September 2000 Fully loaded: wear and forget

Fully loaded: wear and forget - Cressi-Sub S108 BC The woman with green eyes - Oceanic Lite Vision Mask It's such a perfect reg - Scubapro G600/MK20 Better to be seen with than to see with - Lite Rover torch The art of wearing dry gloves - SiTech Helios dry gloves

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.

THE DAY THEY MADE THE FIRST CRESSI S SERIES BC WAS HARDLY THE DAWN OF A NEW DESIGN ERA. Yet when I tried the S102 a couple of years ago, I reckoned it was the most comfortable conventional-style jacket I had tried in a long time.
Sampling the S104 a year later, I was again not disappointed. I seem destined to take a new Cressi model on a dive trip each year, and it has been a case of gentle evolution rather than mind-boggling innovation.
So how does the latest, the S108, compare with BCs that have come into the market since? As car dealers like to say, Cressi's top-of-the-range BC comes fully loaded.
It has plenty of options for dumping air, with its corrugated hose-pull and pull-cord dumps at either shoulder and at the lower back. The hose-pull dump incorporates the over-pressure valve.
I noted with interest that the direct-feed control has a salt filter, which should make it less likely to jam through poor rinsing after diving.
The S108 has capacious expanding zipped pockets and five normal stainless steel D-rings, plus two smaller ones. Its cummerbund and broad waist-strap with big pinch-clip are elasticated to keep things snug when your suit shrinks under pressure.
There is a sternum strap. Unlike the S104 it has no crotch-strap, but then that item on the S104 was so useless that I quickly dispensed with it.
There are two weight-pockets at the front. The integrated weight system is interesting in that it will accept quite a lot of lead, yet is securely held closed by a generous helping of velcro and a press-stud fastening at the top of each side weight-pocket, with a pinch-clip at the bottom.
You might expect this to provide a less rapid method of jettisoning weights in an emergency than some other BCs, and I would agree (while adding, as ever, that a correctly weighted diver should never need to jettison weight). I needed to get rid of integrated weights only when the rig was clipped into a boat's bottle rack and in danger of falling forwards.
In keeping with the S104, the newer model also allows some trim weights to be installed either side of the tank at the back. These simple pockets, closed by velcro, prove useful when using an aluminium cylinder, which can tend to become floaty towards the end of a dive.
In the water, it was again a case of use this BC and forget it. Air dumped from either shoulder just as required. There was no need to writhe about to get the last of it out. I could easily get to the pockets, though I did have some trouble locating the weight-dumping pinch clips, but I was never in any danger of needing them.
This conventional-style Cressi jacket is among a select few which I find seems to become part of me when diving. It does not ride up and I don't feel I'm swimming about inside it. When it comes to fully inflating it at the surface, it expands out and away from me, eliminating squeeze.
There is not a fantastic amount of mouth-to-water distance when waiting at the surface but there was enough and I never felt in danger of getting a mouthful of sea water.
So the Cressi S108 is not ground-breaking. It just continues a line of very well-made BCs (denier 1000 material) in a rather conventional form and does its job admirably.
Available in sizes S, M, L and XL, the S108 costs £352.

Cressi-sub 01484 310130

PLUS	MINUS
+ Comfortable, classically evolved style + High build quality	- Not a fantastic amount of surface support - Weights not readily dropped in an emergency

The woman with green eyes

"You won't need that torch," insisted my buddy, just as we were about to launch ourselves over the side of the inflatable. It was my first British dive and I bowed to his obviously superior experience.
Leaving my torch behind, I followed him down the shotline 30m to the seabed, where I found a very frightened diver unable to see his instruments, or much else for that matter.
Luckily, I had a little emergency lamp stowed in my pocket, but it was not a very enjoyable dive. He nearly broke my arm, he hung on to it so tightly.
Things would have been different if we had each been wearing a Lite Vision mask. A novel idea from Oceanic, this has a light source built in. It uses three very bright light-emitting diodes and runs on four user-replaceable shirt-button batteries.
The mask can be set for either constant or flashing mode by using the small switch on top. It responds to a setting sequence, to reduce the chance of it being switched on in your dive bag by accident and draining the battery.
With its small output, this green light is better at saying: "Here I am" than "There you are", but it proved useful for looking at instruments so makes for a useful last-resort back-up.
It is also an ideal substitute for a use-once-only lightstick, revealing your position to other divers in the dark.
The mask itself uses the ubiquitous single-lens design with clear side panels in a transparent frame. As usual, to see my instruments up close, I needed to fit some soft DiveOptx lenses.
Unusually, because the narrow beam of the built-in LEDs is collimated in a straight line with the mask, the pool of light it provided up close was unnaturally high in my line of sight. So I needed to fit the lenses much higher and closer together on the glass of the mask than normal, looking below and past them for distant vision.
In the past I have tried attaching a powerful light to my mask, as cave-divers do in clear, sterile water. However, this merely attracted clouds of unwanted small animals, until I was looking at the underwater world through a fog of heaving planktonic life, including red worms that coiled through the water and made me think of all the unprotected orifices of my body. Not pleasant.
The green light of the Oceanic Lite Vision mask appears not to do this. It costs around £42, including a padded mask bag which can be bought separately (£5.50). It is available in crystal silicone with a black or blue frame.

