purbeast
Contributor
So I'm newly certified of OW/AOW and on my dives I used jacket style BCD. That was back in March and then last month I did my first dives that were for fun and rented a jacket style BCD and had a great time with it. Lifetime I have a total of 15 dives all with rental jacket style BCDs.
And now I want to buy my own gear and thankfully I have a local shop that let me try out some gear in a pool today. They are a Scuba Pro shop and I tried out a Hydros Pro and a BP/W today, that I believe is X-Tek. I also tried out a bunch of different SP regs today but that's another thread lol.
I first tried the Hydros Pro and I liked how it felt. It didn't feel like anything special really, although I did like how it gripped my body. It did feel really great on but I had the weight pockets on it and it did feel a bit like a normal jacket style BCD. Initially I had no weight in it but it was hard for me to use it with any air in the BCD and see how back inflated compared to jacket style, so I put in some weight and tried putting some air in it to see the difference. In all honesty, I didn't see much difference underwater but at surface, it definitely wasn't as hard to stay out of the water as I had thought based on what people told me compared to jacket style.
I then tried the BP/W. Within 2 seconds underwater I LOVED IT. The minimalistic feel of it was just incredible. It felt like I was swimming without any gear on at all. I used it for like 7-10 minutes to play around with it and definitely want to buy one of those now. I'm 100% going with BP/W now.
The one I used had a steel plate on it, and I could have tried an aluminum plate, but tried the steel plate for weight purposes so I wouldn't need to put any weight on. Without any air in my BCD, I sunk like a rock. But it was good to test it out, because I put air in the BCD and felt the difference between jacket style this time. I just loved everything about it.
Now the BCD was rated at 30lbs of lift. On the surface, with BCD fully inflated, I was still slightly negatively buoyant. I was in fresh water pool, with a rash guard. So that is different than my normal 3mm wetsuit in salt water.
So I am not sure if I should get one that has a bigger bladder, or if I should get an aluminum plate. The shop that let me try it out did say if I got a steel plate, and it was too heavy, that I could swap it out for the aluminum plate. But I'm also wondering if I should get a 40lb bladder one, which is the next size up, if I get it from this shop.
Anyways, I just wanted to share, and I am now fully converted to the BP/W after just 5 minutes in one lol.
This shop actually does training for OW students with BP/W too, which I thought was cool.
And now I want to buy my own gear and thankfully I have a local shop that let me try out some gear in a pool today. They are a Scuba Pro shop and I tried out a Hydros Pro and a BP/W today, that I believe is X-Tek. I also tried out a bunch of different SP regs today but that's another thread lol.
I first tried the Hydros Pro and I liked how it felt. It didn't feel like anything special really, although I did like how it gripped my body. It did feel really great on but I had the weight pockets on it and it did feel a bit like a normal jacket style BCD. Initially I had no weight in it but it was hard for me to use it with any air in the BCD and see how back inflated compared to jacket style, so I put in some weight and tried putting some air in it to see the difference. In all honesty, I didn't see much difference underwater but at surface, it definitely wasn't as hard to stay out of the water as I had thought based on what people told me compared to jacket style.
I then tried the BP/W. Within 2 seconds underwater I LOVED IT. The minimalistic feel of it was just incredible. It felt like I was swimming without any gear on at all. I used it for like 7-10 minutes to play around with it and definitely want to buy one of those now. I'm 100% going with BP/W now.
The one I used had a steel plate on it, and I could have tried an aluminum plate, but tried the steel plate for weight purposes so I wouldn't need to put any weight on. Without any air in my BCD, I sunk like a rock. But it was good to test it out, because I put air in the BCD and felt the difference between jacket style this time. I just loved everything about it.
Now the BCD was rated at 30lbs of lift. On the surface, with BCD fully inflated, I was still slightly negatively buoyant. I was in fresh water pool, with a rash guard. So that is different than my normal 3mm wetsuit in salt water.
So I am not sure if I should get one that has a bigger bladder, or if I should get an aluminum plate. The shop that let me try it out did say if I got a steel plate, and it was too heavy, that I could swap it out for the aluminum plate. But I'm also wondering if I should get a 40lb bladder one, which is the next size up, if I get it from this shop.
Anyways, I just wanted to share, and I am now fully converted to the BP/W after just 5 minutes in one lol.
This shop actually does training for OW students with BP/W too, which I thought was cool.