John Bantin has been a full-time professional diving writer and underwater photographer since 1990. He makes around 300 dives each year testing diving equipment.

I USUALLY PREFER MEMBRANE DRYSUITS TO NEOPRENE ONES. That's because I expect the primary function of a drysuit to be to keep me dry, which normally means long conical wrist-seals and a neck-seal made from soft and pliable latex rubber to keep the water out.
     Neoprene drysuits tend to be damp suits for me. A trickle of water always seems to gets in. Of course, a compressed neoprene drysuit that fits you well can be almost as sleek as a wetsuit in the water, which can be important if you need to cover a lot of ground.
     The first thing I noticed about the Typhoon Seamaster was that although it is constructed from compressed titanium-lined neoprene (5mm), it has a latex neck-seal. I therefore expected only to suffer wet arms, but I was pleased to discover that the neoprene wrist-seals have a slippery-smooth inner surface which made a good seal against my skin and more or less kept all the water out.
     I say "more or less", because I am the worst person to test a drysuit. I not only have sinewy wrists but I always tend to be busy taking photographs. Gripping something tightly and raising my arms above my head is a test of any suit's ability to keep the air in and water out.
     However, the suit worked better than I had expected in this respect and it was also a tolerable fit, which is surprising when you realise that Typhoon imports these suits in a number of stock sizes and that, being tall, I am not easy to suit off the peg.
     The Seamaster is available with either a constant-volume automatic dump valve or a simple cuff-dump.
     My test suit came with a cuff-dump, so every time I raised my arms to take a picture I dumped air from the suit. However, a cuff-dump does save a few pounds. The inflation valve is the revolving Apeks type that has become an industry standard.
     Getting the photograph of me wearing the suit at the surface was done during a brief respite from some heavy rainstorms. These didn't affect the diving, only my ability to persuade someone to get soaked taking my photograph. I was driving past Wraysbury Lake with Mrs B when we decided to grab the moment.
     Why is this relevant? Because I was wearing my normal clothes, and the Seamaster proved very easy to slip on over them. I was even wearing a pair of thin nylon socks, but the neoprene-lined boots proved exceptionally comfortable over them alone.
     I was into the suit, the picture snapped, and out of it again quicker than you could say: "I don't believe it's stopped raining! Oh no, here it comes again!" The guys at Wraysbury are still wondering about my flying stopover.
     In many other ways the Seamaster is less than surprising. It is a very conventional design with a cross-shoulder zip. It seemed well-enough constructed, and neoprene suits like this are inherently tough.
     Neoprene has an insulating effect of its own, so less is needed in the way of an undergarment. You could use this in the northern Red Sea in the coldest period of February and March without anything else on except perhaps a T-shirt and shorts.
     The UK demands the use of an undersuit, and like all neoprene that used in the Seamaster gets compressed as you go deeper, losing some of its inherent buoyancy as well as some insulation, so an effective BC is also recommended.
     In the water, one distinct advantage with this type of suit is that its inherent buoyancy is the same all over, so there was little of that floaty-feet syndrome from which I often suffer.
     The arms are made of thinner 3mm neoprene, so I was able to move easily. Generous yet flexible knee-pads added to my comfort. There was none of that feeling that someone had stuck a couple of ironing-boards down the legs.
     Staying absolutely dry would be asking for miracles, but I didn't climb from the cold November water with that let-down feeling I have suffered with one or two other drysuits in the past.
     The secret to this suit is the fit, and the Seamaster fitted me like a glove, but because neoprene has some stretch in it, someone a little heavier might have enjoyed the fit just as much.
     The Typhoon Seamaster represents good value and seems well enough made to last. It is available in a wide range of off-the-peg sizes for both men and women.
The Typhoon Seamaster costs £379 with cuff-dump or £399 with auto-dump.

How to be an airport-golfer
My diving friend Brian bought an antique golf club. He paid more than £1000 for it. It proved to be the final straw in his already shaky marriage.
     Long after his divorce, he sold the club for more than £1 million and now uses the money to travel the world, going on diving holidays. That's how I met him, but there's a difference. He travels first class. I pay excess-baggage fees.
     Most airline officials play golf. Golfers get special baggage-allowance concessions at airport check-ins. Few airline officials go diving. You know the rest.
     This magazine campaigned to get special checked-weight concessions for divers. The subject was even added to the agenda for two annual IATA meetings. But with no keen divers there to drive it forward, it was always likely to languish low on the agenda.
     So what to do? I suggest putting all your dive gear in a golf bag and claiming it as golf equipment. If questioned, you can always claim that you are forever putting your balls in the water.
