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I OWN THE ULTIMATE MINIMALIST'S BACK-FLOTATION BC - a Seaquest 3D. I tried it years ago for these pages, extolled its virtues and even purchased an example for myself. However, so few divers followed my lead that the company ceased production shortly after my review was published. So much for my advice.
Less is more. How often do I write these words, only to discover that for most divers, less is less and more is more, and more is honestly what you really want?
Not me. I want to dive sleek as a seal. I don't want to be decorated with danglies like a proverbial Christmas tree. I don't want to drag any more hardware through the water than I actually need. I want to be Aquaman. I have always been a would-be Alpinist in everything I do.
Thanks to the requirement to fill these pages, I rarely achieve that personal state of diving nirvana. But I was off on a trip across to the other side of the world and, with excess-baggage charges in mind, I asked the distributor for Mares to send me its sleekest and lightest wing BC to test.
It sent me the Jubilee. It's a lot more than that original minimalist wing. It is more strongly built, for one thing.
Mind you, longevity is a very difficult quality to judge. My minimalist wing verged on flimsy but I still have it and it works as perfectly as the day I bought it. On the other hand, another BC that I own, built to the standards of a Challenger tank, burst its inner bladder when fully inflated on surfacing after the first dive.
Does this mean that one is stronger than the other? No, it just means that I was lucky with one and unlucky with the other.
The Jubilee has only two dump valves, one at the shoulder atop the conventional corrugated hose and direct-feed and one at the lower back. It has a substantial harness with swivelling shoulder buckles for a perfect fit and the MRS integrated-weight system that is so effectively held in place by locking studs. There is a hard backpack with a comfort cushion and four large pre-bent stainless-steel D-rings. The sternum strap was useful for tucking the corrugated hose out of the way. There are no pockets.
It reminded me a little of the lightweight Porsche 911 that was offered stripped of all but necessities and sold at a higher price than the more popular luxury models of that car. Although stripped to the basics, however, the Jubilee proved heavier than I had hoped when packing for my trip.
The wing itself is made of Cordura Duroskin and is sensibly shaped to be widest at the bottom, so that when it is fully inflated it concertinas out to offer plenty of surface support. I bobbed well clear of the large standing waves caused by the wind against current in the channels of Rangiroa.
Two elastic straps stop it from flapping during the dive. There are trim-weight pockets hidden at the back and closed with zips rather than the buckle-closures described in the Mares publicity material. These prove invaluable when using an aluminium cylinder.
The BC has a keyholder pocket at the cummerbund, as is now the vogue, but what the water would do to the electronics in most modern car keys is a mystery I have yet to test. I used it to stow my current hook.
With the Jubilee there is no attempt to hide away the non-optional MRS weight-pouches, and these slide onto their external mounts very visibly. There is no danger of a helpful liveaboard crew member installing them incorrectly without it being noticed. I used 4kg of lead each side, plus an extra two as trim-weights. They proved very secure until I needed to hand them up to a boat-handler, when they unclipped precisely.
So far so good. However, I do have one small criticism. When it came to dumping air on ascent, I found that to pull the corrugated hose and operate the shoulder dump distorted the bag and made it impossible to get the last of the air out.
I resorted each time to raising the corrugated hose, as new divers are usually taught to do, and rotating myself as required. This of course lets water back in the other way, and the complex concertina-style design of the wing made it equally difficult to drain this water out when back on board the boat. I felt that the BC needed an extra dump valve at the back section of the bag at the opposite shoulder.
I didn't let this spoil my diving, however, and once I had discovered this drawback, I took it in my stride. Under water, I did feel as sleek as a seal.
The Mares Jubilee costs £335.
Blandford Sub-Aqua 01923 801572
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- You may prefer more than less
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The second dump-valve at the lower back
The MRS integrated weight system is held in place effectively with locking studs
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When I started diving, I bought a soft dive bag. It was purchased almost as an afterthought with my first set of kit. It was probably manufactured in a sweatshop in the Far East, and it lasted less than a year.
I was gradually promoted to expensive but hard-wearing US-made products. After more than 50 trips abroad, I sent the first of these that I had acquired back for an overhaul. I cannot complain about their longevity, and soft bags have the advantage that they can be got rid of into small storage places on boats, once you have unloaded them.
