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And the water 
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Feb 7, 2016 03:40
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Speaking of Playa Del Carmen and Cozumel, is there no way to scuba with whale sharks? All I see is snorkel tours.
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Feb 7, 2016 08:53
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Whale sharks stay near the surface
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Feb 7, 2016 15:26
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Yea but I really hate using a snorkel.
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Feb 7, 2016 19:38
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I'm planning my vacation this year around my work schedule and the whale sharks. It looks like two of my best options are: April-May: see the whale sharks in Belize July-August: see the whale sharks near Cancun or Cozumel March and June aren't options because those are busy months for my job. Another major thing for me, besides whale sharks, is seeing lots of interesting coral. It's looking like Belize might be better for coral and it would probably be less crowded than Cancun in July--what I'm reading about Glover's Reef looks amazing.
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Feb 8, 2016 03:59
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I was just in Playa myself. Snorkeled at Akumal (with turtles) and Cenoté dos Ojos, dove the Palancar Caves off Cozumel, as well as Punta Tunich (sp?). Those were my first dives other than my open water cert, but they went real smooth. Dove with a French outfit, was pretty much the only native English speaker but they were pretty good to my inexperienced eyes.    
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Feb 9, 2016 07:00
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My wing arrived the other day. Was super salty (description said it had been washed inside and out after every dive of course!) and someone had put two gaskets on the hose connection which actually only needs one. Anyway went to my LDS to get some weight pockets and cam bands but nearly collapsed when the guy said the Halcyon hip weight pockets were $245 (NZD) each! I mean Halcyon make great stuff but that's a ridiculous price. 
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Feb 13, 2016 02:21
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Ropes4u posted:Just landed in Atlanta after two weeks in Bonaire - 30sh shore dives. No camera or GoPro until I get more experience. But here is a nice donkey from the donkey rescue place So how's the adventure is weighting and buoyancy go? Having fun with it I hope. If you are doing it with a female buddy, it kind of works differently for them. They don't have the lung volume to develop the feedback at the beginning, so they come at it more from the "just so" amount of air in the BCD. At the expert end of things, they look amazingly graceful,. While we can look cool and capable, we will never become the mermaids they can become. (I remember how "badass I was at perfect buoyancy" right after I got certified until I put a camera in my hands and stopped thinking about breathing, and I bashed into some coral, and the person I was with (the SO of my certifying instructor) said "Hey he told me you were really good at neutral buoyancy." I was sad that I was disapppoint to here. But hearing that I was actually the topic of being a good diver from my open water instructor was also way cool.) I am psyched for you that you managed to get that many dives in. Casual divers are the mainstay of the industry as a whole, but divers like you are why those of us doing this for a living are doing it. Because I was/we were once that "diving all the time" dude. I just was close enough to the ocean that it just got way, way out of hand, and I became an instructor.
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Feb 13, 2016 09:39
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Red_Fred posted:My wing arrived the other day. Was super salty (description said it had been washed inside and out after every dive of course!) and someone had put two gaskets on the hose connection which actually only needs one. Anyway went to my LDS to get some weight pockets and cam bands but nearly collapsed when the guy said the Halcyon hip weight pockets were $245 (NZD) each! I mean Halcyon make great stuff but that's a ridiculous price. Just so you understand why weight pockets get expensive. You have two approaches to pockets that slide on webbing: stuff that is cheap enough to try out and switch to something else, or stuff that will actually last in use. To make it last requires some serious heft in the materials and that means a MONSTER needling driving machine, and seriously strong needles to make the stitches, because it requires multiple layers of stiff weight belt style webbing, which breaks even furniture maker machine needles, and burns their motors I go through 5 spare mask pockets on my waist belt a year because I choose option 1, and I keep changing backup mask styles so I have not settled on permanent size and shape that I would have to pay $50 to get stitched properly, ignoring material costs. (Part of that is that I am working on a BCD design as well and trying out orientations as well. If anyone has features they wish their vaguely soft backplate BCD had, hit me with your suggestions so that I can steal them and incorporate them into my design!) So there is a reason why weight pockets that slide onto webbing, which have to be on the ultra sturdy side because weights are heavy and failure represents real life threateing trouble in a cave, will skew pretty dang expensive. So (pretty dang expensive to start) X (Halcyon Brand Name) X (living on an island that regularly gets left off world maps)= stupid expensive. The issue of what to do with weights is in fact, one of my favorite parts of my super secret BCD design. it does require travel destinations to stock soft weight though.
