For years, winder-reels for SMBs were homemade from plywood to a pattern found in the British Sub-Aqua Club manual. Then someone decided we needed something better, and the world and his wife have pitched in trying to find improvements ever since.
It's a bit like the quest to build a better mousetrap. The ones that work always look uncannily like the original.
Many years ago, David Parker came up with his own design for an improved winder-reel, though he never did anything with it. The doyen of make-it-yourself BSAC divers, David turned a garden-shed hobby into one of the most successful manufacturing businesses in diving today - AP Valves, maker of Buddy BCs and, of course, the Inspiration rebreather. Do you know what AP stands for? I'll tell you later.
David's son Martin took over as the company's CEO some years ago and, as a keen diver in need of a better reel, decided to put his father's design into production. Naturally, this included a few improvements that came from personal experience under water with the various prototypes, and it has taken some years for the production model to see the light of day.
So what do you need from a reel? That it should lay out the line without running out of control and bird's-nesting, and that it should wind in the line without being tediously difficult to do, or letting the line jam because it came off the spindle.
Martin, like me, has enjoyed the experience of a reel-bobbin parting in two. You are left with something that is as difficult to unravel as a plate of angel-hair spaghetti. This reel has a bobbin moulded in one piece of plastic with a brass spindle.
I always thought that a negatively buoyant line was best. Martin Parker begs to differ - he aims to have a floaty line. It's obviously a question of personal preference, like whether you have a reel lock that you need to hold open or simply a device without a spring that you need to close.
I agree with Martin that when I put air into my late-deployment SMB, I don't want to be worried about the reel jamming, or having to release the catch quickly before I'm dragged up with it. Similarly, when laying a line, for example from the shot during a wreck dive, it seems easier to let the reel rotate freely without having to keep the detent released. You can then tie it off by making a couple of turns round the handle.
I can already hear many of you saying that a freewheeling reel will end up with its line bird's-nesting, but the Buddy Pocket Reel is fully enclosed. That's why you can put it in your BC pocket without fear of pulling out an awful tangle later.
As to whether you want a freely rotating reel with a lock or whether you want one with a ratchet and spring-loaded lock that controls when the line is released, AP Valves can accommodate you. The Buddy Pocket Reel comes with either option.
The thinking behind making such small reels (45m of line) is that divers now use them for all sorts of purposes other than surface marker buoys. Wreck penetration, delayed SMBs, Jon lines, all these demand small, handy reels, and if you need more line it takes only a moment to join that from a second or even a third reel.
Try as I might, I could not get the reel to tangle any of its line. The thing works. Not only that, but there is the nice touch of a large O-ring attached to the end loop, which really helps locate the loop if it gets lost inside the reel, or when the time comes to unhitch the line from where you might have tied it.
It is also less appealing than a shiny stainless-steel clip under water to any light-fingered diver.
This reel is so light and convenient, you can afford to leave it permanently in your pocket for when you need it. The only problem I found with mine was that its badge fell off during its first trip under water.
What else? Oh yes, AP stands for David's wife, Angela Parker!
The Buddy Pocket Reel costs £39.50
AP Valves 01326 561040, www.apvalves.com

I thought the Ikelite Tank-Lite was going to be a lamp with an umbilical and a battery pack attached to the tank. I could not have been more wrong.
It is in fact a tiny lamp that runs on one AAA battery. It will fit on your key-ring and gives out a narrow beam of light. It resembles the shape of a scuba tank, hence the name.
It comes in useful for looking for hairs on camera O-rings, or you can clip it to your BC or the front-zipper of your wetsuit and use it for looking at your gauges if your primary light fails (it is rated to 90m). You could even use it to find your front-door lock in the dark.
The Ikelite Tank-Lite comes in gold, silver and blue, at £15.50
Oceanic SW 01404 891819, www.oceanicuk.com

Always dive with equipment with which you are thoroughly familiar. It's a good rule, but often I find myself about to jump into the middle of the ocean quite glad that at least it's my own mask I'm wearing!
