highflier
Contributor
Hi all,
After a few years of not diving and only moderate experince my wife and I decided to get back into the sport and started by picking up our own gear. Our plan is to dive south florida waters off our own center console boat (25') I just got back from a vacation where we were able to test our new gear and here are my comments about it.
Setup 1
Hog d1 singles, 7' prirmary and short bungie second
Zeagle express tec, deluxe harness, zip touch weights system, crotch strap
Setup 2
Hog d1 singles 7' primary and short bungie second
Ladyhawk
All gear was new, One of the regs came with a split o-ring between the primary second stage and hose, A few loose hoses at the first stage also. I notice the loose hoses and fixed that before I went out but I missed the split O-ring on the second stage thus that dive was scrubed.
The other Regulator setup was fine. Thus if you know what you are doing check it all even if it is new, If not hope that you have a good guy assemble your gear.
Once I got the o-ring issue taken care of We were off on our first dive. The regs breathed way better then any rental unit I had used. Even when the cracking pressure was set to it's hardest setting. On the easiest settting your lungs will not even know you got a reg in your mouth
We only dove to about 20-25 feet so I must state that for full disclosure.
The regs did not come with any manual, That should really be corrected IMHO. There are 2 adjustments, Cracking pressure and predive lever. The cracking pressure was easy to figure out, it was labeled with a + and -. These indicate how much effort to crack the reg, not how much or easy it is to get the air. Thus turn the knob to - to breath as easy as pie. The predive level was not labeled and at the depth my first 2 dives where I flipped the level and could not tell any difference. Sure would be nice to know what it does and which position is predive and dive. So all in all the regs are very nice but loose 1 point do to lack of owners manual.
BC's
Zeagle express tec. I liked the BC a lot. the weight system is IMHO very nice. Yea it would be a slight pain to reload the cord but that is only if you have a emergency, Thus a very small price to pay. I really like the hose attachment for flushing out the BC, also if you hang the BC upside down with the attachment off for a hour or so it will let all the water out in 10 seconds or so then drip dry without having to hold the valve open by hand. My only complaint with the BC was the tendancy to want to float me face down. Not a issue if you are awake but if you were passed out for any reason it would not be good. I did not use the crotch strap and I hear that helps, So next vacation I will put that on and see how it goes.
Ladyhawk,
My wife liked it alot. It is a very nice BC, only wish is that the flush out adapter on the Zealge be standard on this one also. Maybe I can order parts and adapt it. She did not have any issues with floating face up except if the BC was over inflated at the surface.
As far as diving from the center cosole boat. We are still working that out. First dive I tried to gear up in the water. I decided this was not a good idea, as it was hard to get the hoses to route properly with all the waves and current. The second dive I geared up on the boat and with the use of the leaning post seat, it went quite well.
As for boarding the boat, the ladder and gear was not going to work, So I inflated BC and ditched it in water, then tied it off to the boat. Boarded the boat and hauled the gear, This worked ok but attaching the gear to the line while in the water was slightly less the optimum. Second time I had added a clip to the line and then simply clipped onto one of the D-rings, slipped out of the gear, and boarded the boat and hauled the gear. This was much better, as I did not need to mess around alot to get gear on the line and I was able to shortlen the line quite a bit and eliminate much of the entanglement possiblity.
The water temp this time of year was 75 degrees and quite choppy with the 20 MPH winds the days I went out. Visiblity was good, only real notable site was one huge fish for 20 foot of water, Not sure if it was a grouper or Jewfish, black and I would guess about 80-90 LBS just hanging under some coral. After watching him for a minute he swam out from under coral about 5' from me as he moved on.
Since it had been some time since I had dove I was a little stressed, but now feel better then ever about things, expecially now that I will be using same gear and setup each time. Speaking of which, on first dive both my wife and I needed to add a little more wieght. My wife could not go down and I was pretty much neutral with full tank and no air in BC. After adding 5lbs on me and 6 on wife all went well.
Were were moored on a sanding spot so I took a few minutes to practice switching from primary to backup, clearing mask etc...... I liked the bungie setup as I know I can find it fast in the emergency.
Highflier
PS. I hope this info will help someone in making a decision on their next dive gear. Anybody familiar with the HOgs feel free to let us all know what he predive lever setting is.