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Feb 13, 2016 10:21
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pupdive posted:So how's the adventure is weighting and buoyancy go? Having fun with it I hope. We had a fantastic time in Bonaire and have already emailed the rental to let them know we will be back in the same dates in 2017. We worked on our buoyancy throughout the two weeks and are better, still room to grow obviously, my wife is still slightly leg heavy, imho, and i have a tendency to wave my arms around pointing to everything that comes along. But we have learned to keep our hands on our hands grasp tougher or on our harness, we are not destroying the reef but I wouldn't feel comfortable with a camera yet, though a GoPro will likely be fine for video. A GoPro will accompany us to Panama & West Palm Florida in May so we can visualize how good or bad we really are in the water. I think visualizing our performance will be much better than trying to describe it to each other. if we are worse than I think we may seek a day with an instructor. If I lived closer to the water, only a few years away, I would definitely be in the water weekly.
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Feb 13, 2016 13:06
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pupdive posted:So (pretty dang expensive to start) X (Halcyon Brand Name) X (living on an island that regularly gets left off world maps)= stupid expensive. I totally get this but it still seems crazy. For example I could get this shipped for probably about $150 (NZD): http://www.oxycheq.com/sport-dive-equipment/bcd-s/weight-pockets/oxycheq-deluxe-medium-weight-pocket.html
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Feb 13, 2016 21:57
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Shipping means no one has to buy it, pay customs on it, and stock it. One the other hand, if you ship also means that if you every need something locally, it will not be available. Shipping takes about 4 weeks to get to you at times, right?
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Feb 14, 2016 02:08
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Ropes4u posted:my wife is still slightly leg heavy, imho, Most tropical divers end up leg heavy because they get put in shorties. Shorties are about the worst thing for buoyancy and trim ever invented. Next time get her a full suit, and put her in the smallest tank she can use, so she can put in further down her back and properly look forward. The standard tanks end up hitting most women between the butt checks unless they attach the BCD so far down the tank that the tank ends hitting the back of their heads, and without the ability to look forward they end up almost treading water, which means they have to be overweighted to keep from popping to the surface, and the weights are one more things weighting down their legs. While all the buoyancy (lungs, wetsuit, BCD) are on the other side of that lever arm, so most women taught in the tropics end up treading water the whole dive, and like diving less than men, because for women it can be aerobics class with the mouth mostly closed. It's pretty simple physics. Shorties are bad for divers, and long tanks are bad for women (and kids).
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Feb 14, 2016 02:15
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I'm doing my first live-aboard next weekend, just one night but still. Anything I need to know or bring?
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Mar 2, 2016 08:57
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More money, so you can make it a week!
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Mar 2, 2016 09:00
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While we are talking buoyancy: My trim isn't terrible, but I do have a couple of things that nag me every single dive. 1) My crap. Nothing should dangle and risk stirring up silt or touching coral. Why in the hell are all the clips on the front? My GoPro is generally in my right hand, my gauge in my left. How do I keep everything tight to my body? I have the coiled lanyards for everything, but it doesn't seem to be working. 2) Everything I've ever read or heard from instructors says "shoulders back, arms forward, back slightly arched, knees bent 45-90 degrees and fins level with ground". The shoulders back should open up the chest and improve breathing, but putting the arms forward seems to totally undo this. Also - the arched back HURTS. I fight with tank placement, if it's too high, my head hits it, if it's lower, the tank is touching my thighs for the whole dive - which feels odd. Doesn't interfere with kicking unless I"m doing a flutter kick, which I've been working on NOT doing.
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Mar 6, 2016 02:52
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pupdive posted:Most tropical divers end up leg heavy because they get put in shorties. Shorties are about the worst thing for buoyancy and trim ever invented. So. Much. This. I just posted a reply about this and went to look for a side photo that illustrates my complaints. You can see the arch in my back. You can see the tank resting on my butt. You can see the drat BCD riding up - it really doesn't look like it fits right. Suggestions on how to pick gear that freaking fits me would be seriously appreciated.