Every time I go on a dive trip, I find myself packing new equipment. This is to satisfy the needs of Diver Tests. In that way I usually write about equipment that I have used, albeit extensively, for the first time. Usually, of course, I want to try out items that have only recently become available in dive shops.
The risk is that I might well find myself far from home and stuck with an item of equipment that I don't enjoy using for the duration. I have to field criticism of my choice of equipment from other divers: "It's not mine," I explain defensively, "I'm only writing about it."
The last new fins I tried some months ago left me with less-than-happy memories. So when I came to pack my bag for a back-to-back trip to two different faraway locations, with a lot of other equipment to test, I wimped out and decided at least to take a pair of fins with which I got on.
I took my favourites; the fins that have always done well over the years in our fin comparison tests; the fins that become a part of me when I wear them, the Mares Plana Avanti Quattros.
These have been improved in various ways over the years. The full-length foot-pocket, which encompasses your boot right up to the heel, has a ribbed floor to make it easier to get the fins off. They have ABS, too, though not to stop you skidding down the deck - this is the "Advanced Buckle System".
Normal quick-release buckles are enhanced by a cam system which enables the wearer to pull the strap easily over the heel and then tighten shut by pushing the lever closed. You can do this with the opposite foot, which comes in handy when putting your fins on in a crowded inflatable and unable to reach your feet.
When I first tried them for Diver more than three years ago, I had some reservations about the robustness of these ABS buckles, but the spare set I carry with me has never been called into use.
The performance of these fins might have been equalled but has yet to be beaten. That has a much do with the way in which Mares has combined soft and hard technopolymers, resulting in the four-flutes look.
The big blade flexes across its width but not its length, giving a perfect profile for shovelling the water off the end and propelling you forwards. Its design is very forgiving, because you get a good result no matter how imprecisely you fin.
I can do any old frog-kick or flutter-kick and it works. Sometimes I put one fin on top of the other and do an impression of a snapping crocodile going backwards.
This last method is especially useful if you don't want to stir up the silt or are concerned about kicking another diver who might be following closely behind.
I have used blue, red and yellow sets over the past 12 years but have noticed from my underwater photographs that divers with black fins appear better-balanced in the water and look as if they know what they're doing. So I went for sleek black too - not that I always know what I'm doing.
New, they looked gorgeous. I took them to the Galapagos, where I had to jam them into unforgiving rocks to keep station in the current. In Komodo and Aldabra I was again battered by fierce currents. But in more than 100 dives, most of them in exceptional circumstances, these fins never made me wish I was wearing something else.
I normally photograph gear before I use it and abuse it, but below you see the fins in the Coral Sea in December. They are scuffed and have certainly lost their new look. But they are the business.
Which leaves Mares with a problem. The UK importer keeps promising to send me a pair of the new Mares Volo fins for Diver Tests, but they never arrive.
"We had some but we sold them all," is the lame excuse I hear. Well, I have seen the impressive machinery that Mares has in Rapallo for churning out these products. Could it be that they think I will inevitably compare them with Plana Avanti Quattros and that they might not stand comparison? When you make the best, it's very hard to come up with something better!
Mares Plana Avanti fins come in sizes S, Regular and XL and in six colours, including black. There are some very expensive fins now on the market and you can pay £200 for a pair by some manufacturers.
Knowing what they cost in Europe, I think the price of Plana Avanti Quattros reflects more what the market can bear here than what they should cost - a pair will set you back £86, but I think they're the best.
Blandford Sub-Aqua, 01923 801572, www.divernet.com/blandfrd

Sometimes it seems there is just too much choice available. Having recently tried the Scubapro MK20/S600 and come to the conclusion that it is probably the best regulator available with a piston first stage, the company has sent me the less expensive S550. I tried it in conjunction with the same MK20 first stage. So what's the difference?
Well, it is lighter because it seems to be made entirely of plastic, and apart from the venturi ± control, which comes in handy if you find it free-flows when you first hit the water, it has no de-tuning knob.
