TekTips

Sidemount diving (What is it?) has been around for decades as an obscure technique in the cave diving community. Today, sidemount has become mainstream in recreational sport and technical diving, and several training agencies have introduced sidemount courses. Backmount divers are sidemounting deco, stage and bailout bottles ...

These are not "orienteering" type compasses intended for use on land. The dive compass design is intended for use with underwater navigation where the diver will sight across the compass to determine the direction of travel. The azimuth numbers printed on the edge of the compass card used to indicate direction appear as the ...

Using the metal grommets, the DGX sleeve can easily be attached to the bottom or sides of any standard metal backplate using assembly screws or attached to the Transpac using medium quick links or the pear shaped quick links. We find that for this application, the plastic assembly screws work just as well as the metal versions ...

We usually hear this from divers who have always worn a jacket style BC, and we'd like to point out that it's irrelevant. It's true, the US Coast Guard requires an approved wearable Personal Floatation Device (PFD) to float the unconscious victim face up in the water. But a Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) for scuba divers is not ...

Every piece of equipment in the hogarthian configuration has been considered in a synergistic relationship to every other, resulting in a configuration where carefully selected components along with the skills of the diver are integrated into a complete system. Adopted by exploration divers of all types, many expert divers view ...

SPGs for diving are available with an aviation style face similar to the altimeter pictured at right. This type of face was adopted when aircraft began flying night missions and the instrumentation needed to be illuminated. A large expanse of white on the instrument panel reflected too much light, impacting night vision and ...

In our opinion, the large open faced dive knife (aka diver's tool, aka B.F.K.) is nearly useless underwater, more likely an entanglement hazard than a solution. Although they might have their place on deck and in commercial diving, we don't know any experienced sport or technical diver who carries a large knife strapped to ...

The primary second stage has a long hose, with the primary first stage connected to the diver's right gas manifold outlet. The long hose routes straight down the divers right side back behind the wing, under the light canister (if no light canister then under the waistbelt sheath), up and across the chest to the left shoulder, ...

The June 2013 issue of Journal of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine contains an excellent article that analyzes the causes of recreational closed-circuit rebreather fatalities. It concludes that while rebreathers have an intrinsically higher risk of mechanical failure as a result of their complexity, this can be offset by good ...

Nitrox is a term introduced by Morgan Wells at NOAA to describe mixtures of Nitrogen and Oxygen, usually meaning air that has been enriched with added Oxygen. Although Nitrox may be considered any combination of the two gases, in practice Nitrox is always hyperoxic, meaning it has more oxygen than Air. Common mixtures of Nitrox ...