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Mar 6, 2016 02:57
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I often find that lower back strain is more a result of my weight belt being too low. You could try hiking it up at or above navel. I'd much rather the tank touch my rear end than my head hit the top of the tank when I tilt back.
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Mar 6, 2016 03:48
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BarqueCat posted:1) My crap. Nothing should dangle and risk stirring up silt or touching coral. Why in the hell are all the clips on the front? My GoPro is generally in my right hand, my gauge in my left. How do I keep everything tight to my body? I have the coiled lanyards for everything, but it doesn't seem to be working. Good on you for thinking about streamlining and keeping your gear close to your body. Nothing worse than having crap dragging off you. My solution to this came when my instructor introduced me to a backplate and wing set up, along with a drysuit that had pockets on each leg. I'm diving a Santi eMotion dry suit and it comes with giant pockets that keep all my stuff in them. Spool, spare mask, double-enders, SMB, Nautilus Lifeline if I'm boat diving, noisemaker if I'm boat diving, etc, all go in the pockets clipped off to a big bungee cord. Keeps everything in place in a predictable fashion. It's an approach I really like. On the backplate and wing set up, my SPG is a small basic gauge that clips via a bolt snap to a D-Ring on the left hip. I have backup lights that are clipped into the chest D-Rings by bolt snaps, but are secured to the harness with some pieces of elastic (cutting up a bike's inner tube works well, too). Keeps things nice and tight to my chest, with no odds and ends hanging around. If I am diving with a reel, I clip that off either the left hip D-ring or the left chest D-Ring. That still hangs down a bit, but it doesn't go very far and I'm still pretty streamlined. Now, that's probably way more than what you were thinking about. So, my suggestion is to consider geting a few bolt snaps and use those to secure your kit to the D-Ring. Tie the bolt snaps to your kit using some nylon line (cave line works pretty well for this sort of thing), and then clip the snaps to your D-rings. It won't be perfect, but you won't have stuff dangling off you quite as bad as before. The only time coiled lanyards ever stay coiled, in my experience, is when nothing is attached to them, so trying to use them will only frustrate you further, I think. Anyway, if you have questions about backplates and wings, I can probably point you in a helpful direction, having gone this route a couple of years ago.
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Mar 6, 2016 06:57
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Trivia posted:I often find that lower back strain is more a result of my weight belt being too low. You could try hiking it up at or above navel. Men in general don't have big issues with butt touching tanks, while women usually detest it. Women can usually manage to look reasonably forward with the tank uncomfortably (for me) high up. What I have found is asking women to dive in the same position as men (at least in the beginning) is hard on the women. They don't have the lung volume to make the sharp inhale pull their front end up, and they will just do better swimming slower in a not perfect trim pose. This does require that they are willing to regularly stop and make sure they are not using fin kicks to set maintain water column position. Women also in general hate weight belts because weightbelts are almost always setup to put weights on either side of the buckle instead of gathered at the center, because guys are setting them up and guys don't have protruding hip bones. Unfortunately this makes women move to integrated weight systems instead of just wearing a weight belt 'properly for women'. (Actually in general, weight belts are just used in a silly fashion by most people. Tucking away the free end, putting weights off to the side instead of the center, putting weights in back for 'balance', etc.)
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Mar 6, 2016 09:57
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BarqueCat posted:So. Much. This. First you look great in the water (other than having to fight with the gear in the ways you mention) so that a good start. There is a pretty common tank called a compact 60 (3300 PSI fill versus standard 3000 PSI fill) that women generally love to use. It's less air than an 80, but that's not usually an issue. It's more negatively buoyant than a standard AL80, allowing most people to take 2-4 pounds of their weight belt. You might find just using that tank make a lot of difference. The reason BCDs ride up are many, but one of them is too much weight. With too much weight, there's a lot of motion going on. Moving weight off your weight belt into the ballast of a tank helps. One thing I have found that students and new divers enjoy and learn from is swimming on top of their BCDs under water, because they come to understand in a visceral way, that the BCD, the tank and the reg are tools for our use, not tools using us. We do not need to adapt to them, they need to adapt to us for our comfort. One problem with swimming on top of the gear underwater for most people is that the standard gear setup has primary regulators on stiff over the shoulder hoses, which are uncomfortable in most positions, even over the shoulder. Here's where I just like to say that people don't think about gear setups very productively, and manufacturers are not helping much with this either. If you own your own gear, replace all the hoses with double braided hoses, now that they are no difference in price. Manufacturers are still treated braided hoses like a premium option when they should just move over to them across the product line. Move to a underarm donatable primary even if you plan on keeping the octo on your set. The underarm reg is more comfortable, and tank height is something you no longer have to worry about to avoid the reg pulling on your mouth. If you keep the octupus, put it on the left side where it can be of use to a diver swimming next to you.. The right side should be your primary reg and nothing else.
