This channel contains videos primarily related to technical scuba diving training, techniques, equipment, and trips. However, many of the concepts are also useful for recreational divers in general.
I will be making both unfinished, unsewn kits and fully assembled ready to use kits. If you are interested contact me at divezonescuba@yahoo.com. The unfinished parts kits with standard buckles are $50.00, the complete assemblies with standard buckles are $90, and the complete assemblies with mil-spec buckles are $120. $10 for shipping.
I will be making both unfinished, unsewn kits and fully assembled ready to use kits. This is version 4.0. You can check out what those look like in video #175. If you are interested contact me at divezonescuba@yahoo.com. The unfinished parts kits with standard buckles are $50.00, the complete assemblies with standard buckles are $90, and the complete assemblies with mil-spec buckles are $120. $10 for shipping.
I will be making both unfinished, unsewn kits and fully assembled ready to use kits for version 4.0 described in video #175. If you are interested contact me at divezonescuba@yahoo.com. The unfinished parts kits with standard buckles are $50.00, the complete assemblies with standard buckles are $90, and the complete assemblies with mil-spec buckles are $120. $10 for shipping.
Thank you 🙏!! The correct term is “leg loops”. This what I’m after. I can’t believe that NO sidemount BCD manufacturers currently offer leg loops instead of the crotch strap. They are all a bunch of ‘follow the leader’ idiots! This is 2024. The crotch strap should be gone by now. I refuse to pay top dollar for a stupid crotch strap! I want leg loops.
@@alzahraniabdulrahman hello. I am not sure if I understand your question. Are you saying that your body rolls upside down when you descend horizontally in proper trim from the surface?
@@divezonescuba yes , when i was using BCD jacket style, i can sink without any problem but now when i try to learn with wing backplate , i try to sink from surface , i deflate the wing , breath out , then i sink but the tank rotate me is there any advise for that
@@divezonescuba i have all of them in the back of the tank around 12 kg distributed evenly in pockets and cam weight in the end of the tank and i use normal harness with D ring to keep my camera buckled
@@alzahraniabdulrahman if you are loaded like that, what you are experiencing is not abnormal. Try moving the bottom weights to your belt and the ones on the upper tank band as close to the plate as possible on the back.
Thanks, Chris, always enjoying your tinkering, tips & tricks. Personally, I'm a big fan of Sump UK; Andrew's approach to leg loops is simply elegant (as are most of his designs). I can't judge which system is more comfortable, both are diverting the strain to the hips, similar to climbing or safety harnesses. But I understand that we (divers) want to be able to get out of the harness relatively quickly & easy. I have nothing against quick-release buckles, but I do believe that metal buckles should be preferred in technical diving. Not that plastic ones are unreliable or unsafe, but they can break, usually during transport or handling, and this, you normally find out when donning (been there).
@@mattvish2591 Hello Matt. Thanks for the input. I will have to check those out. There is a milspec plastic buckle manufactured by Cobra. I use those on my DIRish plate and wing. Those are solid plastic and pretty heavy duty. I may make a set of the leg loops with those instead of the normal plastic buckles which I know what you are talking about, having experienced that once.
I have eliminated the grommets on version 4 in favor of sewing. I originally thought that the grommets would allow some pivoting of the different parts, but I think that is not necessary. The grommets were also a bit hard to align properly on all three pieces of the webbing.
@@ee02108 That is actually an alternate second stage regulator holder. The holder fits into the opening on the low o2 gas regulator. The holder itself is attached to the rigging kit. In order to use the low o2 regulator, you have to go thru the extra step of removing it from the yellow holder. So you have an additional opportunity to confirm that you are using the correct gas.
I thought about doing the same thing with my hoses and regs and glad to see it confirmed as a sound option to help increase safety when grabbing the wrong gas can kill you at depth.
The color coding is not just good for you, but you can also tell at a distance if someone else is using the wrong gas for the depth. It is particularly important in the case of an individual that is distracted or suffering from narcosis.
