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I have aways gone the "pick and pluck" route, which is far cheaper and far more customizable, over the more limited divider or custom cut foam systems, since additional items always find their way into my Pelican cases . . .

I would prioritize the purchase of a decent regulator, any day, over rentals or dive computers, since they are far more likely to last longer than electronics, and most rental fleets nowadays are absolute crap and poorly if ever maintained, especially in the stickier parts of the world -- and...

Three meters, tops, in terms of visibility -- not worth burning the gas, in my opinion, on either side of the bay today -- a sizable dead mola, about 10 kilos in weight, off of Carmel River Beach, with a good Original Ray's pizza slice missing from the dorsal area and a bazillion larval fish...

I have to applaud the OP on his efforts -- and haven't seen a capillary gauge in quite some time; and least of all, that design. Elegant. I have always carried analogue equipment as back-ups, from watches, on down -- having had serial electronic breakdowns over four-some decades; but only...

Regulators can last decades — and I have some from the 1970s which still see use, and which haven’t missed a beat in all of those years. The bigger concern, over time, is more the availability of spare parts and service kits, which varies between manufacturers like little else . . .

Just for kicks, I recently compared one of my 450 bar analogue gauges, at the far lower end, (as close to a 25 bar hash mark that I could determine), with that of a Shearwater Swift transmitter reading; and, surprisingly, the numbers reasonably jibed, to within about 3 bar (about 44 psi) on a...

Wow, the never-ending switch-block bugaboo, exhuming a 2021 thread — even dredging up DGX’s unmitigated BS, for good measure , "Every time we sell a manifold or switch block, we shudder a little bit" (though, ironically, they’re as happy as pigs in scheiß, taking a 500.00 order) reminded me of...

Poseidon caught a rash of scheiß for their custom older hoses, over the years -- deservedly so, in my book, for the expense (only recently eclipsed by that of Atomic); that was, until the advent of various aftermarket adaptors; and until they ultimately decided to go with standard hoses, after...

Having not seen one for decades, a second Cyklon Maximum fell into my lap, within the very same month, from an occasional SB lurker, who wondered whether I'd be willing to get another one back to Reagan-era specs, after the set had foundered, coiled in a Foremost milk crate, next to solvents and...

As a biologist myself, I have run into a great number of researchers with the highest of professional standards; so too have I encountered those, who are would nicely fall into that derisive "public" ilk of that chart -- venal, cynical, negative, contrary, speculative, subjective; often working...

But that's just it: Exley's Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival came as a product of simple self-regulation and not some top-down message from Sacto or Sinai . . .

Everything is a calculated risk -- who knows whether a crosstown bus has your name on it? I knew a couple of über-trained cave divers, years ago, who spent thousands of hours dedicated to that pursuit who, nonetheless, succumbed to accidents, one fatally, in a cave complex in Spain, over twenty...

The scuba agencies are simply clubs, regardless of any other pretensions that they may possess -- regardless of their capabilities to issue laughable vanity patches for jackets. I cannot recall the last time that I was required to show a C-card for an air-fill, anywhere in the state; and that...

We were using either the metal or rubber Poseidon antifreeze caps, with vodka, six months or more out of the year, without issue; and back then -- parts hard to come by -- we often just flipped the tough-as-darts first stage diaphragms, to gain a bit more mileage out of them, which always...

Having winterized regulators over the years -- primarily Poseidon -- I had been wondering whether anyone was still using silicone oil for antifreeze purposes, akin to the "Mares MR16 / V 16 Cold-Water Diving Kit" that I had recently seen listed, on a popular auction site? It seemed definitely...

It is known as a #3587 "Restrictor screw for first stage No. 3585 Cyklon 5000" -- #12 on the diagram below; had to dig through a few of my manuals to find it . . .

If there was ever to be a memoir of life in Baja in the late nineteen-eighties to the early nineties, you've generously provided its title: Normalization of Deviance -- from obtaining O2, a dodgy trans-fill whip (which was constructed in house), and tanks from a half-assed welding shop in El...

I’d also echo Poseidon, especially for the cold PNW, when I briefly did side-mount diving, after a back injury — and managed to use all of their models interchangeably. Of the three, I preferred the Jetstream for their switches (over the Cyklon and Xstream), which ensured a leak-free surf...

Oddly enough, when we were first experimenting with various percentages / concentrations of nitrox, in the late eighties / early nineties, I don't recall that any of us were terribly preoccupied with the nature of stock nitrile o-rings or even —yikes — silicone lubricants; nor were many of those...

With few exceptions, I have always used a 7 mm suit in the Channel Islands; was quite comfortable the entire time; October is good to great diving out there -- and you'll be there for the opening of lobster season. What could be more better?