April 1998
Tough guy gear
SHERWOOD, an American company known mainly for diving equipment geared towards the "lightweight" end of the diving market, has come up with a technical diving BC - the Outback wing - and it's a good one.
It has a double-bag design with an outer layer of tough 1000 denier material and an inner bag made of polyurethane. This gives around 25kg of lift and, for those who want more, a 50kg bag is available.
The bag has its own elasticated lacing, reducing the possibility of it flapping when under-inflated underwater. However, it does not crunch up quite as well as some other leading technical diving jackets.
I asked Sherwood to supply me with an Outback equipped with cam-bands for twin cylinders. It came with a single-cylinder set-up, but the Sherwood rep told me to use my own Buddy twinning bands and blocks, which he said were very similar to the Sherwood product.
In the event, I used it with a single cylinder and this was secured to a hard backpack by two full-size cam-bands, one above the other.
The Outback BC comes loaded with large stainless steel D-rings (I counted 13), and these were well secured. I was able to use one of these to clip on my reef hook and tie off in the powerful currents I encountered in Palau.
After two weeks of this type of use by me, and a week on loan to Hunter the Gladiator in the Bahamas, there was no sign of anything giving. In fact I returned it to Sherwood in the same condition in which it was supplied - always a good sign of quality!
The harness is designed to allow for an easy adjustment of torso length. It has a cummerbund topped with a 5cm strap and buckle, and a small zipped front pocket. There is a cross-chest strap and buckle and an integrated weight system for those who prefer to put all their eggs in the one basket.
The harness, it seemed, had plenty of room for adjustment, but Sherwood sent me one in size L. Alas, I confess to needing only a size M and so was not always completely snug in the Outback, even with everything pulled as tight as it could be. I also had trouble dumping air by pulling on the corrugated hose that was meant to open the top-mounted dump valve. It seemed that there was always air caught in a pocket of the buoyancy bag above it. I resorted to raising the hose in the good old-fashioned way. There is also a dump valve at the bottom of the bag which I found was easy to access when duck-diving away from the surface and needing to jettison that little bit of air left over from an inflation at the end of a previous dive.
Overall this is a high-quality product; the ability to use any two cylinders as a twinset (using the Sherwood or Buddy twinning system) without needing to have the cylinders previously rigged together is a positive advantage to the diver who may not be using his own tanks.
The Sherwood Outback is available in sizes S, M, L and XL and comes only in black (of course - tekkies wouldn't be seen wearing any other colour!). It costs £395.
Sherwood UK Ltd, 0115 945 8634.
John Bantin
Snap happy (up to a point)
Epoch ET-100 point-and-shoot underwater camera (£200).
ANYONE tempted to have a go at underwater photography must first overcome a basic dilemma: do you fork out hundreds of pounds on new equipment at the risk of discovering it's not your cup of tea after all, or do you ask a friend if you can borrow their Nikonos and risk flooding it?
Neither option is particularly appealing, so how about a compromise - buy something simple in price and function that will at least get you started without requiring too much of a commitment. Enter the Epoque ET-100 camera, a 35mm point-and-shoot with a fixed focus lens and a built-in flash, designed for use underwater to 45m.
The Epoque is a great idea. It allows budding marine photographers to get the hang of framing shots underwater without having to worry about f/stops and strobe angles, and it even gives them a taste of what it's like to prepare a camera for use - there are a couple of O-ring seals that need to be checked before every dive.
The only bit of science you need to worry about is the dial that allows you to select the appropriate flash setting. You have a choice of cloud (the best setting for underwater use), cloud and sun, or sun for land use.
I took the camera on a recent trip to the Bahamas, eager to see what kind of results I could get. Unfortunately, I discovered when I inserted the batteries that the above-mentioned dial was faulty. It would not stay in the off position, which meant the green flash indicator light kept switching itself on, and the batteries were drained by the time I wanted to use the camera.
I inserted new batteries just before a dive and the camera seemed to work fine. It comes with a Sports Finder, a plastic frame which snaps onto the top of the unit and serves as an underwater viewfinder. I found this simple accessory made framing the shots much easier when wearing a face mask.
I also took a few shots on land. The results, both under and above water, were nothing to write home about, but they were no less than I would have expected from what is essentially a pocket camera. The Epoque, as I had anticipated, should be of interest not to those looking for great results, but to those looking for a beginner's tool.