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Mar 6, 2016 10:19
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Thank you! I've been renting gear to try different things before I purchase, but all I've found is different levels of "that doesn't quite work". Over the next few months I'll be looking for somewhere (probably in the keys) that has a bp/w setup available. Combining that with your info on weight distribution/hip bones sounds like the next step for me. How do I select the "lift" for the wing? How important is padding on either the plate or harness? Braided lines. Check. Since I'm buying separate lines, what would be a good length for the under arm primary? I've seen some recommend 7', but that seems...long. I've also seen suggestions to move the octo to a necklace (since people in an OOA situation WANT the one in your mouth anyway, which matches your suggestion for a donatable primary). Your thoughts on that?
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Mar 6, 2016 17:01
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BarqueCat posted:Thank you! I've been renting gear to try different things before I purchase, but all I've found is different levels of "that doesn't quite work". Don't put me in with the BP/W crowd, or the 7 foot hose crowd, or the neck bungie crowd, I wrote a bunch of words about why not, but I'm reconsidered and I am not going to post them. Because it's really not worth arguing online about a problem (the online noise about BP/W, 7 foot hoses, and in general all things GUE/DIR) that exists because of people who don't dive enough (or even much at all) are arguing about things online and choosing teams for arguing about diving online, instead of diving, getting training from experienced instructors, and using that to guide things. Find an active woman instructor who is built like you, and make her teach you. Or just find a bunch of women divers in your area, and bug them with questions about their gear choices.
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Mar 7, 2016 06:58
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I'm actually keen to hear your thoughts on 7 foot hoses and BPW if you don't mind?
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Mar 7, 2016 23:43
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pupdive posted:Don't put me in with the BP/W crowd, or the 7 foot hose crowd, or the neck bungie crowd, I appreciate you not wanting to muddy the water, and I certainly don't want to instigate an argument - which is why I'm posting here and not on the ScubaBoard forums... but to be clear, I'm an adult woman in my middle forties. Forum poo tossing is easily spotted and disregarded - but there are a lot of people in the world with a lot of fantastic information. I WANT opinions and the reasons behind them. I can sort through the different opinions to find the gold nuggets that will allow me to buy the correct gear the first time. I'm not sold on bp/w, unless it solves gear issues. I'm not sold on the neck bungie, but it does seem like a great way to get that octo away from dangling at my waist. 7' seems too long, unless that really is an appropriate length for a donatable primary - and it may be. Perhaps the braided hose makes that not seem like a crazy length. I am sold on the braided lines, but don't really know how long I should get the hoses. Locating an old curvy female diving instructor is a little more challenging than you might think, but the advice is spot on. I do know one, I just need to ask her the right questions.
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Mar 8, 2016 02:11
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BarqueCat posted:Locating an old curvy female diving instructor is a little more challenging than you might think, but the advice is spot on. I do know one, I just need to ask her the right questions. If you're in SoCal then I have a recommendation for you. In bummer news, my reg is very questionable since getting it back from service, so I've decided not to dive with it and instead bring it back to the place I bought it from for what will probably end up being another full cost service  Also since testing the battery on my Zoop dive computer before my January dive that was cancelled it started a dive and thinks I've been down ever since  apparently this is a known issue and should be warrantied. Luckily I'm already headed to my now kinda far away original dive shop for reasons.
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Mar 8, 2016 03:55
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I'm so glad I just found this thread! I did my book and pool training recently and want to complete my open water dives for my PADI certification when I fly to Discovery Shores Boracay, Philippines tomorrow. Do any goons have any tips? A quick Google search showed up two dive shops but the descriptions aren't helpful if they provide the requisite 4 dive certification lessons.
