March 1998
Suited for hot and cold
John Bantin tried two versions of Northern Diver's Omega
wetsuit: one suitable for warm waters, the other very welcome in more wintry conditions
(one-piece £125, two-piece £195).
THE equatorial waters of the Galapagos are chilled by the cold upwellings caused by the Humbolt current so that, uniquely, divers can witness penguins and sea lions alongside moorish idols and other tropical species. In such conditions, I thought the Northern Diver Omega Titanium two-piece suit would be ideal. However, 1997 was a year of El Nino - the warm current that upsets this normal state of affairs.
Luckily for me, Northern Diver had just sent me two examples of its Omega wetsuit to try. One was a one-piece semi-dry with a front zip, and thick wrist and ankle seals. In the event, with the Galapagos waters 5°C warmer than usual, this was the one I used. It was fairly ordinary, but it served me well and the stitching did not fall apart, which is more than can be said of some of the new suits worn by my fellow divers.
A few days after I returned from the Pacific, I set off to the wintry Egyptian Red Sea for the Diver regulator test. There I opted for the other suit Northern Diver had sent, which is a little more interesting.
Both suits use Northern Diver's titanium-lined 7mm neoprene, which is very flexible and has more heat-retaining properties than the plain stuff.
The longjohn of the two-piece has short sleeves with 6mm neoprene smooth-skin seals at the biceps. This avoids the chilling effect of water flushing into the armpits, which you sometimes encounter with the more usual sleeveless style. However, the panel of material under the arms is thinner than that used elsewhere in the suit - apart from behind the knees, where thinner material is also used. There is a front zip and smooth-skin ankle seals.
Knee-pads are massively reinforced with padding under a nylon patch - so much so that I felt my knee joint restricted. Underwater this was not noticeable, and probably helped me to maintain a better straight-leg fin kick.
The 7mm jacket has a built-in hood with air-vent holes to stop that pointy-headed look caused by exhaled air getting trapped in it. Uniquely, it also has vast integrated padded sections that cover the shoulder blades, the small of the back and the kidneys. This carries the legend "Pro-Shield" and gives a total of 21mm of neoprene at these points.
The padding certainly took the discomfort out of carrying a twin-set and I was very snug - probably as snug as I would have been in a drysuit. The only problem was that, to sink this inordinate amount of neoprene, I had to load up both my weightbelt and the integrated weight system of my BC - and then I had to walk with it. With an aluminium twinset in the Red Sea, I found I needed a massive 17kg.
That said, the ND Omega in two-part form makes a sensible alternative to a drysuit, allowing you to avoid the pitching and yawing caused when air migrates within a drysuit, which is the main bug-bear of video-makers who want to hold their camcorder steady for more than a few moments.
Both suits exhibit a fine quality of workmanship, which is sometimes missing in similar products that bear familiar brand names, but which are imported from countries in the Pacific rim. Available in seven off-the-peg sizes, the Omega Titanium one-piece resort suit costs £125, and the two-piece costs £195.
Northern Diver, 01257 254444.
Sherwood Oasis regulator (£240) and Sherwood Minimus octopus
rig (£86).
An Oasis to soothe those dry throats
THE Sherwood SRB5700 Oasis is a new regulator, albeit with an old name. It has a new first-stage with a simple-to-service balanced-piston design, and the old patented dry-bleed system, which keeps water out by maintaining a positive pressure within the unit over the surrounding water. Excess air bleeds off in a tiny stream of bubbles, which sometimes prompts misinformed buddies to think that you have a tank O-ring about to blow!
Servicing is so simple and so few parts need replacing that Sherwood includes the cost of servicing kits for two years in the cost of the regulator. Two red rings attached to the mp hose are there to be removed, one each year, by the servicing technician in order to keep tabs on how many "free" servicing kits have been used. This could also be a useful indicator to anyone buying a second-hand unit.
The Sherwood first-stage has a simple flow-by piston design. The mechanism has been redesigned recently to make the servicing technician's job simpler, too. There are two high-pressure ports and five medium-pressure ports positioned around a fixed barrel, finished in a hard-wearing matt chrome.
A 300-bar DIN fitting can be supplied for about 16 extra, and the viton O-rings needed for complete conversion to 50 per cent nitrox compatibility cost around £15.
Sherwood valves are assembled in the factory alongside medical O2 equipment, so they all come O2 clean. This could be important to technical divers looking for a regulator to use on decompression mixes. The second-stage of the Oasis certainly looks different from other makes, which should avoid any confusion.