That means the user has no opportunity of making it perform less well during a dive. Hooray for that! I am constantly amazed that people will spend more money on a regulator that gives you this option than on one that does not. Why would you want to downgrade a regulator's ability to give you all the air you want when you want it?
It harks back to the days when I listened in horror as trainee members of a diving club surrounded their instructor and hung on his every word. He was explaining that modern, high-performance regulators give you too much air and make you use up the contents of your tank faster.
He suggested that they should all try to buy an old regulator like his, because they would really have to drag on it to get anything out of it, and so have to be more frugal with their supply. Frankly, he was talking cobblers!
I want a regulator that gives out no air at all when it is connected to a tank and when no one is trying to breathe from it. I want to put in as little effort as possible to get as much air as I want. Less effort equals less energy used, less metabolism and less air needed.
I want to breathe as naturally as possible. I want a regulator to give me air on demand (which is why it is called a demand valve) and so should you.
However, the lack of that added-value knob to allow salesfolk to persuade you to part with more money could mean that the Scubapro S550 will meet with some resistance when shops come to stock it.
Beware being offered it on the basis that this is the regulator to buy if you can afford nothing better!
The S550 is unashamedly a warmwater regulator. There are no metal parts to act as a heat-sink and warm up very cold depressurised air from the water around it, but many people do not want to dive in very cold water.
I would say that it is unsuitable for use in Stoney Cove in the winter and as I was trying it out in December I took it to Queensland. It was a long journey but I felt I had to make the sacrifice to give the S550 a proper test in summertime conditions!
I can report that although its performance was very good, it was not as good when compared directly to its more expensive brother. But provided you don't do as I did and fit a MK20/S600 to your pony cylinder, you will not be disappointed.
The Scubapro MK20/S550 costs £299.
Scubapro UK 01256 812636, www.scubapro.co.uk

It seems that German cars are cheaper in Belgium. The same applies to German-style diving lamps. The difference is that the Green Force GII lamp is actually made in Belgium.
In common with its Teutonic counterparts, the GII is a tube of aluminium, ribbed along its length to make it distinctive, and with a fixed handle and stainless-steel fasteners. The outside of the tube is anodised to make it corrosion-resistant.
My trial example came with a 35W, 12V lamp which was bright enough to elicit calls of "Frying tonight!" from my fellow-divers.
With the same sort of lamp-unit that I have concealed in the low-voltage lighting system in many parts of my house, the light was even enough to read the Sunday papers by (I frequently use the kitchen for that purpose). The bonus is that a replacement bulb is easily bought almost anywhere.
The instructions leave a lot to be desired. What should be very simple is turned into a bit of an adventure by the poor English translation.
First, I had to decipher how to connect the charger. All you have to do, it turns out, is unscrew the rear end of the unit, withdraw the whole works and plug the charger lead into the socket found behind the lamp reflector.
It's a nickel metal-hydride battery-pack, so I topped it up between dives without harming it. The British distributor reckons you can get 70 minutes from a full 12 hour charge. The works are well-protected from the water by multiple O-rings.
The switch at the back took a little more explaining. You turn it from OFF to N (neutral). If you want it brighter, turn it to the plus mark until the desired level is reached, with maximum brightness attained after around six seconds, and then hold that by going back to N.
If you want it to be dimmer, turn it to the minus mark and hold it in the same way. If you want to switch it off, turn it to minus until it completely dims out, then turn it to OFF.
Electronics within the unit prevent you from discharging the battery-pack fully. Instead, the lamp dims visibly for the last five or ten minutes before it cuts out. There is certainly no risk of it getting switched on by mistake in your bag.
The instructions say there is an opportunity to make the lamp automatically signal SOS in Morse code. Once switched on, turn it from N to minus and back to N three times in a row.
Complicated, isn't it? I reckon that the day you need this feature, trying to remember how to do it will certainly pass the time while you wait to be rescued!
The Green Force GII lamp seems to be as bright as any other 12V underwater lamp. It might appear expensive but at £291 it is £100 cheaper than many 12V equivalents.
Lumb Bros 0161 681 5790