They're as American as Bill Clinton, IDI's two new Osprey regulators. John Bantin finds them a breath of fresh air.
International Divers Inc (IDI) is a brand relatively new to the UK diving market. Among products sent for me to try were a couple of its regulators - the Osprey Ice Breaker and the Osprey Nitrox.
IDI is more American than apple pie and, as such, is very detailed in its instructions to its sometimes poorly informed home customers. I could not help being amused to find instructions on how to pronounce "Osprey" (Aw-spray!). However, It's so similar to an IST regulator I have in my possesion I was tempted to conclude it must be made in Taiwan.
The two regulators are superficially the same, with balanced piston-type first stages supplying two high-pressure ports, and four medium-pressure ports mounted in two pairs on revolving turrets, which are finished in satin chrome. Provided with a wide-mouth international A-clamp mounting, rated to 4000psi (270 plus bar), I experienced no difficulty in mating them to a wide range of different cylinders. Each comes with a capacious knob.
The second stage is metal yet of a very lightweight design. It is made of plastics-coated brass and has a large diameter, with plenty of access for water to flow through the front part, which doubles as a purge button. This access is one of the keys to good performance at depth. The exhaust port, on the other hand, has only a small deflector, which tends to put one's exhaled bubbles up close to one's mask.
The Osprey Icebreaker comes with a first stage packed with silicone retained behind a wide band of thick rubber. The metal second stage appears to have enough heat-sink properties to ensure that the air is warmed sufficiently by the surrounding water to avoid any freezing effects. The purge button is concealed behind a large, soft, black plastics panel on the front to avoid presenting anything visually startling to a marine animal that the user might want to examine closely.
The first stage of the Nitrox version has a narrower band of rubber. This allows water to reach through open ports to the working parts, like a classic piston design. More important, the Nitrox version is colour-coded and comes with O2 compatible parts. The inter-stage hose (made in the USA) is bright lime green and so is the plastics material surrounding the purge button of the Nitrox second stage.
There is still some discussion about what the international colour code for nitrox-compatible gear should be. Up to now green and yellow have been preferred... but a little bird tells me blue might eventually find favour.
The IDI Osprey Nitrox is not aimed only at the leisure diver who might use EAN. Precise gas-switching is a crucial technique of technical diving. There is no big deal to switching from one regulator to another, but among the plethora of regulators with which a technical diver might find himself adorned, it is important to be able to switch to the right one at the right time. In technical diving mistakes are easily made - and cannot be rectified later.
Diving with a cluster of different gas mixes, I found it invaluable to be able to define clearly the regulator that was connected to my decompression gas (nitrox 36 or nitrox 50). The lime-green Osprey Nitrox with its matching hose was always unmistakable.
Having used it only at 33m or shallower, I cannot comment on its deep-water performance, but it was no disappointment to have to breathe from the Osprey rather than the other regulators rigged alongside it.
I can also say that some of my companions were using brands of regulator with performances which, in comparison, offered all the breathing ability of an asthmatic cattery worker smoking 40 Capstan Full Strength a day!
The IDI Osprey Ice Breaker costs £237.35. The IDI Osprey Nitrox costs £258.50.
The diving equipment market is flourishing - there is so much good stuff around. The Mares Lirica mask is one item about which I can easily get excited. It is a well-designed, well-manufactured piece of kit.
With a single panel of glass cut in such a shape as to give good downward vision (always useful when adjusting one's dress), a strong frame built in a stylish anatomical shape, a generous silicone skirt and a heavyweight silicone strap, it is a flaw-free, low-volume design.
But don't take my word for it. I let quite a number of other divers try the example sent for me to test and they all wanted to keep it! None other than well-known cave-diver Rob Palmer, a man who is inclined to dive where some of us with more sense would not, elected to keep it as his primary diving mask. I am sure Mares won't mind.
The Mares Lirica mask is available in several colours and costs £34.95.
It was at the end of a long, deep dive and we had a considerable decompression stop ahead of us. I intended to put up my delayed- deployment surface marker buoy but, as my hands were full with a camera, my buddy took it from me.
He rejected my highly esteemed winder reel, instead attaching the buoy to a device of his own. This appeared to be a small bag held closed with a Velcro flap.
A quick burst of air and up went the buoy. He dropped the bag, which descended 25m on a length of webbing 25mm wide. This had been held in the bag together with a 0.6kg weight.
