In January I earned Adv Nitrox and soon afterwards I began to dive exclusively sidemount, to get ready for Decompression Procedures later this year. I am currently focusing on swapping regs, buoyancy and finning, I'd figure I had to proficient there before moving on to other tasks like staging tanks. This past weekend I had a very rude awakening. When I practice, I normally wade in waist deep, attach my tanks and off I go. This weekend I was at a quarry where I had to stage my tanks on the dock, do a giant stride and then get my tanks and hook them up. I am laughing now as it is comical and a learning experience but rest assured I was not laughing as I was struggling to attach my tanks. So the lesson learned was to practice different methods of entry and gearing up.
The dive went well and I'm awaiting video to actually see how I did. There was one fuzzy image where my tanks were beginning to become floaty and I hadn't adjusted them just yet. I understand the need to streamline and I know that SM divers are obsessed with having their tanks streamlined. My question is for DP, is there any emphasis placed on streamlining tanks or is there a slight tolerance?
Sounds like two separate issues, one is gearing up in the water and the other is managing trim as your SM tanks empty. As far as the 1st issue, I put my SM tanks on in the water 90% of the time when cave diving, but that’s in still water and often I can stand up in the water. But in order to be a good SM diver you need to be able to gear up and do your pre-dive checks while in water over your head. It is a bit of a PITA, especially in a wetsuit. Lots of practice is the only solution, I’m afraid.
For boat entries in SM, where there’s current and you really can’t gear up in the water and maintain any sort of team control, what I’ve done is gear up without the deco stage on the boat, do all the pre dive checks (except the final bubble check), then back roll in. Then get handed the deco tank, clip it on, and do a final bubble check just under the surface. You can check for major leaks on the boat by pressurizing then closing the valves, and watch the SPGs. Don’t forget to re-open the valves, lol!
If it’s a ripping current and you have to put the deco tank on while still on the boat, such is life. It’s awkward. I personally would not ‘half don’ the tanks by clipping them on land then bungeeing in the water, for me it’s either they’re on or they’re off.
As far as the 2nd issue, the floaty tanks mid dive, just remember to re-clip or move your sliding D rings, whichever you have. It took me almost a year of SM diving to accept the fact that it’s better to re-clip early than later. I used to do it after turning the dive, usually around 1600-1700 PSI because I could feel the tanks starting to float, but it is easier closer to 2K, and that’s in cave water. For salt you might re-clip closer to 2200. I assume we’re talking about AL80s.
I did quite a bit of stage diving before I took deco procedures, so I was pretty good managing the stage. The worst part for me was dealing with a near empty deco stage (AL80 w/50%) at shallow stops in the ocean. I tend to tip right as the floaty stage on my left side pushes that side up. In fact, I ended up putting a slightly longer hose on my deco reg, and now if it gets bad I just clip the neck to my butt D ring and let the damn thing float like a tail. (I frequently use the same deco tank for a couple of dives because I’m not doing super long stops) It’s actually pretty comfortable, and I do the same thing with near empty stages at the end of cave dives.