@@flymol0 I do not have any statistics on that. On the other hand many people have improperly or failed to analyze or label tanks. And some others have just put the wrong regulator in their mouth, which these additional measure are intended to help reduce. The color coding and labeling also assists in putting the correct regulator and hose on the correct tank. Green o2 label on the tank, green regulator. In addition some o2 dedicated regulators are only available in green coloring.
The top gas computer switching labels were from Amazon. The bottom ones were from a brother label printer. It connects via Bluetooth to any device. You could just print all the labels on the brother printer.
I already use different coloured hose for this purpose, but not yellow. Yellow should stay as the colour for an OOA emergency. Hence why my primary long hose is yellow. Also, I find just putting a piece of white/silver Gaffa tape around the hose near the second stage that you can label the mix/MoD with a sharpie works just as well as the label you've put under the mouthpiece/on the exhaust T. My issue with the "label maker" label you've put on, is it is awkward to remove and replace, whereas Gaffa tape can be easily replaced and marked with a sharpie without much effort if you are diving with mixes that aren't always "Nx32" for instance. I can see how the maker label would work for a GUE "Standardised gas" model of diving, but sometimes we get the gas we get, and as long as it's labelled correctly and the dive properly planned for the gases we have, then so be it... I do like the idea of a label under the mouthpiece/on the exhaust T reminding to confirm the gas switch on the DC though, that could easily be a permanent add. One more step that I take if I happen to be solo, rather than team diving, I also put a gaffa tape label across the mouthpiece as a physical barrier that I have to remove before I can perform a switch. I don't use it in team, as I wouldn't want a team member to have to remove the label should the need for them to use the gas arise. But I might, as on reflection, this could also prevent an OOA diver taking the wrong reg by mistake in the panic of an OOA emergency.
Make sure if you are traveling on a metric Airline that you meet the metric limits. I got burned on my last Air Canada flight to dive wrecks in Newfoundland. AC policy: A standard carry-on bag measures 55 cm (21.5 in) in height, 23 cm (9 in) in depth, and 40 cm (15.5 in) in width, while a personal item adheres to the following dimensions: 33 cm (13 in) in height, 16 cm (6 in) in depth, and 43 cm (17 in) in width. My carry on was 1/2" to large and had to be checked. Personal Item was fine but barely matd the 6" thickness. The bonus of the trip was check bag limit was 23kg (50.7 #)
@@BrianEhrler There was some bad information going around that the EU had implemented a standardize carry on size of 20 cm for the thickness on 1 SEPT 2024. Fortunately, that apparently didn’t happen. I have not heard of a carry on sized bag that is that thin. If they ever adopt that it should really be 23 cm. Otherwise almost everyone’s carry on bag will be disallowed.
@@MrPhoenix357 Absolutely. The donation procedure is different between technical and recreational diving. Many recreational divers use a necklace on their normal length hose primary regulator that is in their mouth and donate the yellow alternate. In fact, I once had a recreational student who kept dropping his primary out of his mouth for some reason. I ended up putting a necklace on it and tightening it so he could not accidentally drop it out.
Hi, first of all, thank you for your video! 😀 I have a question. What if I'm traveling without a travel agency? Should I provide the information from the Airbnb I'll be staying in?
@@chateaubourginel6646 I was diving with a set of independent doubles on that trip. I do not consider that configuration to be a twinset as in a manifolded twinset. There was a diver on board who did dive with a manifolded twinset. I did not dive a twinset on that particular liveaboard as they charge an additional 90 euros a week for the twinset, but only 30 euros for a second tank.
Thanks for your reply. I started to dive independent 12L back-mount this year and I am considering using the same configuration on a live-aboard in Egypt in September. Your video was very interesting and informative. Thanks!
No. They come in that brown color in addition to black and some camo versions. The previous pair that I had was black, but were a bit tight. So, when I paid for the second pair, I decided to go up one half size. Also, sometimes boat captains when they see a boot like that in black think that you are going to mark up their deck. Not a problem when they are coyote brown. See video #171 for the final sand test verdict.
Thanks for a great video Chris. Always interesting. I know you did videos on the PADI TEC 40, 45, 50 in the past, if you have time, could you do one for the trimix 65 and 90 as well at some point? Much appreciated.