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Mar 8, 2016 06:26
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BarqueCat posted:I appreciate you not wanting to muddy the water, and I certainly don't want to instigate an argument - which is why I'm posting here and not on the ScubaBoard forums... but to be clear, I'm an adult woman in my middle forties. Forum poo tossing is easily spotted and disregarded - but there are a lot of people in the world with a lot of fantastic information. I WANT opinions and the reasons behind them. I can sort through the different opinions to find the gold nuggets that will allow me to buy the correct gear the first time. Internet forums are a lousy place to go diving. Ultimately, the diving happens out in the real world, where debates about which is better become less relevant. A few thoughts from a moderately experienced diver: - Backplate and wing - I'm sure others have written articles about this, but I'll share a few thoughts. One of the big advantages is that you can customize the fit of your harness very easily. Move a few sliders around and you've refitted it to meet your particular shape and size. For people who are sized differently (which is most people), the harness gives you maximum flexibility to fit you. Other positives - your weight belt can be integrated into ditchable ballast pockets, or in trim pockets that attach to the straps that hold your single tank in place. It gets most of the weight off your hips and in line with your tank. Backplates are relatively inexpensive and need little maintenance. The wing puts buoyancy where you need it - around your tank, while you are in a trimmed out neutral position in the water. Depending on your diving needs, you can switch out wings to meet your needs. The physics of a wing, and where the gas goes when you are in a trimmed out position just makes intuitive sense to me. Can you dive with a regular BCD? Sure you can. However, if you are struggling with gear fit, a backplate and wing could be a solution for you. - Long hose. Oh my goodness, how people get excited about a long hose. So the origination of this concept was for cave divers who would need to exit a restriction in single file. In that environment, a short secondary hose obviously isn't going to get the job done. Enter the long hose. What often isn't discussed is that there is a change in mindset with the long hose. GUE adopts the philosophy that once the OOG diver has gas, the emergency is over. However, there is still much to do with the rest of the dive. Hit decompression stops, shoot up a marker, etc. The long hose makes that so much easier. When I dive with my team, we will practice OOG drills and initiate an ascent with multiple stops. The long hose provides for us to maintain neutral trim and buoyancy, maintain a response formation (i.e. head to head or a triangle) and hit our stops along the ascent, while maintaining eye contact. Can't do that with an octopus that is 24" long. The bungeed secondary regulator goes part and parcel with the long hose. Is it better? Who knows? While we talk about 'safety', none of us have any data to suggest that any of these approaches is quantitatively better than another. I know that the philosophy behind this type of training works for me and it works for my teammates. We practice the skills, have a standard configuration (though everyone has different makes and models of gear), and the configuration has grown with me as my diving skills have grown (doubles, a primary light, and reel work). I think what we most get out of it is that diving as a team is FUN! We get a great kick out of hitting our stops, shooting a marker, monitoring deco, practicing drills. We also get a great kick out of just swimming around looking at cool stuff. - Don't know anything about braided vs. non-braided. Others might be able to suggest something further? I think the thing that gets missed in the whole BP-W and long-hose debates, is that GUE (which is the group that really took the team diving approach to the bigger world) is really about people. The underlying ethos is one that focuses on the team, and using all of the resources the team brings to complete the dive successfully. The long hose, the bungeed secondary, the backplate and wing, etc., are all about creating a consistent platform to diving that is in service of the team. The standard practices are an extension of the standard platform. There's much more to it than just the equipment, though that is a much more visible piece of GUE diving than the team practices and community that comes along with it. Anyway, I hope this is of service. If you have any questions, ask away.
