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BC
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We're all kit junkies, whether we're hooked on computers, consumer goods, cars or sound systems. It's not surprising that it's the same with diving equipment.
I often see people diving from Red Sea liveaboards equipped to do a technical dive on a Channel wreck, when in fact all they're going to do is bimble round a 20m deep reef. But they've bought the kit, so who can blame them for wanting to use it? I'm one of the worst, but enough kit is enough.
I'm often seen going in with independent twins with two regulators, and with four or five computers on my arm. Luckily, no one sees me changing masks during the dive. Then again, I have to do that to compare diving kit for these pages, and often a direct comparison is the only way to make a sensible judgment.
How I long for those days when I dived with the minimum kit needed for the conditions - which is why I welcomed the arrival of the Apollo TAS Lift BC with relish. It promised to be a minimal wing-style BC.
Last time I wrote about a BC like this, I said that less was more. Unfortunately the kit-buying public want more and more, not less, so that product found few takers and was soon discontinued, despite my enthusiasm for it. I hope the same thing doesn't happen again.
The TAS Lift is a simple little doughnut wing with an
adjustable webbing harness and an upper and lower dump. It is not as light as I expected, weighing in at around 2.5kg. However, a kilo of that is the weight of the heavy duty, stainless-steel, weightbelt-type buckle, and the unique but very heavy spring-loaded Apollo Bio tank-lock on the camband.
This second promises 100kg of tightening torque, so you should never find your tank drop out during a dive (see test below). You could make the unit lighter for air travel by simply substituting a conventional plastic and webbing tank camband and an ordinary plastic weightbelt buckle.
The TAS Lift may give only a maximum buoyancy of 6.5kg
but you shouldn't need more buoyancy than you have weight on your belt, so this will suit those who dive in 3mm wetsuits. In fact, it encourages the diver to get the weight right in the first place.
I used it at the surface in big Indian Ocean swells and found that it gave me adequate surface support with a 15 litre steel tank, but at the same time I realise that there are some who expect to find their shoulders out of the water when their BC is fully inflated at the surface. It certainly doesn't do that!
The Apollo TAS Lift has a conventional corrugated hose and direct feed, and this is topped with an over-pressure relief valve. You dump air by either pulling on the short cord to the rear bottom dump (unusually on the left side) or the long cord that is threaded to the front of the harness through a flexible plastic conduit to an upper dump-valve at the right side.
As the designer went to all that trouble, I was left wondering why the upper dump valve was not positioned in the centre of the buoyancy bag, where it would naturally be at the highest point during an ascent. That said, it worked without any problem whatsoever.
The advantage of a small wing is that the air stays in one place, providing fantastic stability under water, which is perfect for photographers. I did some very fast negative-buoyancy entries in order not to miss the site, such were the currents in which I was diving. The BC proved ideal for this.
The shoulder straps have thick rubber pads where they take the load during topside manoeuvres, and two large pinch-clips make slipping out of the harness once back at the boat very slick indeed.
There are two stainless-steel D-rings, and I found it very easy to thread a pocket, for example from my Buddy Trident, onto the webbing. I used this for my current-hook and my camera dome-port cap. The plastic backpack with its positively designed handle is the sort of thing that would make a Buddy BC-owner feel at home.
Apollo kit is always full of innovative surprises, and the weightbelt buckle on the waist strap is a case in point. Do it up as tight as you can, and a built-in spring-loaded device takes up the slack as your wetsuit gets compressed on going deeper. It made me think that perhaps I would put up with all that weight after all.
People observed that I was a true Alpinist when they saw me preparing to dive. Alpinists are those mountaineers who do not weigh themselves down with unnecessary kit.
You certainly want to avoid being over-weighted, so that every ounce of lift is doing its job efficiently. Some drysuit divers might find the TAS Lift attractive too, especially those accustomed to using their suits for buoyancy control and diving with a backpack and harness, and with no additional buoyancy whatsoever.
The Apollo TAS Lift BC comes in a one-size-fits-all harness and costs £300.
CJ Evans International 01258 451269, www.bluesports.co.uk
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+ For the true Alpinist diver
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- Weighs more than expected
- Minimum surface support
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Pull cord threaded through to the upper dump valve .
Why is the valve not in the centre of the bag?
This wing is attractively compact, though not light
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RETAINER
WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE AT SOME TIME. You know, when your regulator hose has suddenly become inexplicably short and another diver jumps on your back. It's because your tank camband was not done up tightly. You probably forget to wet it first, and the webbing stretched in the water. Then, halfway through your dive, your tank drops out. Aaagh!