Why don’t you use standard metric that is used in literally every country on earth except us? At minimum use both if you insist of using imperial… super annoying. I mean , you maybe don’t care about the rest of the world or?
You absolutely CAN improve your consumption. Slow it down with shallower breaths more frequently. No skip breathing tho! That gives the nastiest headaches.
@@markmild251 waterproof 1.5 mm neoprene socks. I use either deep6 or aquatec fins. Since the top of the Altama boot is higher than a conventional boot, I can see how that could be an issue with some fins.
These would seem to work well for wet-wading anglers. Looks like they could withstand a couple mile hike-in followed by a day in a river filled with gravel, sand, and boulders. A good price compared to summer waders from fly fishing companies, and a somewhat different feature set. I have some mids on order but after seeing this I'll probably exchange them for the 8 inch version. Thanks for the sand ingress test - that's an important factor for me. Cheers!
@@divezonescuba Local dive shops here are behind the curve. I'd definitely appreciate if you could help letting us know where you found the hardware. This video is exactly what I was looking for since forever.
this is the only review I could find about the Altama for their proper use, every other video about this is cringe wannabe operators wearing them for daily walkers.
You might want to take a look at video #166 which is an update to this video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mbH_PhkNZzU.htmlsi=koCksUMoO5FADK8y
Great content. I'm putting together a presentation on elite/master level training and expressing how every piece of gear/equipment needs to be fully understood and mastered by the user. I came across this and this video in conjunction with another from Scary Fascinating to give the overview of the tragedy is perfect to drive home my point. Thank you for posting.
Nice diving and the viz looks stunning. I'm used to diving in cold water and 6m (20') of viz is 'good'. I dive indy twins all the time. Why do you reverse one cylinder?
How many dives out of the 6 (in combination with the Adv. Nitrox) do you have to do with helium for the helitrox certification and whats the minimum helium percentage in this dives? I would like to estimate the gas costs for the course.
If you do a combo AN and Helitrox course, only the two 100 foot or greater dives have to use helitrox. The percentage of Helitrox for those dives is required to have an equivalent narcotic depth (END) of 100 feet. Since the maximum depth of that course is 150 ft, your worse case cost wise would be to use more than 17 percent helium your instructor should not "require" you to use more than that. That assumes only N2 is narcotic. If both O2 and N2 are considered narcotic then it would be 28%. The course standards prevent the use of more than 35%. If you only dove to 100 feet as required then technically any amount of H would qualify for the Helitrox certification. A lot of divers don't want to use any H unless they are required to. You are only required to use H in the advanced trimix course if you take AN, DP, and extended range.
George Irvine and others went looking for the bodies on at least 2-3 trips. I was on the boat with them on those trips. One dive was a fiasco, with one diver abandoning his scooter that stuck on. If I recall correctly, it was recovered on the bottom on a later dive. I knew the instructor - Andre - he was EXTREMELY unsafe and reckless with his diving, per my personal observation of him on several occasions. I was on an earlier dive with him where a fatality occurred and he attempted to convince myself and others to lie to the police investigators about the details of that dive (presumably to protect himself from violation of dive certification standards. As I recall reading what the survivor said.. The student was having trouble controlling his buoyancy for the whole dive, but Andre did not abort the dive early. My recollection about what the survivor reported is sketchy. I think it might have been posted on the aquanauts list server years ago. Not sure if that is archived. Also, I am also not sure if they were diving those wrecks as described int he video above, I thought they were a little deeper and I never remember hearing the searching divers describe going over any wrecks during the searches, and presumably they had the proper coordinates.
@@ChristopherBurgert I think that might depend on the exact type of exterior material used in the trilaminate. I once did a sitech neck ring installation on a Whites. Aquaseal like included in the pocket kits, did not work on the vinyl like material. However, oddly enough, marine goop worked well. I have also used marine goop on other scuba applications with success.
I've written on my wetnotes with both a Milwaukee marker and a Sharpee marker. The Milwaukee ink smudged all over after just one dive. The notes written with a Sharpee are older and are still in perfect condition.
