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BC
THE SEACSUB PRO 2000 JACKET is one of scores of BCs on the market and it has been there only since the turn of this century. So it is impressive that it was voted as one of DIVER readers' all-time-favourite items of kit last year. It came 15th in the top 25.
It's a conventional BC with some added benefits, rather than a radical rethink of what a BC should be. Now updated after six years, the latest Pro 2000 has some interesting new features. Putting aside all innovative aspects of its design,
I think it is its sheer indestructibility that gives its owner lasting pleasure. To this end, it uses a 1000 denier Cordura bladder inside a 1000 denier nylon outer shell.
It still has plenty of maximum buoyancy (19kg in size M), most of which is directed to the back, low down where you need it, and to the lower part of the front when fully inflated.
That gives armchair support while waiting at the surface, yet smaller amounts of air sit satisfyingly up near the shoulders, which is perfect for a nice swimming attitude while under water. You don't get squeezed when it is fully inflated, either, thanks to a harness that is entirely separate from the buoyancy cell.
The Pro 2000 still has the unique concept of a strap and adjustable buckle hidden away in a pocket either side, so that you can keep the BC's front buoyancy sections from inflating until you choose to allow them to do so.
There has been a major rethink of the integrated-weight system. It now uses a patented quick-release clip system to retain the side pouches, designed to be jettisoned only in an emergency. The pouches are released by tugging on a couple of conventional-looking toggles.
There is still some Velcro in evidence, but the security of the pouches no longer relies on this alone.
Drysuit diving in a neoprene suit, I found I was able to securely stow at least 6kg in each side. There are also trim-weight pockets high up at the back, and I found that I could put a couple of kilos in each of these, too. The trim-weight pockets are secured shut by both Velcro and a pinch-clip.
That should be enough integrated weight for anyone!
The backpack has been improved, with an ergonomically shaped cushion and an interesting way to secure the straps that terminate there. It came with a single, yet very long, camband.
I found the cummerbund a little short, and had it adjusted for maximum width. Those of you with a beer belly may simply want to rely on the long strap with pinch-clip that fastens over it.
The shoulder-straps have plenty of adjustment in them, and there is a sternum strap under which I tucked the long corrugated direct-feed hose so that it was in no danger of getting trailed into the propeller of the DPV I was using.
The BC has five large D-rings and four smaller ones, but avoids the normal weight penalty by supplying these in an anodised alloy rather than stainless steel.
There are also some mysterious strong fabric loops that I realised also took on the function of D-rings. These are sprinkled on top of shoulder straps and the fronts of the side-pockets. A novel bungee'd octopus-holder puts the business end right in that triangle of visibility so beloved of PADI divers.
Dumping air during an ascent was a delight. It went out as easily as it went in, because the dump valves are positioned in exactly the right place - at the highest point in the buoyancy cell relative to the shoulders.
There is a pull-dump at the top end of the corrugated hose on the left side, and a dump valve opposite that is operated by a toggle-ended cord threaded through some flexible pipe-work to exactly where you would expect to find it at the front. This did tend to get a little hidden by the octopus in its bungee'd holder.
There is a dump-valve at the lower back for quick head-down descents, or for those people clever enough to come up always in a horizontal position with their bum slightly raised. Yes, there are those who claim to do that but I bet they are holding onto a line at the time!
Finally there are useful side pockets that thankfully close by pulling the zipper towards the front, where you will be able to find it easily.
The Seacsub Pro2000 is available in five sizes from XS to XL. It costs £389. A pair of integrated weight pouches costs £24 extra.
Beaver Sports, 01484 512354
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+ Lots of thoughtful new features
+ Well-placed dump valves
+ Secure integrated-weight system
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- Cummerbund inadequate for the fuller figure
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The side-pockets are generously proportioned - but the cummerbund would prove tight for those with a fuller figure
trim-weight pockers are secured using both Velcro and pinch-clips
novel bungee'd octopus-holder.
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MASK
"DON'T YOU HAVE DIESELS IN THE UK?" enquired my friend from Florida's Panhandle. We were driving in his pick-up towards Pensacola. "They're very economical."