Ali Ladak at Videoquip, the company that distributes the Epoque, admits the problem I had with the faulty dial was not unknown, but insisted it was very rare. He promised to replace the camera with a new one, and stressed that he has had few complaints from customers - "Any complaints I get are usually from people who have managed to flood the camera," he says.
The Epoque ET-100 comes with a Sports Finder, spare O-rings and silicone grease. It costs £200 and is available in a variety of colours.
Videoquip, 0116 255 8818.
Nicola Tyrrell
Mind what you put in your mouth
Amoeba Scubaguard (£1.85)
Contagious bacteria, viruses and fungus could be lurking inside your mouthpiece!
So says the packaging of the Amoeba mouthpiece shield, a sort of condom for regulators made of surgical latex.
"Open package and carefully stretch the Amoeba Scubaguard over mouthpiece. Adjust as needed, biting down on the mouthpiece to ensure a good fit. Please discard the Amoeba Scubaguard after a single use, and place in an appropriate container."
That's important. We don't want to see any me discarded rubber in the carpark hedges of seaside beauty spots than we see already.
"Regulator and snorkel mouth-pieces, whether owned or rented, are currently not sterilised by any approved method." To my knowledge no one has caught AIDS through sharing a regulator, but to be sure I always wash my mouthpiece with gallons of water - usually seawater.
US paranoia will have reached epic proportions if this product finds any takers. Those holiday-makers who hire snorkels are the least likely to use a Scubaguard - I cannot imagine them leaving home armed with one just in case.
After all, any enterprising diveshop salesperson will grab the chance to sell them a 4 snorkel, if not mask, fins, regulator, BC and suit!
"Warning. To avoid the danger of suffocation, keep this product away from babies and small children."
To avoid ridicule, I suggest you keep this product away from divers!
Pudge Corp. 1.800.99.PUDGE.
John Bantin
Lift it, roll it, put it on your back
Northern Diver Scubapack (£75); holdall (£60); briefcase (£23).
They call them "The Ultimate Bags", which sounds a bit like a Wallace and Gromit film, but then, that's what advertising copywriters are for. Northern Diver's latest range of dive bags, made of Cordura with reinforced seams and plastic fittings, certainly looks the business.
Included in the ensemble are a rucksack and a large holdall-style bag, both wheeled, and a briefcase-cum-regulator-bag with shoulder strap, which I found useful in-flight for books, documents, dive computer and so on.
I had reservations at first about the Northern Diver holdall, which is longer than most so a bit unwieldy to carry. But for those who need volume the good news is that you can also roll it or backpack it, as it has robust wheels at one end and carrying handles big enough to double as shoulder straps.
The main compartment is moulded into a semi-rigid box by plastic inserts that partition off a good-sized section at each end, allowing dry gear to be segregated effectively from the wet stuff.
The flaps on the two end compartments incorporate mesh airing panels. With another pocket on one side, it is easy to avoid a single big tangle of contents.
On balance, however, I did prefer the Scubapack, which is also wheeled and, though smaller than some dive rucksacks, provides five usable compartments and is easy and comfortable to carry.
If vulnerable items like regulators are packed into the main compartment, which can just about take a BC and wetsuit as well, they should be reasonably insulated from the hard knocks of air or boat travel.
You can chuck gear into a holdall but a rucksack requires a little more thought and care when packing. The Scubapack's front pocket is capacious, but fins are a snug fit in one of the two side pockets. The top compartment is a removable regulator bag, or can be used as a dry bag on a boat. It was easy enough to detach, but I tended to leave it where it was, packed with small items.
The robust zip handles have holes big enough to take a small padlock. You don't want to arrive at your destination to find you've been robbed of your Ruby. I arrived at my destination to find that some idiot had consigned what appeared to be a bucketful of that other sort of Ruby to the aircraft hold. Curry was liberally smeared over the Scubapack.
It proved reluctant to relinquish the subtle essences of the Orient, but that is no criticism of the bag. In fact my only beef was that the internal boltheads at the base which hold the wheels in place had rusted within days from contact with wet gear. The material also looked slightly baggy after a while, although the curry probably didn't help.
These Northern Diver bags are nonetheless good value, the Scubapack at £75, the holdall £60 and the briefcase £23. "The Ultimate Bags" is pitching it a bit strong, but the Scubapack in particular suited me fine.
Northern Diver, 01257 254444.
Steve Weinman
Appeared in DIVER - April 1998