Oceanic SW 01404 891819

PLUS	MINUS
+ Lets you see your instruments when all else fails + Makes an effective beacon + Does not appear to encourage plankton	- The pool of light produced is high in your line of sight

It's such a perfect reg
Faultless, immaculate, matchless, peerless, divine: it seems like only yesterday that I was writing about the Scubapro G500/MK20 regulator.
I was told then that the company had made its perfect piston regulator design even more perfect. It seems that perfection is hard to achieve, because now I have been sent the new S600 to try.
Has Scubapro finally reached a state of nirvana? Is this design flawless? Will we never see a regulator design that surpasses this one? Or is it just a ploy to get people with too much money to trade in the previous model?
Scubapro would say that it's like Formula One cars. Every year, the manufacturers find a way to get them to go faster.
There is no doubt that people will spend to have the latest model. Let's face it, the motor industry is based on that premise. The G500 has been out for a couple of years and there are those who would prefer not to be seen with a superseded model.
Scubapro pioneered the piston design and says that other manufacturer's piston regulators do not perform as well as its diaphragm designs, because Scubapro has cornered all the patents that would make that possible.
All I know is that Scubapro piston regulators have proved very popular worldwide, if not in countries where there is a lot of cold, fresh water and divers prefer environmentally sealed first stages.
Piston designs are easy to maintain, and that could be important when faced with a problem and a long way from a service centre.
The S600 second stage, which comes with the MK20 piston first stage, is said to be no less than a 15 per cent better performer than its predecessor! What I did notice is that it has a far better mouthpiece (available as a part to fit to any Scubapro regulator you might already have) and a snazzily designed purge control.
It has the same max/min setting that avoids free-flows at the surface, and the same adjustable spring tensioner that allows you to turn up the cracking pressure needed to open the valve. This makes a very light breathe more difficult if that is your desire.
The S600 is small, neat and beautifully crafted. Of course it was a delight to use and I rank it among the best. Whether it actually delivers the promised 15 per cent is debatable. Cynics might suggest that the redesign of the second stage was precipitated by rumoured moulding problems with some of those G500s that were sold on the US market. The ones in the UK came from the Continent and did not suffer any defects.
The example I tried was faultless and I am sure anyone who splashes out for a S600/MK20 will be very happy, once the financial wounds have healed.
It costs £349.

Scubapro (UK) 01256 812636

PLUS	MINUS
+ Scubapro's best yet + Light breathe + Improved mouthpiece + Beautifully crafted	- Expensive

Better to be seen with than to see with
Tracer watches are known for their efficient screen illumination. From the same importer comes the Lite-Rover, the smallest in a series of lamps that use modern LED technology rather than a straight tungsten bulb to give light.
The Lite-Rover uses three AA-size batteries, said to last up to 17 times longer than normal. In size it competes with other occasional and back-up torches and slots neatly into a BC pocket.
What spoiled it for me immediately was the fact that, in common with a lot of other inferior lamps, it switches by screwing the reflector/lamp unit down on to the batteries, buffered only by a pair of O-rings - the same O-rings that are there to keep the water out.
This is fine on a primary diving light, because you switch it on before you go in and turn it off only after you get out of the water, thus avoiding having a sudden current surge blow the bulb.
Unfortunately, if you want to carry a lamp like this in the "off" position, the reflector/lamp unit must be backed off from the sealing O-ring. This always introduces doubt as to whether it will work when you need it. You could be carrying it around for months, gradually flooding it without knowing, and discover it only when you are left in the dark.
Manufacturers which use this type of design will argue that this is not the case, but I would contend that its sole benefit is reduced manufacturing cost.
I took the little Lite-Rover diving and found that its brilliant white light-emitting diodes gave out more light than anyone would expect, and a very cold light, too.
Alas, the beam was not focused. It would be impossible to focus four light sources, so it gave a very wide, short-range light.
The Lite-Rover is therefore better for viewing instruments than for finding your way, but it did make an exceedingly good beacon! The LEDs are said to last up to 10 years.
The Lite-Rover costs £50.

Lite Pro 07000 827737

PLUS	MINUS
+ Batteries last a long time	- No focused beam - Primitive method of switching on/off

The art of wearing dry gloves
Cold hands, warm heart. If that be true, there must be a lot of warm-hearted divers emerging from the waters of inland sites each winter.
Xerotech dry gloves promise to keep your hands dry and warm without impeding your dexterity. They don't look as if they would allow you to be very nimble-fingered - they look more like devices used by institutions to keep wayward young men from abusing themselves. However, they do keep the water and thus the cold out and, unlike cheaper dry gloves, are comfortably lined inside.
I brought a pair back from the American DEMA show to try, which is ironic as they are made in Shropshire.
The standard orange glove needs to be used with a Kevlar over-glove but the heavy-duty type (blue) should stand up to the rigours of amateur use on its own.It is not just a rubber glove with a seal. The integral inner lining is in two parts: a fine jersey material shaped to fit with the outer moulded shell, plus a loop-pile brushed-acrylic interliner which provides most of the insulation.
The standard Helios wrist seal is conical and cut to suit the user. It is used turned in on itself, so that it abuts the drysuit wrist seal but does not interfere with it.
I had to put them on at the last moment before diving and to be confident with the operation of my equipment. There is an art to putting them on so that you maintain some air inside, like an inflatable cushion. This air is compressed as you descend to stop the gloves being crushed uncomfortably around your fingers.
There is probably a way in which they can be integrated with your suit so that they share its air and avoid the effects of increasing ambient pressure. If your suit has the option of cuff rings, you could use these with a length of plastic drinking straw at each cuff to allow air to pass through.
Helios Dry Gloves (Blue) cost £35 and come in sizes 8, 9 and 10.

Helios Safety & Rescue Products 01952 461541

PLUS	MINUS
+ Keep your hands warm and dry	- Need to know the technique for getting them on - Makes tasks at the surface difficult

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Appeared in DIVER - September 2000

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