The second-stage is a small all-plastic unit in grey, with a wide-spaced exhaust tee. This avoids the problem, often encountered with these toy-sized units, of exhaled air bubbles passing up in front of the face. It comes with a long Wisdom mouthpiece which slots well back under the user's molars. Some find it very comfortable, while others might find it a bit of a tonsil-toucher. It certainly felt lightweight. Otherwise, the second-stage is devoid of knobs and levers.
What gives it its unique selling proposition are its two integral fins, which pick up water condensing from the exhaled breath of the diver, and return it as vapour with the air inhaled. This helps avoid that dry-throat phenomenon so often encountered during lengthy dives.
I used an Oasis extensively in a hot climate for long shallow dives, and I believe that, for leisure diving in mild conditions, the Oasis is a good option. I was certainly not left with that hard-to-swallow feeling at any time, which probably indicates that the breath-condensing fins were working, although it would be difficult to do a definitive comparison test.
If you take into consideration the reliability factor, which can be important when you are far from technical help, the Oasis makes a serious alternative to other regulators on the market.
Together with the Oasis, Sherwood sent me its Minimus octopus rig. It is really small, can be used either way up (which removes one element of confusion when things becomes fraught) and, although normally supplied with a 75cm hose, it can be supplied with one twice that length - ideal for the demands of tekkies during lengthy decompression stops.
The Sherwood Oasis costs £240. The Sherwood Minimus octopus rig costs £86.
Sherwood, 0115 9458634.
Icom IC-M1 Euro VHF radio (£349).
Keeping in contact with a compact
RADIO contact with land is vital for a boatload of divers, whether they are heading over the horizon to an offshore dive site or taking a run along the coast inshore.
Diver's own BSAC branch tried out one of the handiest handheld VHF radios currently on the market - the water-resistant IC-M1 Euro from Icom.
This highly compact radio (142mm x 53mm x 30mm) has been designed as a rugged, easy-to-use unit with a large, clear display and illuminated buttons for night operation. It has a longlife rechargeable battery which should last for 34 hours on standby, while three power levels are available for communications.
During a weekend's RIB diving, the radio operated faultlessly, with rotating dials for channel selection and squelch control, and push buttons for other functions. The radio proved comfortable to operate with one hand.
A particularly useful function was the ability to programme in a quick-call channel, so that the radio could be switched between Ch 16 and a pre-arranged private channel at the press of a button. Several call channels could be set up if desired.
Another good feature was the radio's "tag" function, which allows you to select any sequence of channels for scanning in addition to Ch16. This speeds up the scanning process by eliminating the channels you do not wish to include. Standard VHF dual-watch and tri-watch scanning modes can also be selected.
Whatever scanning arrangement you adopt, the radio can be programmed to pause indefinitely at a channel on which a signal is being received, or to "move on" after five seconds, whether or not the incoming signal has ended. You then make up your own mind on whether to return to the in-signalling channel.
Other controls cover auto scan function (which means a preset scan mode is automatically activated when the set is switched on) back lighting, and operational beep tone on/off/volume.
Supplied with a battery charger and neck/wrist lanyard, the IC-M1 Euro costs £349. It is one of the more expensive water-resistant handheld VHFs, but Icom says it is a tough radio containing components of the best quality.
More immediately clear to the prospective buyer is that the radio is undoubtedly one of the more compact and attractive handhelds on the market today.
Icom, 01227 741741.
Paul Fenner
OMS IQ double-bladder technical diver's BC (£530).
A tech diver's BC for frequent fliers
THE technical divers in the group with whom I found myself seemed determined to condemn the OMS IQ wing before I had even tried it. In fact it worked extremely well, and I believe that their reaction was simply one of chauvinism on behalf of the brand leader in multiple-bladder technical diving BCs, rather than a cool assessment. They saw it as an interloper rather than a worthy alternative.
The first OMS technical wing BC that I tried some years ago was a very complex affair involving a stainless-steel backplate - of a true ballistic quality. It was bulletproof and certainly did not need to be used in conjunction with much lead once it was paired with steel cylinders. This plate was perforated with holes along its border, which allowed for the attachment of no end of peripherals, but it took me half a day to rig it to my twin cylinders.
That OMS technical diver's BC is still available for those to whom it appeals, but for the likes of yours truly - whose diving is often preceded by a flight in an aeroplane, and who normally uses a variety of locally derived cylinders - it lacked a sensible application!
So the importers sent me a later model, which comes equipped with a backplate of ABS plastic. That's more like it, though in its lightweight form it still accounted for around 7kg of my checked-in baggage!