We were left holding on to the webbing. It was much more comfortable than the SMB line would have been and, like all good ideas, incredibly simple.
The webbing has D-rings set at 3m, 6m, 9m, 12m, and 15m so that a diver has the possibility of clipping himself on and dozing, or even reading a book during a long stop. (What's the secret of taking a book underwater? Take a cheap paperback and never try to read it when at the surface!)
Bear in mind that you will be dropping a weight at a time when your tanks are lighter than they were at the start of the dive. Allowance must be made for this on the weightbelt.
The Bowstone Deco Bag costs £45 (plus the cost of a late deployment SMB to put on the end of it). Bowstone also makes a smaller Mini Deco Bag with 12m of tape and stage-stop D-rings set at 3m, 6m and 9m.
Carbon monoxide is a killer. It is odourless, tasteless, invisible - and very common. CO is generated by ordinary modern appliances and machinery like cooking stoves, gas heaters, industrial equipment and the good old internal combustion engine. The drive unit of the compressor which fills your scuba cylinder could easily be pumping CO out into the same air that is being drawn in again by the compressor.
Breathe it in, even in the minutest quantities, while at depth, and the results could be as certain as a bullet in the brain.
I travel a lot. I turn up at dive centres anywhere in the world and have to trust them to fill my tank safely. Sometimes I know when I get a foul-smelling, oil-contaminated fill, but as to deadly CO, so far I have been lucky.
But I need not rely on luck or the good auspices of complete strangers any longer, for now I have my own Carbon Monoxide Detector from AirCheck Systems Inc.
This is a little unit measuring around 5cm that fits between the direct-feed control and its medium-pressure supply hose. Insert a tan-coloured litmus strip in the clear body of the device and simply give it a squirt for 2-3 seconds. If there is any carbon monoxide present, there will be a colour change within a few minutes. If there is no colour change you can continue to use the same test strip for four to five days. Do not take it underwater!
The device is said to be able to detect quantities of CO as low as 50ppm. Alas, the European standard for scuba breathing air (PREN 12021) sets a limit of a tenth of this amount, but I think for 39.95 it is worth checking to see if the local compressor operator is getting things desperately wrong! Additional sets of test strips cost £9.45 (standard) or £15.51 (nitrox).
Diving knives often seem to be designed more for their ability to take on grizzly bears than for practical underwater applications. I was recently sent a rather grand example to try. The blade was so long that it took a great deal of effort to free it from its holster. The only advantage was that when I accidentally dropped it during the dive the blade was easy to spot among the organic clutter of the seabed when I retraced my steps.
The Eagle Pocket Knife is different. It is small enough to secure to the BC with a lanyard, but it folds out like a penknife, revealing a savage blade normally concealed in a plastic handle. I found it perfect for hacking through the thickest of ropes but also for coping with monofilament.
If you want a knife for emergency use, this could be it. Tie it to a D-ring inside a BC pocket and it remains unobtrusive until you need it. It is made of a grade of stainless steel that contains less chromium but which can be made exceedingly sharp.
You need to maintain it, however. I suggest packing it with petroleum jelly when new to limit the ravages of salt water. Mine became quite rusty after only a few weeks - because I used it and abused it.
The Eagle Pocket Knife costs £8.70, plus £4.80 if you want a pouch for it.
The Oceanic Shoulder Saver is a coat-hanger designed specifically for diving suits. It has a fat profile so that the shoulders of the suit suffer no undue stress, and a choice of bolt-in hooks with different-length shanks which can take the weight of a heavy item. It's a simple idea - and it works. The cost: £14.
For those of your family who might not be serious divers but want to sample the underwater sights on holiday, Mares makes an attractive snorkelling set in matching colours.
The Scubing Set comprises Tropic slipper fins, Baja mask and Riviera snorkel. The mask is a comfortable, low-volume, single-lens design with a black silicone skirt. At £35 the set is good value.
Also useful on holiday are Mares Beachcomber beach shoes, with thick, squashy soles and adjustable Velcro straps. These sandals have a comfortable protective cushion at the heel, which also stops the heel strap being trodden down.
They are lightweight and have proved ideal for use on boat or beach. They will also survive in the sometimes wet and clammy depths of the divebag, and are eminently washable. They cost
19.95.
The Scuba Rattle reviewed in the August issue of Diver was wrongly described as an "aluminium" tube. Its body is made of stainless steel.
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