MainSail1865
Registered
It should be mentioned that the quality of Scubapro is there, they make solid products but the real question is, is the quality worth the price over that of others? I venture to say that most anything we buy today is suitable for the average recreational Caribbean reef diver and even the common "cold" water diver. True cold water is a bit different. All of my Scubapro gear has seen the "cold" pacific waters of northern california as well as fresh water Florida springs. Perhaps moving weight around i.e. trim pockets, weight pockets, weight belts, would be of assistance to prevent rolling. Also, being properly weighted and by properly I dont mean add weight until you sink and kind of float at eye level major agency training style. I had a weight pocket fail while I was on the island so I switched to the "travel harness" that came with my BCD leaving me to use a weight belt and after I figured out where I wanted my weights positioned I felt more stable than I ever did with the integrated pockets. So much so that I wondered why I ever used the weight pockets. Moving weight around can work wonders for stability. It could be argued that because of weighting issues one has to inflate the bladder to a point that makes the slightest movements offset stability just enough to be annoying. Before I forget, Scubapro warrantied my weight pocket at no charge nor question. The only other issue I had with gas distribution on the Hydros was that when using the toggle dump at the top of the inflator hose as opposed to raising the hose to dump gas I found that a tiny almost negligible amount of air was still trapped in the bladder. My shoulder being the highest point or damn near the highest point one might believe that all the air would dump but sometimes this wasnt the case. I've also seen during a rescue course a student with the same hydros bcd have air trapped in the bladder but after watching him in the water the simple solution of body positioning solved the problem. Sometimes you might think you are positioned correctly for whatever it is you are trying to do but since we cant see ourselves it helps to receive feedback on what you really look like in the water. I do not believe there is a perfect setup for anyone or any amount/piece of equipment that can solve a body mechanics problem. Everything has a fault somewhere and everything has a trade off for certain things.