I agree completely. Unfortunately one of them won't descend from the mount to bestow his vast wisdom on the little people.
This is neither the time or place to discuss your size.
The responses given by superbugman tend to reflect a knowledge is power mindset and seems to alos convey the message that until you know enough to not have to ask, you have no right to know.
BS, Tortuga asked a short, direct question. I answered with a short, direct answer. If he wanted detailed step by step instructions and 10 examples of each circumstance for using tanks clipped off in a given position, his question should have been far more engaging.
Or maybe its just the old issue that sometimes knowing how to do something does not mean you are... ...even able to impart that information to others.
If I'm handicapped, I want better parking.
In any case the OP was clearly not benefitting from the advice being given and was very clear in asking for less ambiguous answers.
This is the OP's question.
thinking about sidemount and is it practical for deco dives.
Its a simple question that deserves a simple answer. Not a longass essay on the various methods, positions, circumstances requiring different locations of stage and deco bottles, which are only a small facet of deep diving in general.
What I'm saying?
Hmmm.... well... yes... it's just a bit different gas (standard, contingency and emergency) planning and management....
I have recently switched to sidemount and will never look back. If I had it to do all over again I never wound have ever backmounted. I now sidemount for all my dives requiring doubles. Hope this helps. Be sure to get a good instructor or strong mentor/buddy to assist you with sidemount as this will make the learning much easier and faster. Hope this helps. Mike
These were more than clear enough to answer his question.
And despite your slam, I don't hear you disagreeing with what I said or suggesting anything different. Feel free to share some of your vast wisdom as well...
Hell, for the most part, I agree *gasp* with that drool inducing book you typed out on page 3 with a few exceptions.
DR recently came out with a set of ring bungees that carry the load to the D-ring with metal to metal connections and that might be very useful for boat diving in rough conditions.
I'd get away from buying the DR stuff and just tie some goldline around the tank necks with a snap. Use the stock bungees to keep the tanks tight in the water, but let the neckties support the weight of the tanks on 'land'.
Generally, I prefer to top mount a stage as it stays out of the way better and I prefer to bottom mount a deco bottle as it gets dropped in the cavern anyway, is easy to see, identify, and it is easy to manually trace the hose when doing the gas switch. But that is a purely personal preference.
For caves, I'd agree with this, but in OW I'd want to keep my deco bottle with me the entire time. If I'm not carrying an additional stage, I'd probably just keep the deco gas slung along my back as its just a hellovalot more streamlined up there than slung in the traditional method. If I were carrying both the stage and the deco gas throughout the dive, I'd want to keep the deco gas out front to make it damned clear I wouldn't be grabbing it at the wrong time.
All that being said, if I could foot the bill for two different setups, I'd preffer BM for most(ie, I don't want to penetrate) diving offshore. Everything being rigid just makes logistics off the typical diveboat much much easier.
I have the same concerns bout sm in rough seas but my biggest concern is strong currents while hanging off the descent/ascent rope. Been on some trips where the current was so strong I was getting banged up pretty bad by the stage bottle while hanging on for dear life. Haven't received any adequate answer bout these concerns.
That's just preventing me from going sm all the way.
SangP
If its just a stage, or a single deco bottle, sling that junk ontop, its a hellovalot more streamlined than traditional bottle slinging.
Sadly, you are also selling yourself short with the "let people have been doing this awhile respond" attitude. You don't need years and years of experience to help others or impart knowledge. Often, a diver who has comparatively recently aquired a skill is in a far better position to dicuss the challenges with some one trying to learn.
It takes 0 experience to give bad advise as well, not such a huge problem in this thread since, aside from a few caveats, I can agree(ugh) with the portions of your novel that I bothered to read.
Consider military flight instructors - they tend to be ploughbacks from flight training on their first post flight school assignment. They do that for a reason. The same is true (for other reasons) in civilian flight schools.
How many people here can relate to military flight school? I'm guessing a very small fraction, considering only a small fraction will be able to relate to civilian flight schools... Is this just random fact that you're throwing out there or do really expect the general public to get anything out of this?
But in either case what matter is that the instructor can comunicate and teach. With a recently minted instructor the student benefits because the instructor still recalls and understands the challenges of learning the particular skills. The instructor also learns more about flying from teaching than they could ever possibly learn just flying. Imparting knowledge requires you to fully understand the topic and consider it from many different ways in order to effectively discuss it and you learn an awful lot in that process.
Again, I don't know anything about flight schools..
In diving, I want an instructor who dives, for fun, outside of training ATLEAST as much as he trains. I don't buy that an instructor is going to learn more from constantly doing a bunch of training dives than he'll learn from getting out in some real cave, beyond the acceptable training zone. Get some real experience, some real trouble, and have some fun with sorting out the answers.
So again, WTF you talking about, and how does THIS help the OP's question?