     You may think I give the products of Stahlsac too much coverage in these pages, but Stahlsac makes luggage. It is not a diving-equipment manufacturer that buys its bags in the Far East and simply brands them.
     This stuff is expensive but it is built to last. I sent a bag back for a little renovation work after 52 dive trips. Yes, after all those journeys the plastic chassis on which the wheels were mounted was broken, but otherwise the bag was in perfect operational condition. The material was not scuffed and the zips functioned exactly as they always had.
     The Stahl brothers are a well-known double act in the diving industry. I suggested to Jim Stahl that he make a bag called the Stahlsac Golf, with the label big and proud where check-in staff would see it. He took the idea away with him, but Americans don't suffer punitive European checked-baggage limits.
     In the meantime, he gave me a new Stahlsac Pacific to try. The Pacific is not a golf bag but has dimensions ideally suited to carrying a set of clubs. That should work!
     With an overall length of 89cm, the Pacific should accommodate all but the silliest length of fins. It forms a cylinder of around 33cm in diameter, so that when packed it takes on the shape of a sailor's kitbag, with a handle at one end.
     It has two main zipped sections. One is well ventilated with a mesh side and the other totally enclosed. The mesh section allows you to keep wet items separate from those which you might prefer not to be contaminated, but offers little privacy.
     The clever bit is that you can use both or totally fill the bag using either section alone, so there is no danger of anyone seeing what's inside should you wish to conceal it
     Inside the enclosed section is a separate compartment that worked well for a few personal items of tropical clothing, and there is a small outer zipped section for last-minute items.
     The Pacific has two adjustable straps that are permanently attached and can either be clipped together to give a traditional hold-all grip or separated so that you can mount it on your back like a rucksack. A clip-on diagonal strap gives a fourth way of carrying it.
     As usual, this bag is made to the Stahlsac last-forever standard, with strong material reinforced where needed.
     The good news is that, although it is a Stahlsac, its simplicity of design and absence of hard features makes it available at, if not a cheap price, at least an attainable one.
The Stahlsac 208 Pacific costs £99.

Eagle gives us a surprise
Mares makes some very fine regulators and the new Dacor Eagle Pro DPD should be one of them. Mares? Yes, it might surprise you to know that the Italian manufacturer's factory in Rapallo makes modern Dacor regulators too, and in some territories the Dacor brand is more readily accepted, so that's why it perseveres.
     Over here in the UK, it has been the neat little side-exhaust Dacors that have captured the attention of the diving public, but side-exhaust designs are not to everybody's taste, so the Dacor Eagle Pro DPD provides a more conventional option.
     This regulator uses the first stage which is usually supplied with the Dacor Viper Metal. It has a unique swivelling medium-pressure primary port. Three other mp and two hp ports are set around its main barrel.
     This is combined with an all-new, compact second stage. It has a streamlined shape with a small frontal area but is bulky in depth. It hides the fact that it uses the well-established Mares bypass-tube design, neatly dispensing with the need for a venturi± control. However, the designers at Rapallo have added a venturi± switch, not just for the hell of it but to counter any danger of reduced shop-counter appeal.
     I'm surprised they didn't add a breathing-resistance adjuster too. Useful or not, don't all expensive regulators have them?
     The Eagle second stage is made of a mixture of hard and soft plastics. Removing the front with the soft diaphragm reveals that the inner plastic core has a very slippery finish, which I assume discourages ice from collecting and allows the air to flow cleanly through the chamber.
     This all-plastic design gives the effect of a perfectly weightless regulator when under water, but inevitably it feels a bit cheap.
     I'm sure the manufacturer would be upset if I suggested that this regulator is not aimed at that small minority of divers (worldwide) who chuck themselves into cold, fresh water each weekend. So I won't.
     It certainly has a Teflon-coated demand lever to which ice will have a hard job sticking. The importer, Hydrotech, says that the Eagle is CE coldwater-tested, and as Hydrotech is based overlooking Stoney Cove I suppose the folks there will learn soon enough if they are wrong. Not to be tempted, I took the Eagle to El Hierro in the Canary Islands to see how it performed.
     The swivelling turret affair for the hose to the second stage might be seen as a point of weakness and potential leaks by some, but it has advantages. It helps take the strain of the hose routeing, which is important considering the tiny mouthpiece supplied with both Mares and Dacor regulators. It helps deal with that dragged-from-the-mouth effect.