But then I found that, for certain items of kit, a hard crate is more suitable. I bought a lightweight one at the local DIY superstore. It was cheap but came with wheels. The wheels had gone, courtesy of an uncaring airport baggage-handler, after the first trip.
The Scubapro Nimbus Dive 'n' Roll Modular bag combines the idea of a crate with that of a bag. It weighs around 7kg empty and is a tapered hard crate, measuring around 63 x 35 x 18cm at its shallowest point. It has large wheels and an extending handle.
The lid of this crate is a separate dive bag. This has two internal net sections for segregating gear, and an outside pocket. There is also a small detachable bag.
The tapered shape helps the bag retain stability once fully loaded and standing upright, although it does slightly compromise its ability to swallow everything you might wish to carry. That said, it certainly took a full set of dive gear plus all my personal luggage for a week's trip.
So what were the downsides? If you pass through an American airport during your journey, you now have to leave bags unlocked so that the security staff can search them without you being present. The fact that these specially trained personnel managed to break the main zip on my outward journey proved that a fixed set of instructions to undo the zip fully before attempting to open the bag was necessary.
I attached this on my second foray through the USA with better success, and the now-repaired zip stayed intact.
There was another important design problem. The Dive 'n' Roll allows you to unzip the whole soft section and carry it, by means either of its handle or its concealed rucksack-style straps, to your accommodation, while leaving the main crate-like section at the dive centre, or dive deck on a liveaboard. That is a very convenient option.
Alas, checking in only one item may mean that you can pick up only one item later from the baggage belt.
If some untrustworthy person unzips the soft section and carries it off before you can retrieve it, leaving you with only the crate, I fear that the airline will insist that the remaining section might be the only part you originally checked in.
As it was, the Dive 'n' Roll arrived at my final destination without the zip-on small detachable bag. Returning home, I was relieved to find out later that my wife, thinking along the same lines, had removed this empty and unused part long before I set off.
I suggested to Scubapro's chief designer Roberto that a message clearly printed on the top of the crate section to indicate that it was one of two parts would prove that a part was missing. This simple step might go some way to reducing the risk of intentional separation while the item is beyond the owner's supervision.
That apart, this is a very convenient way to transport your gear, and its big wheels and extending handle made light work of moving it along on flat surfaces.
The Scubapro Nimbus Dive 'n' Roll Modular bag costs £145.
Scubapro UK 01256 812636, www.scubapro.co.uk
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+ Many of the advantages of a crate
+ Will take all your gear
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- Zip problems
- Will some thief take some of your gear?
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Other magazines routinely test at the desk. We normally make a point of going diving and telling you what happens.
Forgive me if I take the easier route this time, but as the Dive Rite NiTek3 three-mix nitrox computer was one of the few items of diving equipment that I actually bought myself in the past 10 years, I feel I got to know that computer pretty well.
The Dive Rite NiTek HE seven-mix nitrox and trimix computer is an obvious development of that model.
Dive Rite is a company based in Florida run by a group of what were originally cave-divers, led by Lamar Hires. All the gear they designed and sold was based on in-water experience. They know that divers screw up under water more often than they care to admit. So they make equipment suitable for use by the simple-minded, which includes all of us at some time.
I recently met a British diver in Hurghada, a doctor no less, who was missing a day's diving because he had screwed up with his state-of-the-art multi-mix multi-gas computer. He had simply set it up with a complex programme of gas switches to include a descent to 30m using one of the nitrox mixes he was carrying. But then, as he put it, Òhe couldn't be arsedÓ, and went down on his air supply instead.
Lamar knows that we do these silly things. He keeps it simple. You can pre-choose up to seven different mixes of air, nitrox or trimix before you dive. Simply toggle between the mixes using the two buttons (A and B) to bring up the one you want as you put the relevant regulator in your mouth.
You do need to check that the mixes are what you want immediately before diving, but once under the water, changing mixes is child's play. You cannot lock in any mix that would subject you to a ppO2 in excess of 1.6 bar at the depth you are at.
If my doctor-friend in Hurghada had been equipped with this computer, he could have simply toggled to the 21% nitrox setting at the moment he made that fateful decision. He would then not have wasted the next precious diving day, sitting in the bar of the hotel talking to someone waiting for a flight out.