I reflected that this 5.9 litre monster in the front was giving about 19 miles to the gallon. Everything is relative. In this part of the world, they like things to be solid.
I had the same feeling about the AtomicVision SubFrame mask sent to me from America. Atomic Aquatics is one of those companies that makes products up to a standard rather than down to a price. This mask reminded me of that pick-up truck!
Claimed to be almost indestructible, the mask frame hides a subframe embedded within the heavy plastic moulding and bonded directly to the silicone rubber skirt.
The maker claims that this gives incredible strength and eliminates the need for a bulky external plastic frame, though I have to say it is talking to the same sort of people who consider 19mpg economical! It's like suggesting that a Humvee is sleek.
The twin lenses are locked in place by a 316 stainless steel retainer, itself fixed with nothing less than a hexagonal nut on the inside of the frame.
Rich kids can have the mask supplied with standard optical-quality, distortion-free UltraClear lenses. These are said to give a clearer view than the ordinary tempered float glass used in other masks, which tends to be a bit green.
Because Atomic's bosses considered that the sort of people who buy their premium-priced products were likely to have grown-up kids and their mortgage paid off, they reckoned most of them would be long-sighted. I meet more and more people who SKI during my dive trips - nothing to do with snow, it stands for Spending the Kids' Inheritance!
Atomic provides the facility to factory-fit plus-dioptre lenses in half-dioptre increments up to a near-blind plus-8-dioptre strength. Mine came with plus-2.5 -dioptre lenses, which only added to the mighty weight of this mask.
Everything Atomic does in the engineering department impresses. The mechanism of the side-buckles to the strap of this mask would have pleased the Victorian engineer Brunel no end. You press down a spring-loaded button that cantilevers the side grips out to allow the tank-track strap to slip through, and release to lock.
I sat and played with this for a while, in the way I admire the fusé movement when I wind the big old clock in my hallway.
The overall effect is of a mask built like the legendary brick toilet. It's no lightweight! Luckily that weight disappears once you are under water and the buoyancy of the air in the mask takes effect. Next time someone kicks me in the face while under water, if I'm wearing this mask I'll take it off and clout him or her with it. That'll teach 'em!
I took the mask to the Maldives and confidently left it inside the foot-pocket of my fin for the guys from the dive centre to take care of.
My first optically corrected mask arrived in the Maldives many years ago with its frame broken. Since then, I have always been sure to carry a spare. Would I risk travelling with a single AtomicVision SubFrame, which weighs about as much as two other masks? I think I probably would.
The AtomicVision SubFrame is available with clear or black skirt in five discreet colourways. Expect to pay £60-100, plus the cost of any optical lenses.
Atomic Aquatics, www.atomicaquatics.com
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+ Probably indestructible
+ Saves the cost of a spare optically corrected mask
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- As weighty as it is over-engineered
- Expensive
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LIGHT
SCREWING DOWN THE FRONT BEZEL to make contact is an arrangement common among inexpensive underwater torches. It is, however, fraught with the danger of the lamp becoming switched on in your pocket due to the pressure at depth, with you blissfully unaware that the battery is being run down. Or it could flood, because you unscrewed it too far when you switched it off.
The Frogman Lenser torch was well received mainly because it had a high-intensity LED fired up by AA batteries, and was turned on by unscrewing the front bezel slightly, rather than the other way around.
Now two new Micro-Frogman torches have arrived in dive shops, and are very similar to the Lenser in that they use the same design and technology but are simply smaller, at just 125mm long, and use AAA batteries instead.
The inexpensive Micro-Frogman Triplex uses three LEDs to provide a light. The more expensive Micro-Frogman Power Chip, in common with a lot of other similar torches competing for this market, uses a single high-intensity LED.
Like its bigger brother, the Micro-Frogman Power Chip uses a solid lump of clear plastic to form both the reflector and front lens, and the result is a focused beam from its high-intensity LED that is actually useful under water.
The lamp is small enough to be secreted away in a pocket and forgotten about until you need a back-up. The similar-sized Triplex has three unfocused LEDs, which are useless for anything other than reading a book under the bedclothes.
