November 16, 2009
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
October 8, 2009
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
August 13, 2009
Steve recently posted a sidemount diving skills demo on YouTube. These are some but not all the skills that we learned and practiced during Steve’s Basic Sidemount class.
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Training by Don
June 1, 2009
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
April 22, 2009
Today, Kevin and I meet up with some friendly UTD divers visiting from SoCal. It’s their first trip to Pt. Lobos, and Kevin and I are eager to show them a good time.
By the time I arrive at 8:30am the parking lot is already full of divers. It’s one of those rare Fridays [...]
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Dive Report by Don
April 19, 2009
Day 3 – OW and Cave
“Practice only makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect skills.”
For the third day, we headed to Minotauro. Through out our trips back to Mexico, Minotauro remained one of my favorites systems. And it was also one of the systems that challenged us during our Full Cave course. [...]
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Training by Don
March 19, 2009
Day 2 – OW and Cave
“This is a sidemount course, not a cave diving course.”
In the morning, we met at Cuzel and loaded Steve’s truck. I took great pleasure in just loading single AL80s versus manifolded doubles. Not only was transport less straining on the body, but manipulating the single tanks on the [...]
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Training by Don
March 11, 2009
This past February, I took a cave diving sidemount course with Steve Bogaerts.
I’ll profess that it was curiosity rather than necessity that got me to sign up for a sidemount class. While I do like to peek my head into small holes, I have plenty of backmount friendly caves yet to explore. [...]
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Training by Don
March 4, 2009
I signed up for a sidemount cave course with Steve Bogaerts, and first impressions are amazing.
One thing about sidemount – it’s a very liberating way to dive. Hadn’t thought of how it’d feel to dive in sidemount much. I had only considered it as a tool for tighter passages. The one [...]
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Cave by Don