The short answer to the problem is to wet the camband first and then to do it up properly and tightly, with the ring of webbing at right angles to the line of the tank.
The longer answer is to use a different system. That's where the Apollo Bio-Tank Lock comes in.
Dispense with the camband and webbing supplied with your BC and thread one end of the Bio-Tank Lock webbing through instead. Be sure to thread it through the Bio-Lock buckle properly. The one supplied to me came wrongly threaded.
Then, simply loop it over your tank, pulling the loose ends to tighten as much as you can. The final tightening is done not by a cam-lever but with a spring-tension screw thread, and the maker promises 10 times more torque than you could ordinarily apply. The knob then folds away so that it doesn't catch on any obstruction during a dive.
It works. Once you've got it set up for a particular diameter of tank, you simply unscrew the lock a little to allow you to slide the BC retaining-strap off the tank. My only problem with it is that it might be trying to solve a problem we should not really encounter - not if we pay attention to what we're doing, that is.
The Apollo Bio-Tank Lock costs £50.
CJ Evans International 01258 451269, www.bluesports.co.uk
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+ An alternative method of securing your tank to your BC
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- Is it a solution to a problem that is not there?
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COMPUTER
MANY PEOPLE NO LONGER WEAR WATCHES. If they want to know the time, they look at their mobile phones. Time-keeping has been relegated to a secondary function, and I bet John Harrison is turning in his grave.
John Harrison? He was the 18th century fellow who won the prize for inventing the marine chronometer. Before then, time-keeping was done in a more relaxed fashion, and people were accustomed to missing the boat.
More recently, divers got into the habit of wearing their computers on their wrists, not so much for time-keeping as for stopping them getting misplaced. However, to do so might draw the unwelcome attention of other divers and precipitate an unwanted exchange about the size of your lobbies when you enter a pub for a quiet pint.
Suunto came up with the idea of a diving computer that could double as an everyday watch, and after a protracted interlude all the other computer manufacturers are now clambering aboard the bandwagon.
Scubapro/Uwatec has recently woken up to the fact that it is no longer alone in the marketplace, as it was in the late '80s, and has showered its dealers with a barrow-load of new products. The Scubapro Xtender is one of them, and it's a computer that doubles as a watch.
Don't confuse this with the other Scubapro computers that hail from Uwatec in Switzerland. In a departure from the norm, Scubapro has dispensed with input from those who dive in Swiss lakes, and I was not surprised to discover that this model was made in Japan.
It looks like a typical Japanese digital watch. In fact, dare I say it, it looks very like the computer-watch made by Seiko and sold by Apeks as the Pulse. Unlike the Pulse, it is a single nitrox-mix computer.
I found the instruction manual very hard to follow, as I do other manuals of sophisticated electronic goods written by computer nerds in Japan. I resorted to doing what I thought I should with the four buttons provided, and managed to set the time and date; a dual time for another country; a nitrox mix of 32%; and the extra caution-factor available.
I considered this a personal triumph, especially as I never once jumped up out of my chair in exasperation while doing it.
The Scubapro Xtender has a pre-set ppO2 of 1.4 bar and, unusually for such a simple computer, it can be set to up to 100% O2.
Nitrogen-loading is indicated by a graphic that grows up one side of the display, while the oxygen-loading builds up along the opposite side of the watch-face. That's for those who have trouble understanding numbers.
I was unable to find out who wrote the algorithm for this computer, but experience of computers from the same source in Japan tells me that it is as cautious as any.
It might not have fancy settings such as "Deep Stops", but it will see you safely back to the surface, even after a dive with decompression stops.
I was surprised that it offered no safety-stop display in the 5-3m range, but I noted that it did hold you at 3m for longer than I would have expected from the time of the 3m deco-stop indicated.
In common with every other computer, this one enters Dive Mode as soon as you go diving. The display was easy to read, even for someone as optically challenged as me. You can download its data via a PC, but I understand that the software and interface cost extra.
As modern nitrox computers go, the Xtender is a fairly basic bit of kit, but it is a very wearable watch.
The Scubapro Xtender costs £299. An ice-blue women's version is also to be launched.
