First sidemount dives

[Doby45]

Well, I have been chomping at the bit to try my hand at sidemount diving. I have had all the stuff for a while and I held off because I was doing my Cavern/Intro training in back mount doubles and I did not want to swap back and forth until I was able to complete that training. I have the HOG sidemount system and was very pleased with it. I completed the little tweaks to the system that @cerich shows in his videos. Tightened the top bungee to tuck the wing, made a bungee chest strap (actually made that earlier and used on my back mount doubles), moved my inflator and shortened the upper pull dump cord. I was using my PST HP100s with zero length leashes and butterfly clips. Hog D1 regs down and knobs out, 7' hose on the right bottle along with DS inflator hose and lollipop gauge. On the left bottle I had a 5' hose (easy for me to manage in the rubber bands) BC inflator hose and lollipop gauge.

I felt very comfortable in the system. Everything seemed very intuitive and balanced. I am using a left feed regulator on the left bottle so I had nothing behind my neck and things tucked well. The way I did the regs was I started with my right reg in my mouf and the left reg in my rubber necklace. When I would swap I would simply pull the left reg off of the necklace and pop it in my mouf, then take the right reg and slip it right into the necklace, the system actually worked very well and was easy enough to do, this also kept my regs in a nice neat configuration. Both of my regs do have the boltsnap on a bungee like @tbone1004 has shown a few times and CAN be snapped off if need be.

There are minor adjustments that I would like to make to the location of the tank bands, nothing major. I would like to move the bands about 1" further down the tanks to tuck the tanks a bit further into my armpits, but nothing major. I had my buddy try to get some footage of me so I could see how things trimmed out. He did the best he could but the viz in the quarry was horrible, more horribler than usual. So without further adieu, here are some pics.

BONUS : The quarry was having opening day celebrations so they had some "Easter Eggs" hidden around the quarry and each diver could collect a single egg. These eggs had cool stuff that divers would like in there. Very first dive, my buddy @Ron Crist is in the lead and finds the first egg, right on the 20' platform. When I see he got an egg, I take over the lead and I am bound and determined to get me an egg. I locate my egg about 4 minutes later in a section of loose rocks (woot woot). Come to find out, my buddy got a free entry ($30 value) and I got a free air fill ($10 value) so we were pleased with our egg snatching skills.

 

[tbone1004]

why do you want to hike the tanks farther up into your arm pits? they look about as good as they can, especially for your first dive, well done!

I'm not a fan of not having regulators routed behind my neck, but that is mainly because of jaw fatigue. They don't weigh much, but when on a scooter and in the water for 3+ hours, it adds up.

 

[The Chairman]

Way cool. Welcome to the dark side.

 

[Doby45]

I was just not sure if they were up far enough after seeing the pics from the dive. They felt good where they were and everything was accessible so I will just hold off any adjustments until I dive it more. I am just trying to be as awesome as Razorista.

 

[tbone1004]

You can see where mine live. Nothing wrong with that position at all....

 

[Caveeagle]

kind of funny.. I was doing the same thing over the last few weekends.. playing around with a HOG sidemount BC. I have been using the DiveRite style 'Ring' bungees, just because that seems a little better support for me.. but that's just a few dives in.

I have tried using both HOG D1 and Poseidon 3790 first stages, switching around just to see what works best for me. I have 6" HP hoses and have tried them both "lolly-pop", fwd as well as pointed down along the tank bottom. I find it very uncomfortable to pull the SPGs fwd enough to see them clearly. So plan to try a couple other options to point them more inward, sort of under the armpit, if possible.


**I still prefer my backmount doubles.. I just want the option to SM for when the dive/cave requires it..

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I agree the tanks look fine. You could use a shorter bungee to bring them up a bit higher, but it would accomplish nothing. They are parallel with your torso and are not the low point in your system. Pulling the noses up higher would also just push the bottoms of the tanks lower, unless you also shorten the tails, which can quickly result in a configuration that is too stiff to be useful in tight passage.

---

I also use a left hand inlet second stage on the left hand tank but I leave it in the bungee necklace all the time. It's loose enough that an out of gas diver can pull it free if it's in my mouth. In OC side mount, I clip the right hand reg to the right shoulder D-ring when it's not in use, and the bolt snap is bungeed on in a method Brett Hemphill demonstrated for me, which allows it to be accessed before I unclip it.

There's lots of ways to do it, it just needs to be clean and functional.

----

I'm also not a fan of hoses going over the back of my neck, in part because any excess slack can create a loop that can snag on the ceiling. The exception to this is the diluent hose to my KISS Sidekick which is just long enough to route from the dil tank on the left to the CCR on the right passing over my neck, so it's a constant length system where no loop ever forms, when turning your head, etc.

 

[Doby45]

PS.. This was also the first dive with my XTs, OMG!!!! My buddy told me that I was literally leaving him. Needless to say I am smitten with my XTs, uber comfy and uber power!

 

[victorzamora]

kind of funny.. I was doing the same thing over the last few weekends.. playing around with a HOG sidemount BC. I have been using the DiveRite style 'Ring' bungees, just because that seems a little better support for me.. but that's just a few dives in.

I have tried using both HOG D1 and Poseidon 3790 first stages, switching around just to see what works best for me. I have 6" HP hoses and have tried them both "lolly-pop", fwd as well as pointed down along the tank bottom. I find it very uncomfortable to pull the SPGs fwd enough to see them clearly. So plan to try a couple other options to point them more inward, sort of under the armpit, if possible.


**I still prefer my backmount doubles.. I just want the option to SM for when the dive/cave requires it..

When I lollipop SPGs, I normally cant them a few degrees "inwards." It's not much, ~10-15-degrees or so. That puts the SPGs more on my chest than in my way.

As for SPGs down the tanks, I've found that 9" SPG hoses are the only way I can comfortably see them...and they're still not easy. My SM tanks ride about where tbone's tanks do...a few inches higher than the Razor/Stealth guys have theirs. This makes the 6" hose a bit impractical and reading (even on 9" hoses) a bit of a pain.

 

[Doby45]

When I lollipop SPGs, I normally cant them a few degrees "inwards." It's not much, ~10-15-degrees or so. That puts the SPGs more on my chest than in my way.

As for SPGs down the tanks, I've found that 9" SPG hoses are the only way I can comfortably see them...and they're still not easy. My SM tanks ride about where tbone's tanks do...a few inches higher than the Razor/Stealth guys have theirs. This makes the 6" hose a bit impractical and reading (even on 9" hoses) a bit of a pain.

I also had my first stages at an angle so that the SPGs were closer to the center of my chest. I also still like back mount and have not sworn off of it but when I am hanging double HP100s or LP104s on my back and then tightening this and securing that and walking that to the water, it sucks. The first thing I fell in love with was walking one tank over to the water and setting it down and going back and getting the other tank. The weight off the back is simply incredible.