEC sidemount divers are still perfectly
horizontal and streamlined. So Sidemount
is the answer. No back problems, heaps of
gas, perfect trim... Oh yes, and it's cool.
Jeff Lofflin (my hero) developed the PADI sidemount speciality which is designed to give sports divers more dive-time and increased safety... and it's bloody good fun too (here, we also run a very cool PADI twinset specialty too). Next time I'll explain why drinking straws are better than regulators... Ryby Stonehouse is a PADI Tec Rec Trimix Instructor Trainer at Blue Ocean Diving in Maidstone, Kent. Sidemount specialty courses are available every month: Class briefing / Pool Orientation / 4 Dives Contact 01622 212 022. |
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