Sidemount helmet
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 first thing that most sidemount divers tackle is making a helmet. The base helmet is either a kayak helmet, climbing helmet, construction helmet, or skateboard helmet.
I chose a kayak helmet since they are designed for in water usage and I thought that the foam liner would be more secure than the suspension liner of other helmet styles. And if I didn’t like the foam, I could rip it out.
With price being a major consideration and preexisting holes being another, I selected the Pro-Tec Ace helmet. At $40 and free shipping, it wasn’t going to break the bank.
For my head size, I chose a Medium helmet. After the modifications and with the use of a hood, a Small would have been a better purchase.
First step was to drill four holes on each side to mount the back-up lights (BUL). Since BULs mounted on the harness is not optimal (they are blocked and interfere with the side mount tanks), the helmet use have two BULs attached. Steve Bogaerts recommends mounting then so that there is no glare and the focus is 10 feet away.
After securing the BULs, the next step is creating a mount for the canister light head. This is accomplished by cutting the appropriate sized PVC tube or coupler and then drilling 4 more holes into the left side of the helmet. Placement is immediately above a BUL.
Once complete and tested on dry land, it was time to hit the water. Immediately, the helmet was too buoyant. The closed cell foam designed to protect against impact made me head light. To a surprising degree too. While this may be a nice feature for paddlers, it is obviously not good for divers.
To resolve this, I removed all the side and back foam. I kept the top foam to provide a place for my head to fit. Plus, this would insure that the height of the helmet was correct. Removing the top foam piece would have caused the helmet to ride too low.
With the foam removed, the helmet is neutral in fresh water with my UK SL4 BULs.
“During the debrief, we discussed my jump and spool usage. I tied into the other line as follows:
image
A different method was offered, and Steve firmly stepped in and provided his input. Usually Steve allowed for a healthy discussion between the team members, but on this occasion, Steve planted his foot down.”
Could you expand on this? How did he put his foot down? What was the other method?
Hans
Absolutely.
Steve put his foot down by interrupting our conversation in mid-sentence by stating firmly, “I disagree.” At the point, we all stopped and starred at Steve. Usually he lets the conversation run it’s course and then offers his opinion. Seldom does he just jump in there.
The potential issue with my jump tie was the arrow pointing to a nearby cenote. This arrow contradicted our exit, and by my tieing into the line behind arrow, my teammate argued that this could be confusing. He recommended that I should have tied further down the line, before the arrow is reached on the return, and also use an additional cookie to confirm my spool. Steve thought that this was unnecessary complexity and clutter. My tie was sufficiently close to the arrow (visual and blind), and my spool already validated our way of exit.