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Mar 8, 2016 07:20
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Mandibular Fiasco posted:while maintaining eye contact. Can't do that with an octopus that is 24" long. Sure you can, with an intelligently mounted octopus. But almost no one is using something as short as a 24" hose on the primary, let alone their octo unless they are making decisions made on the basis of some real experience and not the advice of others, so that is not even something to actually talk about fruitfully. People who choose 24" primaries (or 24" octos) are doing so because they have the sort of real world experience to know the value of a short primary (or a short octo). I generally want to stay out of this discussion on specific points because I know exactly how rabidly evangelistic the GUE/DIR crowd is, but I will say this: It is exactly this sort of misplaced faith in the "superior nature" of the DIR system (either in gear choices, or diving procedures) that makes any discussion on the topics descend into sports bar guys talking about their teams, rather than an exchange of ideas about gear setups based on real world experience. Because there is a major difference between knowledge learned through trial and experience, and that sort of received knowledge taken on faith. And because GUE/DIR is a newcomer to the scene (relatively speaking) and has trained so few actual divers , there is just no way to point to some backing for things. Unfortunately that misplaced confidence in using a cave diving methods in the ocean has cost some people a pretty high price recently. People die diving for all sorts of reasons, but when you break it down, it's when people think they have a superior system or are superior divers, they lose respect for some basic safety procedures, and the ocean itself. And in the end, the ocean wins, if you think you can beat it. Caves can be beaten by a system, the ocean cannot.
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Mar 8, 2016 17:27
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Spending a weekend in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a somewhat work-related trip. Is there any decent diving nearby?
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Mar 8, 2016 17:36
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Vieques has good diving, as does Culebra. Not sure if you can get out there since work, but I highly recommend it if you can.
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Mar 8, 2016 19:09
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Furcifer posted:I'm so glad I just found this thread! I did my book and pool training recently and want to complete my open water dives for my PADI certification when I fly to Discovery Shores Boracay, Philippines tomorrow. Do any goons have any tips? A quick Google search showed up two dive shops but the descriptions aren't helpful if they provide the requisite 4 dive certification lessons. BarqueCat posted:I'm not sold on bp/w, unless it solves gear issues. For long hose length you can try a 5' as opposed to a 7'. Plenty of open water divers compromise and get a 5' to wrap around themselves. If you go with the long hose on your primary, you should get a short hose for the octo (18"-24"), which is on the neck bungie. This setup keeps the primary and octo hoses from tangling each other. Braided hoses are more flexible than the stiff rubber hoses. Choose a type depending on your setup and whether you like your hoses flexible or not - both rubber or braided are durable good choices. I'd reco braided for the long hose setup if you're going with it. Bangkero fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 8, 2016 21:04
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Has anyone worked as a Dive Master anywhere in SE Asia? I'm planning on doing a year of travel soon and thought working somewhere as a Dive Master would be a great way of doing a lot of diving and living somewhere fun. I'm only at Rescue now but figured it's probably cheaper to do my Dive Masters over there, is that right? I also figure I won't be able to make much of a living just as a DM (generally they are paid in dives right?) So I would need to get some other kind of job, is this also viable? Anything else I need to know? Recommended resorts/areas?
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Mar 8, 2016 21:05
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Red_Fred posted:Has anyone worked as a Dive Master anywhere in SE Asia? I'm planning on doing a year of travel soon and thought working somewhere as a Dive Master would be a great way of doing a lot of diving and living somewhere fun. There are plenty of DM training centres in SE Asia. Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia are the popular places that come to mind. Many DM interns will find long term housing and work as dive guides while interning to get some spare cash (unless you have another skill you can provide ie F&B or resort management experience). I can speak towards the Philippines - Puerto Galera, Malapascua, Dumaguete (Dauin/Zamboanguita), Bohol, Moalboal, are places to research that have a good DM training scene. Plenty of divers to get your DM experience, cheap places to live, good range of surface interval activities (night and day...perhaps not so much Malapascua), and good dive shops to intern with.
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Mar 8, 2016 21:24
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Thank you Bangkero, Pupdive, and Mandibular Fiasco - I knew I could count on SA Goons to not devolve into a DIR dick waving contest. Awesome info that supported the conclusions I have been coming to - and some new info on a back inflated jacket style BCD. Off to spend some money 
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Mar 8, 2016 23:41
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Bangkero posted:There are plenty of DM training centres in SE Asia. Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia are the popular places that come to mind. Many DM interns will find long term housing and work as dive guides while interning to get some spare cash (unless you have another skill you can provide ie F&B or resort management experience). The Philippines sounds good as I'm already going to be spending up to a month in Indonesia surfing and I hear Thailand is kind of tapped out. Would I have to arrange some sort of Working Visa or would that be sorted for me? Any catches to try and avoid? Is time of year a factor? I'm looking at July/August/September at this stage.
