Mixed Modern/Vintage Diving. Am I Nuts?

[Dave Mann]

Exotic locale diving just isn't in the cards for me. Can't afford it. Since I'm only about 3 hours from the Fla. keys I do most of my diving there. After so many reefs and so many wrecks I'm looking for something to make diving really interesting again. I'm thinking vintage equipment diving. Maybe not so much vintage equipment, but vintage style diving.

What the heck am I talking about?

Double hose regulator but with aluminum 63s with K valves instead of steel and J valves. Ditchable weight belt instead of a weight integrated BCD. I like my modern mask and "rocket" fins, but I'd dive a Voit mask and duck feet.

I admit I'm a product of Sea Hunt and Thunderball, and I really do feel very encumbered with a big ol' BCD on. I want to return to a simpler, more minimalistic, way of diving but with some modern elements thrown in.

Am I nuts?

 

[Shotmaster]

No.

I still dive my 72, no BCD when diving less than 50 ft. It is fun.

 

[Luis H]

No.

I still dive my 72, no BCD when diving less than 50 ft. It is fun.

Why do you limit yourself to 50 feet?

 

[Luis H]

Exotic locale diving just isn't in the cards for me. Can't afford it. Since I'm only about 3 hours from the Fla. keys I do most of my diving there. After so many reefs and so many wrecks I'm looking for something to make diving really interesting again. I'm thinking vintage equipment diving. Maybe not so much vintage equipment, but vintage style diving.

What the heck am I talking about?

Double hose regulator but with aluminum 63s with K valves instead of steel and J valves. Ditchable weight belt instead of a weight integrated BCD. I like my modern mask and "rocket" fins, but I'd dive a Voit mask and duck feet.

I admit I'm a product of Sea Hunt and Thunderball, and I really do feel very encumbered with a big ol' BCD on. I want to return to a simpler, more minimalistic, way of diving but with some modern elements thrown in.

Am I nuts?

That is what a lot of us do.

Take a look at this section of VDH
Vintage Double Hose • View forum - Modern Era Double Hose Diving

 

[Dave Mann]

If you do any diving with dive operators do they give you any grief when you tell them you have no intent of wearing a BCD?

 

[Nemrod]

We started calling what you are referring to as "eclectic" diving. A minimal approach to diving using equipment from vintage to modern, usually based around a double hose regulator and the practical requirements of the modern world.

But alas, I am still into minimalism but no longer can claim eclectic as I had to tell a fellow in the Caymans and several who accused me of being vintage while recently in the Keys that nothing I had on was anything other than brand spanking new, modern and fully 21st century. I had to choke as I said this and I started itching all over, but it is simply the truth, my current rig is not vintage, not eclectic but it is fully modern and very minimal. Like, dude, point to something, anything on me anywhere that is not so new the price tag is not still hanging from it. Oh, okay, you got me, my Tekna titanium dagger, wrong!!!!!!! I bought it two years ago from Leisure Pro and to borrow a line from Seinfeld, it is real and it is spectacular!

Oh, the comment, forgot my story, one nice fellow said of my (digital) camera should I not have a vintage film camera to go with my double hose vintage regulator and I just looked at him with disbelief. I was insulted, here I was in the most new and modern stuff I could find, Aeris Accel fins, Aeris Nitrox computer, Atomic Frameless mask that cost more than my first complete SCUBA outfit alone, OxyCheck Mach V wing and a 21st century Argonaut Kraken and the aforementioned Tekna dagger wrought from the finest Cold War titanium right here in the USA. Like dude, are you on some sort of drugs or something. Why, I am a fully outfitted Caribbean Resort Diver! Hmmmph. Like WTH! I had to restrain the Tekna, I should have cut his hoses, now that would have been vintage.

N

 

[Luis H]

If you do any diving with dive operators do they give you any grief when you tell them you have no intent of wearing a BCD?

I normally wear a small wing with my VDH back plate and harness. I can not even tell the wing is there when I am diving. The plate is somewhat similar to a 1950's plate and the harness is a typical 2 inch harness.

Like Nemrod said, it is all modern, but to some degree minimalistic and has vintage origin.

Here are a couple of picture with my Argonaut and the new Argonaut DSV. And yes, the camera is digital.
I do have and SPG, a small flat octopus, and a flash light on my D ring, but there is nothing else on the front of my harness.

Note: I borrowed those yellow Mares Avanti fins from the dive master in the Philippines. After 45 years of using Jet Fins, I am moving away from them (for warm water dives only).

Nothing on this kit is actually vintage or minimalistic, but it does have strong vintage roots and a very minimalistic feel to it.

 

[herman]

Many of us do that. How "vintage" I am depends on the dive and the dive operator. On a Fla boat, a small BC with a tiny bladder (I have a 15 lb one) , a Phoenix or Argonaut DH, a SPG and an octo. On Bonaire where no one is going to care, an old back plate, a DH with just a SPG and little else. On the other hand, I always dive with modern fins, mask and computer (unless the dive prohibits it...re-enactment dives for example or I just want to stay vintage). I prefer the fins and since I need a prescription mask I don't want to spend $200 for lenses in an old mask....don't really care for round mask anyway. The computer is mainly a dive logger. For tanks, I have steel 72s with J valves for local diving but for travel I just rent whatever they have, usually al-80s. I can go full vintage or anywhere in the middle, it just depends on the dive, the dive op and what I want to do.

 

[Fin Finder]

I got into minimalist diving about ten years ago. Hooked up with an old-timer diving just a backpack (no buoyancy component). Great way to fine tune weighting, and I really like the streamlining. Since then I've logged one-hundred ten backpack dives. The local charter captains know me, and have no problem with me diving the backpack. I even did the Truk wrecks with just a backpack (except the SF Maru which I did with doubles).

Later I dabbled in vintage gear, but that's another story.

 

[rhwestfall]

no idea what you are talking about.... There is a wing on this rig. Need it for the Worthington LP85 as I am in a 3mm shortie and a Lycra skin due to the zebra mussels. The water temps are now 77 degrees...

This one is a completely updated DA, so only the cans are vintage...

(I think the Petrel might set it over the top though)