Tanks for transition from Mexican Cave SM to cold ocean SM?

[Florinda]

I just have to concede it is less than ideal. Most SM divers are not efficient at dealing with their rig and they take up too much space.

No worries. I agree it's not super efficient. But there aren't many other options when you are smaller and simply not able to carry all that gear with gravity. Luckily, we have some great boat crews who are very accommodating of divers with different needs. And I do always try to be polite with where my gear is stowed. SM divers are hardly as bad as the camera people!

Thanks for the offer! I am in SoCal though

 

[PR_SMITH]

Why would you need to unclip underwater? Restrictions? Otherwise, the tanks should just be on your drop attachment points, right?

Sometimes SM divers unclip the bottom of both tanks, and swing the tanks out in front to make themselves narrower to squeeze through a restriction. Easy with aluminum tanks, a little harder with steels.

 

[PR_SMITH]

I dive SM in cold water, in Canada, either in a 7mm semi-dry in shallower lakes, and a drysuit with thermals in deeper, colder lakes. My go to tanks are HP100's, as they are slightly smaller than al80's, hold 20ft more gas and stay negative. I also have a bunch of steel 72's that work well for SM. I rarely dive al80's, but when I do, I need more weight, and start the dive with the lower boltsnaps on the bottom rail, then transfer them to D rings on my waist belt as they become more buoyant.

 

[J-Vo]

Warm water wetsuit is always AL80s. I don't dive cold and wet as you can't do it without being overweighted.

Cold fresh water, Faber LP85s. Cold salt water ,Faber HP100s/Worthington LP85s. HP100s will be harder to don standing on the boat requiring more strength and practice, but doable.

If you need to take a tank off in the water, it's AL80s and lots of lead (maybe Faber 85s in salt water). Personally I would rather use LP50s/AL40s and carry a stage then be removing primary tanks.

Edit: If you need to take both tanks off, you don't need to ask this question on SB.

 

[DiveTucson]

Dive as you want but most of the tech depth sites in Southern California are live boated. I bring this up as you mentioned Tech depths. It’s not a problem if the boat hooks up to a mooring or sets anchor. A shot line is dropped and then you are off the boat and descending down the shot line. At the end of the dive you are ascending back up the shot line and the boat maneuvers to come and pick you up. I

That being said that if you are live boating a wreck for the initial descent there is no time to jump in the water and have the crew hand you your tanks or you are going to miss the drop and the site. I have known a few SM guys that do these dives but they are gearing up fully on the boat so they are still carrying the same weight around on a pitching deck just in a less than ideal (for these specific conditions) manner when compared to the BM guys.

I can’t think of any sites in SoCal deeper than 150’ that are not dove in this manner which is why BM is the preference unless you can get in and off the boat fully geared up in your SM kit.