This backplate is encased in the tough nylon material from which the harness is made. To say the harness is tough is an understatement. There is a large D-ring positioned at the scruff of the neck to enable a set to be winched aboard - I assume without the diver still attached! I counted 20 other D-rings. Please forgive me, OMS, if I missed any. At either side there are three pockets - one held closed by velcro for, say, a spare mask; one zipped shut with tagged zips adorned with large knobs. A further one on each side is for weights.
Because the weights I was using were small, I felt insecure about them slipping unexpectedly through the gaps left in the velcro quick-release system, so I put some in the alternative zipped pockets and kept others on a separate belt.
The shoulder straps are adjustable to accommodate the bulkiest of divers. The cummerbund is closed by velcro and secured by a 5cm webbing belt and fastex buckle, and there is a further small zipped pocket for a slate. Then there is a narrower crotch strap that fits on to a smaller fastex buckle, attached to a large stainless-steel ring.
The wing is attached to the harness by two large bolts and wing-nuts. A thick pad cushions the diver from intrusion by these. The wing is a double-bladder affair enclosed within a single outer bag. To stop the material billowing around underwater, the whole lot is scrunched up by a number of tight elasticated bands.
Air is introduced to the primary bladder via a normal-looking corrugated direct-feed hose on the diver's left. It can be dumped by raising this hose, or using a pull-cord dump at the right shoulder.
The secondary bladder is filled by a direct feed on the right, which tends to rig itself towards the rear of the wing. Its dump valve is positioned so that its pull cord is available at the left shoulder. There is also a bottom dump (for the primary bladder) for use in case of inversion.
Because I was travelling, I eschewed the complex OMS stainless-steel twinning bands. I couldn't face re-rigging cylinders between dives using this method. They are fine if you take the whole set-up to the compressor, but not suitable for re-rigging to different tanks at the aft end of a crowded dive boat.
I was supplied with the set rigged for a large single cylinder. Because, during this particular trip, I had no access to a large cylinder equipped with a Y-valve and therefore able to be rigged with two regulators, the secondary bladder was in danger of becoming an irrelevance.
Enter George Brown, who showed me how to rig Buddy Twinning Blocks and Bands to the OMS buckles, dispensing with the two OMS cam bands. Thanks to George and AP Valves, I was up and running with two normal 12-litre cylinders supplied by the dive centre, and was able to swap them swiftly between dives.
In the water, the OMS BC was perfect, although I found I tended to dump air not by pulling the toggle on the dump valve - which rarely fell to hand - but by feeling for the valve itself and pulling on the cord where it emerged from it. I found myself positioned perfectly horizontally in the water, and I could turn upside-down with impunity thanks to the crotch-strap (and a dose of Zantac!).
With a maximum lift in the order of 45kg, I was secure when waiting at the surface. And with twin 12-litre cylinders I had enough air to fill the BC even after a long dive, and there was no tendency to tip me on my face.
The OMS IQ double-bladder technical diver's BC with ABS backplate costs £530.
RED UK Ltd, 01703 454550.
Apeks Marine VIP safety light (£38).
Diving in a comforting red glow
BREAK-and-shake chemical light sticks, diffused beacons, flashing strobes, little flashing lamps - I've used them all.
With a use-once-only chemical light stick, you never know if it will work until you try it; diffused beacons attract plankton, and flashers make you feel as if you're diving in a disco!
I recently tried the Apeks VIP Safety light, which produced a comfortable red glow. Like the red night-light on the bridges of vessels, it has the advantage of not destroying a diver's night vision.
Designed to be used by all manner of sportsmen, the VIP Safety light does not need to be immersed in water to work, but it is rated to 100m depth. You can clip it onto your BC or attach it to your arm by means of its 50mm velcro webbing strap.
A rotating bezel ring switch allows the user to select one of three modes: flashing (disco-style!), a steady red light, or a repeated Morse code SOS. Be circumspect about using this last mode.
The bulb, said to last 1000 hours, is set in a reflector behind a lens so that a gentle, warm glow surrounds the user, while a bright narrow beam of light can be directed at a target. I imagine that a climber lost on a mountain could set it in SOS mode and point it in the direction of an SAR helicopter to great effect.
Under water, the continuous beam mode proved very useful. It allowed me to creep up on some of the wildlife, and even proved bright enough to focus my camera by.
I found the red glow comforting rather than disturbing. On the surface it was bright enough to attract the attention of the cover boat and was undisturbing enough to leave on while we organised ourselves on board.
The Apeks VIP safety light runs on a powerful lithium battery. It is not a substitute for a primary diving light, nor is it cheap. It costs £38 and the straps either for BC or upper arm are nearly a fiver extra.
Apeks Marine Equipment, 01254 692200.
Appeared in DIVER - March 1998