I have used the sibling NiTek3 extensively. The manual supplied gives precious little technical information but I trust its algorithm, which appears to be Buhlmann L-16. It has never let me down. Both the NiTek3 and the NiTek HE are made for Dive Rite by Seiko in Japan. I can recommend either.
The display is not that large, but there is a graphic for an oxygen limit index, and another for the pressure of inert gas in the tissues. The only real difference in use between the NiTek3 and the HE is that with the latter you can set O2 and helium percentages. It naturally assumes that the rest is nitrogen.
It displays mandatory deco stops and warns of a too-fast ascent in the usual way. There is a log mode and a profile mode which lets you relive the dive, and you can upload onto a PC using the optional interface and NiTek Logic software.
There are no games. It's simple. The only thing it cannot do is be configured to integrate with a closed-circuit rebreather. If you think you should keep things simple, yet use multi-gas mixes, the NiTek HE looks very appealing.
The Dive Rite NiTek HE costs £899.
Sea & Sea 01803 663012, www.sea-sea.com
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+ Keeps things simple when they could be complex
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- At this price, it is not a capricious purchase
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Me and my Shadows
What can one say about a pair of wetsuit boots, apart from admitting that one forgot to pack them? Oceanic sent me a pair of its new boots to try and I took them on a trip without too much anticipation. Wetsuit boots are the sort of purchasing afterthought that gets little attention.
Then I sat on the dive boat and observed the Band-Aid clad feet of one of my companions, and considered that perhaps boots should be given more consideration.
An ill-fitting pair of boots is not cause for concern to the once-a-week diver, but when you find yourself on a liveaboard with the opportunity to dive, say, four times a day over a week, small irritations can become serious considerations.
These new Oceanic boots proved to be quite possibly the most comfortable wetsuit boots I have ever used. Now there's an admission!
They have a reinforced ribbed heel with fin-retainer and a ribbed upper but, most importantly, they come in a shape that is, well, foot-shaped, with a good arch.
There is a heavy gussetted zip and a padded tab to help with pulling them on. Inside, the neoprene is lined with a luxurious towelling material that my bony feet certainly appreciated. I didn't get sore while wearing them. 'Nuff said!
Oceanic Shadow zipped wetsuit boots suit feet in UK sizes 4-13 and cost around £30 per pair
Oceanic SW 01404 891819, www.oceanicuk.com
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A splash of colour
Recently finding myself in the company of some 100 of the world's diving journalists and underwater photographers, I was surprised to find that I was the only one wearing a brightly coloured wetsuit.
When it comes to neoprene, it really seems that this year's 'black' really is black.
So I was relieved to see that the Scubapro Pacific Pro semi-dry suit had some coloured panels within its design. Careful use of colour can make you appear slimmer, and surely nobody would object to that?
I was heading off to a point in the Pacific where cold Arctic currents upwell under the warmer tropical surface water. I thought the Pacific Pro steamer would be ideal and chose the 5mm version over a 7mm option.
Latex seals at wrists and ankles go some way to stop water flushing through, and are hidden under zipped cuffs. More importantly, a zip in the front spared me the trouble of finding someone else to 'do me up'.
The only problem with this arrangement is that, as one swims forward, chilling water is forced through the zip. Scubapro overcomes this with a skin of lightweight neoprene which acts like a vest-front under the zip. You squeeze in behind the inner layer and then pull the neck opening over your head.
It does make getting into the suit that bit more difficult, and I got quite fractious when I initially found myself trapped in a suit a size too small for me.
I had to move to an XXL. Skinny me? Well, I recently discovered that my weight is ideal for my height. This Scubapro suit is primarily for the US market, where kids grow up on high-protein diets, so it was no surprise that it allowed for a far less nipped-in waist than mine. A weightbelt solved that problem.
Heading from warmer surface water into chilling thermoclines at Malpelo, I thought what a good suit this was. The vest front allowed me to momentarily unzip and stow the neoprene cover from my camera's dome-port inside without suffering a near heart-attack from the cold shock.
The Scubapro Pacific Pro Steamer as a monosuit costs £165 in 5mm or £190 in 7mm.
Scubapro UK 01256 812636, www.scubapro.co.uk
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+ Uses colour
+ Clever ideas to keep divers warm
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- It helps if you have a waist the same size as your chest
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