Deep-Sea Sherpa

This week, BSAC’s “Technical Group Leader” sent a message to their technical instructor corp regarding BSAC’s position that the hogarthian configuration should not be taught.
While BSAC has prerogative to make any ruling on gear configuration or teaching methods and philosophy, it’s the misinformation about the Hogarthian gear configuration and the OOA procedure that’s unforgivable.
As the [...]

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Equipment by Don

While backmount cave divers have mostly adopted the Hogarthian gear configuration, sidemount divers’ kit remain very individualistic. Without commercially available units, each sidemount diver built rigs based on different levels of knowledge and experience, different environmental challenges, different goals, and different ideas on how best to realize them.
In the past, many of the pioneering [...]

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Equipment by Don

In order to carry necessary scuba diving gear as a carry-on (as well as save a little weight from luggage), Jeanna and Brian of Frogkick Diving made a backpack for their backplate.
For the technical scuba diver, a backplate and pack makes a lot of sense. I saw Jeanna’s design while at the UTD Symposium [...]

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Equipment by Don

As cold water divers move from wetsuits to drysuits in the pursuit of warmth, happiness and dryness many experiences await!

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Equipment by Don

Okay, this is a total self promotional blog.
As scuba divers, we know that hydration is incredibly important before and during the dive day.
Lately, I’ve been bad to the environment by buying bulk packs of water from Costco. Going through 3-4 bottles a dive day is definitely not ecologically sound (or financially smart).
The alternative was [...]

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Equipment by Don

Sidemount diving seems like the last refuge of individualized gear. Whereas back mount cave divers have more or less adopted the hogarthian configuration, side mount set-ups are quite varied.
Even the newly off the shelf units such as the Golem Gear Armadillo and Dive Rite Nomad are constantly being modified or “improved” by their owners.
The [...]

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Equipment by Don

Brian of Frog Kick Diving in the Pacific Northwest has a good article on how to mark a stage and deco bottle. In addition to the how, he also explains the whys, which is equally important for the thinking diver.
For all countries, O2 bottles are to marked with “OXYGEN,” in English. This is [...]

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Equipment by Don

Andrew recently put together a video blog on how to rig a stage or deco bottle. This is useful viewing for anyone getting ready for technical diving and setting up their own stage or deco bottles.
Find more videos like this on Unified Team Diving
Here is a another very good reference for making [...]

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Equipment by Don

While Internet forums are filled with discussions on DIR/UTD equipment configuration, I typically ignore most of the banter. Often times, these threads end up as nit picks on fine details, but miss the overall goal and value of DIR. However, the best discussions are typically improvements or recommendations that enhance the way we [...]

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Equipment by Don

There’s a lot of variation on how people route their hoses on sidemount tanks. The basic method I learned from Steve Bogaerts for use with his Razor side mount harness is very simple, streamlined, and similar to the Hogarthian hose routing for backmount divers.

Left Tank contains:

Regulator on short hose and necklace – routed behind [...]

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Equipment by Don