After a few years of not diving and only moderate experince my wife and I decided to get back into the sport and started by picking up our own gear. Our plan is to dive south florida waters off our own center console boat (25') I just got back from a vacation where we were able to test our new gear and here are my comments about it.
Setup 1
Hog d1 singles, 7' prirmary and short bungie second
Zeagle express tec, deluxe harness, zip touch weights system, crotch strap
Setup 2
Hog d1 singles 7' primary and short bungie second
Ladyhawk
All gear was new, One of the regs came with a split o-ring between the primary second stage and hose, A few loose hoses at the first stage also. I notice the loose hoses and fixed that before I went out but I missed the split O-ring on the second stage thus that dive was scrubed.
The other Regulator setup was fine. Thus if you know what you are doing check it all even if it is new, If not hope that you have a good guy assemble your gear.
Once I got the o-ring issue taken care of We were off on our first dive. The regs breathed way better then any rental unit I had used. Even when the cracking pressure was set to it's hardest setting. On the easiest settting your lungs will not even know you got a reg in your mouth
We only dove to about 20-25 feet so I must state that for full disclosure.The regs did not come with any manual, That should really be corrected IMHO. There are 2 adjustments, Cracking pressure and predive lever. The cracking pressure was easy to figure out, it was labeled with a + and -. These indicate how much effort to crack the reg, not how much or easy it is to get the air. Thus turn the knob to - to breath as easy as pie. The predive level was not labeled and at the depth my first 2 dives where I flipped the level and could not tell any difference. Sure would be nice to know what it does and which position is predive and dive. So all in all the regs are very nice but loose 1 point do to lack of owners manual.
BC's
Zeagle express tec. I liked the BC a lot. the weight system is IMHO very nice. Yea it would be a slight pain to reload the cord but that is only if you have a emergency, Thus a very small price to pay. I really like the hose attachment for flushing out the BC, also if you hang the BC upside down with the attachment off for a hour or so it will let all the water out in 10 seconds or so then drip dry without having to hold the valve open by hand. My only complaint with the BC was the tendancy to want to float me face down. Not a issue if you are awake but if you were passed out for any reason it would not be good. I did not use the crotch strap and I hear that helps, So next vacation I will put that on and see how it goes.
Ladyhawk,
My wife liked it alot. It is a very nice BC, only wish is that the flush out adapter on the Zealge be standard on this one also. Maybe I can order parts and adapt it. She did not have any issues with floating face up except if the BC was over inflated at the surface.
As far as diving from the center cosole boat. We are still working that out. First dive I tried to gear up in the water. I decided this was not a good idea, as it was hard to get the hoses to route properly with all the waves and current. The second dive I geared up on the boat and with the use of the leaning post seat, it went quite well.
As for boarding the boat, the ladder and gear was not going to work, So I inflated BC and ditched it in water, then tied it off to the boat. Boarded the boat and hauled the gear, This worked ok but attaching the gear to the line while in the water was slightly less the optimum. Second time I had added a clip to the line and then simply clipped onto one of the D-rings, slipped out of the gear, and boarded the boat and hauled the gear. This was much better, as I did not need to mess around alot to get gear on the line and I was able to shortlen the line quite a bit and eliminate much of the entanglement possiblity.
The water temp this time of year was 75 degrees and quite choppy with the 20 MPH winds the days I went out. Visiblity was good, only real notable site was one huge fish for 20 foot of water, Not sure if it was a grouper or Jewfish, black and I would guess about 80-90 LBS just hanging under some coral. After watching him for a minute he swam out from under coral about 5' from me as he moved on.
Since it had been some time since I had dove I was a little stressed, but now feel better then ever about things, expecially now that I will be using same gear and setup each time. Speaking of which, on first dive both my wife and I needed to add a little more wieght. My wife could not go down and I was pretty much neutral with full tank and no air in BC. After adding 5lbs on me and 6 on wife all went well.
Were were moored on a sanding spot so I took a few minutes to practice switching from primary to backup, clearing mask etc...... I liked the bungie setup as I know I can find it fast in the emergency.
Highflier
PS. I hope this info will help someone in making a decision on their next dive gear. Anybody familiar with the HOgs feel free to let us all know what he predive lever setting is.