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Mar 9, 2016 00:34
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Bangkero posted:Any back inflated buoyancy device will help your trim, it does not necessarily have to be a BP/W. Oceanic and Zeagle have great back-inflated jacket style BCDs. I like the feeling of not being wrapped in a jacket, so I prefer a BP/W. Many women really, really like their Zeagles to an almost unbelievable degree, which include version that zip a stretchy font together instead a cummerbund and stiff belt. They have useful weight integration systems that don't dangle out in front, and get the weight off the hipbones. They also have sturdy weight pockets that survive being used with hard weights, because they have a zip in area that takes a separate pouch to hold the weight. One thing to keep in mind with any BCD choice is that softpack design like the Zeagle, and most single tank adapters that fit to BP/W are going to use two tank bands, and that limits some tank positioning choices as opposed to a BCD that has a hard plastic plate in it with a single tank cam band, like most recreational BCDs. That does not keep women from loving their Zeagle BCDs but it does keep me personally from loving most two cam band BCDs for my own use. Make sure you try one out to see if the tank positioning will be an issue for you. For most women it is not an issue. For some it is. FWIW, my wife uses a regular jacket BCD because she likes pockets. Because we are teaching alla time, we are kind of stuck using weightbelts anyway, so the biggest genius of Zeagle, the smart beautifully designed wonderfully functional integrated weight system, is not a plus for her anyway. As far as hose choices, the 5' is good for a loop that is not ridiculously long, but any looped reg hose does require some getting used to to learn how to route the hose under the arm, and up around the neck back to the right side. I swear by the long looped reg on my own sets, but I also know that people who do not dive as much are going to have a hard time handling a looped reg. The less they dive, the more that looped hose is a unnecessary hassle and point of difficulty. A looped reg means the snorkel needs to come of the mask (something I suggest for women in general anyway, because of hair tangling issues of most snorkel clips). The other issue is that the standard clip that people put on their long hoses to secure the hose when not in use really wants to eat long hair, if you do not wear a hood. I have never been able to convince my wife to use a looped hose in her regular gear setup full time, in part for this reason. She has given it several chances, and we tried different things to secure the hose, but she does not really like it. (I think a big part of why I doubt that there is one system that is the "right way to dive" is that the most graceful diver I know (my wife), who is the example I want my students to become, finds most of the DIR system a hassle that detracts from diving for her, even though she dives thousands of dives a year. Since I use her as an example of what to be underwater, it would be strange to ignore her issues with the setup I personally prefer.) Another option is to go with 40" underarm loop. Both get the reg under the shoulder so tank mounting options open up. Especially with the underarm loop a swivel is going to be useful, and the 120 swivel is the most succesful choice, in my experience. I used to use 90 degree swivels but have switched over to the 120 swivels because they seem to work better. The ball type swivels are useful if you stick with an over the shoulder hose routing design, but they do not swivel enough for an underarm mounting, and the ball type make choosing custom hose lengths or braided hose choices hard because they use a different connection to the second stage reg. For the second breathing source, if you go with a longer hose primary (40", 5' looped) it's worth considering going with an alternate inflator reg (the most common example is the Air2, but everyone makes one now.) There's a couple reasons why they are worth considering. First, you will already have a longer donatable primary reg, so your second reg is (generally) for you so it does not need to be any particular length. The bungie of the bungie necklace reg is another common hair puller for women without hoods, and is a fiddly bit of setup in general. If you go with a 40" underarm reg with a swivel, and an Air2 type thingie, you do not need to do anything but put your reg in your mouth to not have dangling gear (depending on how you mount your SPG.