It is really useful to a diver only as a beacon, because it is better for being seen with than for seeing by, or perhaps for reading instruments, but nothing more.
With only one opening protected by a single O-ring, the tough ABS construction of these Frogman lamps allows them to be rated to 60m.
Both will survive deep plunges, but don't expect to switch them on while at that depth. In common with the bigger Lenser Frogman, you will find that the water pressure makes it impossible to turn them on by unscrewing the front bezel until you get a lot shallower.
Both torches have an expected burntime of around 50 hours from a set of four AA batteries, so provided it survives, you can expect to get a lot of use from a handy little back-up lamp such as the Power Chip.
Don't bother with its cheaper sibling, unless you want something for the cupboard under the stairs, or for use during unexpected power outages!
You get what you pay for, too. The Micro-Frogman Triplex costs around a wasted £20 while the Micro-Frogman Power Chip costs around a well-invested £30. Batteries and lanyard are included.
Alpha Distribution, 01709 515157
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+ Long burntime
+ Small size
+ High output
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- Difficult to turn on at depth
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REGULATOR
THE MARES MR22 ABYSS HAS ALWAYS BEEN a favourite regulator of mine. It has a metal second stage that neatly does away with problems of free-flow due to icing, and a trouble-free diaphragm-style first stage that routes the two high-pressure hoses down a steep angle from the other hoses in a very convenient way.
The other four ports are also angled away from each other. The result is a very neat hose arrangement, and no problems employing a transmitter for a gas-integrated computer either.
However, the first stage is a mighty lump of chromed brass that would see off any mugger you might meet on the way back from diving, if swung on the end of its hose.
It's not so clever when you come to pack it.
The new V42 first stage is a similar design to the MR22 but is made from a much smaller lump of metal. One of the smallest first stages available, it's as if the designers simply took an MR22 and pared away the surplus metal.
It has the same brilliantly angled hose ports. Looking into it, the clearly visible over-sized diaphragm pressure spring forms a good heat sink for coldwater diving.
Paired with one of the smallest second stages, the Proton Metal, you get a very compact regulator indeed.
The all-metal Proton Metal is a sweet design, too. It hasthe familiar Mares Venturi bi-pass design, which negates any need for knobs and switches, and a substantial finned heat exchanger included in-line with the hose. Its mouthpiece is less floppy than previous Mares efforts, and its exhaust-T is a low, flat, horizontal affair.
I took it on a series of 50m dives that involved long swims back to shore. I wore a twin-set of independent tanks, with the V42 Proton Metal on one side and the older MR22 Abyss on the other. There was no intrusion by exhaled bubbles in my line of sight and both always gave me exactly the air I demanded.So similar were they, I had to take each regulator out of my mouth to check which one I was breathing from. I even checked how much air I had used from each tank to discover if I had a favourite, but I had used each unit equally. The V42 Proton Metal is as good a performer as its popular sibling forerunner.
It promises to perform just as well in the UK's coldest inland freshwater dive sites, and will offer no weight handicap when packed for a trip abroad.
If I have any criticism, it is that the point at which the hp hose screws into the first stage looks a little vulnerable to bad handling. If a tank fell over while the valve was fitted and you were unlucky, I fear that the metal at that point might fracture, and that would make it beyond repair.
I have not tested for that, of course, but it is something to be aware of on busy dive boats in rough seas.
The importer tells me that these V42 Proton Metal regulators are flying off the shelves of dive shops, so you may have trouble finding one to buy.
The Mares Proton Metal costs £380.
Mares, 01639 724740, www.mares.com
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+ New lightweight version of favourite heavyweight
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- May be more fragile than its older brother
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CAMERA LENS
I WENT OFF TO FLORIDA TO DIVE and photograph the USS Oriskany, a decommissioned aircraft-carrier and now the biggest artificial reef in the world. I wondered what would be the best way to reveal its awesome size, and treated myself to a Nikon full-frame digital fish-eye
lens to help find a solution.
The Nikkor DX 10.5mm f/2.8 G gives an angle of view close to 180° on land. That is wide enough to include your feet. Under water, behind the big dome port of a submarine housing, it is narrowed down to a bit less than that, but you still have to be careful not to include your flashguns or fins in the picture.