Scubapro UK 01256 812636, www.scubapro.co.uk
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+ Single nitrox-mix computer in a watch format
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- Basic computer with non user-replaceable battery
- More expensive than an Aladin Prime when PC accessories are included
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WETSUIT
WE WERE ON A DIVE BOAT, motoring out to the North Wall on Grand Cayman. The boat was full of excited and rather noisy Americans. It was as if they were competing for attention on the volume, rather than the content, of what they had to say.
A rather porky-looking middle-aged gentleman from the mid-West was sitting next to me. An aura of sweat and old urine seemed to linger about him. He leaned forward and spoke to me in a hushed tone:
"I couldn't help noticing that you put your wetsuit on in a moment. You seemed to just simply slip into it. I really struggle with mine. What's your secret?"
I looked for a moment at his 150kg body, stuffed into a frame a mere 170cm tall. It was a living tribute to a life's consumption of Dunkin' Donuts. I momentarily compared it with my own 85kg body, spread about a frame 30cm taller, and decided not to be cruel.
"Actually," I replied, in a discreet whisper, "you might want to write down my secret."
He listened attentively. I leaned closer.
"It's because I'm bloody good at it!"
Remarkably, he realised that I was winding him up. What he did not know was that I was wearing a Cressi-sub Comfort suit. The Comfort is made from the latest hi-tech, hi-stretch neoprene, lined with a material that makes it extremely slippery on the inside. Hence I was in and out of it as easily as a snake shedding its skin.
It's labelled as being 5mm, but it feels a lot thicker. Because it seemed thicker, it displaced more water, and I had to wear a little more lead than I might have done with an ordinary 5mm suit.
The Comfort has a conventional zip at the back and extra-reinforced panels at both the knees and shoulders. There are no seals. It is a wetsuit, after all, but the wrists and ankles are neatly finished with contrasting piping.
Italian by design, it's no surprise that it looks cunningly stylish, even slimming, with panels in silver-grey and black.
There's not a lot more to say about it. Its stitching remained intact while I was using it, and it kept me warm, so there was no overwhelming desire to pee in it.
I can get through a whole night without taking a pee, so one should be able to get through a one-hour dive the same way. My new American friend obviously did not enjoy that luxury either, and that's another secret I kept to myself!
The Cressi-sub Comfort suit costs £186. A thicker 7mm version costs £210. A hood-attached matching 5mm jacket costs £120.
Cressi-sub, 01484 711113, www.cressi-sub.net
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+ Easy to don
+ Comfortable when on
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- You'll need a little extra lead for neutral buoyancy
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UNDERSUIT
THERE ARE TIMES, WHILE GETTING CHANGED into your drysuit, when the driving rain or searing cold simply penetrates your undersuit. It doesn't make for great comfort, and probably drives more divers back into the pub than any other aspect of diving.
Getting cold, either before or after a dive, can make all the difference to how you feel about the dive itself. What is needed is something to go over your undersuit. Something that can even be worn over it and inside your drysuit, should the need arise.
Many divers are familiar with Weezle Extreme undersuits and their highly compressible hi-tech micro-fibre filling. The Weezle Hydrogen Waistcoat is made in the same way, but can be used in the interval between getting into your undersuit and drysuit.
It can also be used as an additional layer. It has a tail that tucks in to stop the waistcoat rucking up as you pull on your drysuit. Its hood and collar keep the wind off your ears and neck while you're getting ready, but they can be quickly detached and discarded before you pull your neck seal over your head, should you opt to keep the waistcoat on while diving.
Weezle sent me an example to try, and I put it away for when I would need it. I had almost forgotten its existence when the sadistic Editor of this magazine sent me off to test regulators in Sweden's wintry wastes. The Weezle Hydrogen Waistcoat was rediscovered and packed, along with my Weezle undersuit, and was I glad it was!
It kept the driving freezing rain off, suitably repelling it with its hydrophobic Pertex outer layer, and the torment of horizontal hailstones was equally easily dealt with.
It didn't make for stylish apparel, nor did I get admiring looks, except from those who were colder than I was. You may notice an electrical lead hanging from the front in the photograph. That's nothing to do with the Weezle but from my other precaution against extreme cold when under water - an electrically heated vest!
The Hydrogen Waistcoat comes in a range of off-the-peg sizes from XS to XL, and is usually supplied in black. It costs £58. There is also a slightly cheaper yet thicker Weezle Argon waistcoat that has no collar or hood.
Weezle Diving Services 01535 655380, www.weezle.co.uk
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+ A convenient extra layer that can be quickly discarded if needed
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- As glamorous as any anorak
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