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Mar 9, 2016 10:16
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BarqueCat posted:Thank you Bangkero, Pupdive, and Mandibular Fiasco - I knew I could count on SA Goons to not devolve into a DIR dick waving contest. Awesome info that supported the conclusions I have been coming to - and some new info on a back inflated jacket style BCD. My usual pitch to women who are both loving diving, and finding maybe that so much of the sport is setup by men, and maybe that's getting in the way a little, maybe: Keep up the passion, and become the instructor you were need now. Please! The diving industry need more active women instructors! Especially those women who have run into problems that the men are not capable of helping with, and have nonetheless found a way past them. Diving is this amazing sport where (shhh it's a secret) women are generally actually better at it than men once they get some experience under their belt, and find a way to beat the gear into female functionality. They are more graceful, and better buddies, and everything. It's not that men don't try to get things right for women, it's just that there are some serious biological difference men cannot understand, outside of teaching an incredible amount, and getting it wrong a bunch. Women, even skinny sticks of women balance way differently than men. We men need something, anything, to counteract the positive buoyancy from lung volume and counter-balance our heavy legs, so a heavy plate of a BP/W works for us often. Guys often need something to float our legs. Women carry their body fat lower, and have less lung volume, and so they need the weight around the hips to help them get their legs down. Women often need something to sink their legs. Unfortunately the typical weight belt setup seems designed to just beat up hip bones, which is why so many women get to integrated weights early and often. Find what works for you, post about it here, and go become an instructor. The industry needs you!
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Mar 9, 2016 10:34
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End of the school year means I have poo poo-all to do! So, have some photos from my Dec trip to Indonesia!  My flight to Labuan Bajo Airport (on Flores Island) was a most circuitous one. It involved a layover in Shanghai...for 8 hours. It was hell.  The Komodo Islands are the two large islands on the western end of Flores Island.  Dive map. I was unfortunately unable to procure a copy.  Sunset from Labuan Bajo.  Labuan Bajo from the air. Like most of my dive trips, this one was a liveaboard trip as well. I was with my Aussie buddy. He got certified in 2014, so this is his first big dive trip. We decided on this company, and Komodo in general, because they were fairly close and fairly cheap. Unfortunately we only stayed for 3 nights (4 would have been ideal).  There were no cabins. Instead the top deck is a lounge that converts to shared sleeping quarters. Comfy with good food and great company.  The reefs were absolutely fantastic. I daresay they give Palau's a run for its money. The water however was loving cold. It ranged from 23 to 26.   These were all taken in the shallows.    The highlight of the trip was Manta Point. We were told that more often than not you can see large schools of manta on the cleaning stations.  And see them we did!  In fact, I was fortunate enough to have a reef hook with me. When we found a suitable station I anchored in.  I'm not sure why exactly, but I figure the mantas saw me as just another animal in need of cleaning, so they sidled right up next to me.  I was nearly bonked on the head at one point. They were not shy at all.  The suckers without reef hooks had to cling to the bottom.  Dive guide.  All told we saw about 30 of them during that dive. A+++ would do again.    We also did a lot of night dives as well. Pictures are often lovely with those, but some came out really nice.  Saw a lot of octopuses on the trip. Even saw a wunderpuss, which is some weird striped octo (not this one).  As a part of our package deal, we got to visit the dragons.  The islands in Komodo National Park are much different than I had expected. They were savanna-y, dry, drab. Maybe it was just the dry season, I dunno. The visit included a short walking tour.  All the dive and tour boats.  The excitement of seeing the dragons was completely let down by their reveal and overall presentation. This is the kitchen hut. You literally walk down a path, come up to the hut, and there the lazy bastards are.  They see you, but they don't care.  There was a lot of drool.  Lazy lazy lazy.  That was about as close as I dared get.  The two of us also went to Tulamben, which is on Bali. It's on the north coast. We went to dive the USS Liberty wreck. Unfortunately it wasn't much to speak of, on account of it's very shallow depth and overall level of erosion. I did see some new and interesting animals, but it was at night for most of them so all the pics were pretty poo poo. A fun 10 days in Indonesia, though next time I'd spend more time on the boat. I'm actually thinking about doing my DM in Labuan Bajo, in the hopes I can dive Komodo more. Haven't pulled the trigger on anything, but so far it's the top choice.
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Mar 10, 2016 04:07
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my wife loves her lady hawk with the integrated weights, air2 and trim weights. Thing is, she borrowed one from our local shop and tried it on a dive trip and found out she really liked it, then she bought one. she didn't read lots of words on the Internet and then buy something, I think that's the point in trying to make here.
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Mar 10, 2016 04:13
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