The lens focuses to within 14cm of a subject, but that subject will still look a fair distance away. Besides the obvious application of getting a lot of a big subject in the frame while still being within the realms of good visibility, it also has a more useful application that has been exploited by underwater photographers such as Alex Mustard.
It allows the photographer to enjoy composing pictures with some dynamic perspective by allowing the lens to approach very close to a subject.
The perspective in most underwater pictures can look a little flat, even though underwater photographers, except when shooting macro subjects, invariably use wide-angle lenses to take close-focus landscapes.
Because there is so little water between you and what you are photographing, the clarity of the pictures is at its maximum. When I was in the Maldives during the rainy season, this characteristic became very important.
The water was full of plankton and tiny baitfish, and I needed to get as close to my subject as possible, which the 10.5mm lens behind its 8in dome-port allowed.
Only suitable for use with digital single-lens-reflex (DSLR) cameras, this lens will work on any camera with a Nikon lens mount. Its relatively wide maximum aperture makes for a bright through-the-lens viewfinder image, but I found that it needed to be stopped down to at least f/8 to give acceptable sharpness.
For natural-light pictures, it proved better to increase the ISO speed, and risk grain or electronic noise, than to use the wider lens openings to make pictures.
I was still a young photographer when extreme wide-angle lenses emerged. We used to call the super wide-angle 40mm lens of the bigger Hasselblad camera a "miracle lens" because it seemed able to make pictures in situations in which one might think there were none.
It's the same with this Nikon FishEye lens. No wonder it is becoming a firm favourite with certain underwater photographers.
The Nikon Nikkor DX 10.5mm f/2.8 G FishEye lens costs around £600.
Nikon, www.nikon.co.uk
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+ Makes underwater pictures more dynamic
+ Makes pictures apparently clearer
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- Another expensive lens for DSLR owners to buy!
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WETSUIT
THE PINNACLE ELASTIPRENE 7 WETSUIT is made from a mixture of 5mm and 7mm neoprene. Pinnacle is a company based in New Zealand but this suit isn't made in China like all the others - it's made in the Philippines!
Some people might think it would be rather a warm suit to take to the Maldives, but it was the rainy season and I found myself quite comfortable in it, despite the extra amount of lead I had to wear above that I might have worn with a 3mm suit.
It's nicely constructed, with gusseted zips at the ankles. Because it is made of such flexible material, it can fit really closely, which is what is required for a wetsuit to work well.
The Elastiprene 7 has simple O-ring seals at the cuffs and smoothskin inside the ankles. It also has Kevlar kneepads, reinforced shoulders, and a rear zip with a really chunky lump of neoprene that doubles up in protecting against flushing while also functioning as a spine pad.
The turndown smoothskin collar inverts inwards like a neoprene drysuit and is sealed with a generous helping of Velcro. I found this a bit uncomfortable, as it tended to rub on my neck, so I left it unfastened with no ill-effects.
Clouds of talc
I found the suit exceedingly easy to get in and out of, thanks to the stretchiness of its material. This can matter.
Back when I regularly taught new divers, I remember that getting in and out of the suit was the greatest trauma they had to suffer. I have lasting visions of my new charges disappearing in clouds of talcum powder as they cursed and struggled into and out of suits that were less than stretchy.
Regular readers will know that I have a predilection for Pinnacle suits, and although there is not too much to tell you about this one, it does look very well constructed.
I did 11 consecutive dives with it, in some strong currents and around a wreck. I always came up with the legs covered in rust marks, but the stitching showed no signs of becoming unravelled.
This is the fault I find with some other wetsuits - and it usually happens just after I have submitted my copy for publication!
Pinnacle Wetsuits are distributed in the UK by Airsub International, which has a close association with Oceanic SW, and I understand that you can buy exactly the same thing with an Oceanic label. That suit is called the Oceanic Strexs and costs the same as the Pinnacle Elastiprene 7 - £225.
Airsub International, 01404 892204
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+ Well-constructed
+ Easy to don
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- Not as warm as a semi-dry
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