     Some things are designed more for the shop than the water, and I think I would have found the venturi pre-dive/dive switch almost impossible to use with gloves. The idea is to position a vane into the air-flow, so that the venturi effect of the air passing does not cause a partial drop in pressure behind the front diaphragm, and thus an exponential free-flow. But the Mares-designed VAD bypass tube should take care of that effect already. You won't see a venturi on any of the Dacor Eagle's Mares siblings - they just don't need it.
     A good point was that the purge button was easy to find, even with a gloved hand. So far so good.
     Like many compact second stages, though not as bad as some, this one tended to route exhaled bubbles close to the eyes. But that was not the main problem.
     I used it for the first dive down to 35m and wasn't happy with it. The unit sounded asthmatic and I felt as if I was sucking treacle through a straw.
     However, it was all I had, the conditions were benign, and I decided to soldier on until I started to become too tired to continue.
     Always keen to obtain a second opinion, I had passed it, during that first dive, for a few breaths to our Managing Editor Steve Weinman. It elicited the response later: "You can't be expected to dive with that. It's ridiculous!"
     I took it on a second dive, but this time alongside a second (Mares) regulator on my tank's H-valve. Treacle through a straw or a breath of fresh air - which would you prefer? I have to admit to resorting to the second.
     I was furious with myself for having travelled to such a remote spot with a defective piece of kit. Back in the UK, a visit to the independent test facility ANSTI confirmed my findings. The machine revealed a curve that varied, on the inhalation side, by around 15 mbar in more than 35 vibrations per breath at 50m, and about four times that amount at 20m.
     The total work of breathing at 50m may have been an acceptable 1.71 joules per litre, but the manner in which it was delivered was more akin to breathing through the wrong end of Louis Armstrong's trumpet than inhaling mountain air.
     I could only assume that this example was made the day that Italy was defeated by South Korea in the World Cup. It is irritating to be sent items for test which patently have not been checked first, but this defect was so extreme that I took the unusual step of getting hold of another example.
     I tested this one in the Red Sea and was pleased to find the performance much more satisfactory. The second stage delivered plenty of air. It might have arrived in a slightly uncomfortable, concentrated squirt, but overall this was a very easy breathe compared to the original unit.
The Dacor Eagle Pro DPD costs £269. The Eagle Octopus costs £78.

When the glowing gets tough
Those chemical lightsticks are perfect for tagging individual divers during night dives. The only problem is that they cost a fortune, and although they might last as long as eight hours, you can use them only once.
     Not only that but they don't always work, especially if air has permeated the plastic while in storage.
     Then, if they get abandoned in the sea, there is the ecological threat to marine life to consider.
     Electronic marker strobes can be more cost-effective in the long run but if you attach one to your body and run it the whole time during your night dive, it might not drive you crazy but it will certainly have that effect on anyone down there with you. Some say they bring on epileptic fits. That may or may not be true. I know that if I see flashing lights behind me when I'm driving I'm prone to have a blue fit, but that has nothing to do with diving.
     Flashing strobe beacons are better for marking a particular spot, such as the shotline or anchor line of the boat, rather than individual divers.
     Various examples of low-powered lights have been produced to do this job and we have brought them to your attention on these pages. Generally they have light-emitting diodes that are powered by small yet long-lasting lithium batteries.
     The latest version to come my way is called a Glo-Toob and it does exactly what it says. It's a thick Perspex tube that glows.
     Glo-Toobs come in a choice of red, green, yellow or blue. If a dive boat were to supply them to divers for use during night dives, for example, there would be the opportunity to identify buddy teams. That is to say, the reds should stay together, and so on. "Fat chance of that," I hear you say.
     My first challenge was to turn mine on. I had expected the knurled plug to be the switch, but this simply gives access to the battery. No, the tiny nipple with a ring for passing a cable-tie or thin lanyard through, and which forms part of the knurled plug, actually twists and works the switch.
     "Why didn't they say that? " I asked Mike, the importer, after phoning him up and telling him that it didn't work.
     Embarrassment over (I've had far worse), I took the little light diving and found that it was totally unobtrusive to me yet everyone else knew where I was, even when I tried to fool them by turning my main torch off - and that's a bad habit, because the bulb might easily have blown when I turned it back on. Don't try that when not at home!
     The LED is said to last up to 1000 hours and each little 12V lithium battery should be good for around 30 hours. That's enough for a month's worth of liveaboard night-diving.
     The manufacturer claims that a Glo-Toob is watertight to 100m. I will have to accept that as unproved by me, although I did get past half that depth without anything untoward happening. All in all, it's a simple bit of kit but quite effective.
Glo-Toobs are around 6cm long, are made in South Africa and cost £25 each. You can get them from any franchisee of Mike's chain of dive stores.