Your Helmet Choice and Why?

[Subcooled]

Things to consider before buying a cave diving helmet:

"Cave diving helmets" have three uses:

1) mount your GoPro or other action cam (and no lights) on your helmet for reasonably stable video - even in open water. Hence, it is one of a videographers tools.

2) protect your head from bumps while diving in zero visibility sumps and/or while crawling from sump N to sump N+1 (even if the sumps were clear); head mounted light is very much needed in those dry sections of cave. Thus, it is a sump divers tool.

3) free your hands for actual labor during search and recovery diving, inspection diving, and other underwater work. A hand held or canister light might cause unnecessary trouble if you had to take a significant amount of notes underwater where you need to hold wetnotes or a slate and a pencil and a light and you happen to only have two hands. Hence, it can support workplace lighting.

The helmet can also cause some trouble:

1) If it tilts forward and dislodges your mask repeatedly, then you need a different kind of helmet that leaves more free space for the mask.

2) If you are a sump diver and you need to remove your helmet to fit trough a narrow section of the cave, and you wear gloves, then the chin strap can become a problem (hint: rubber band instead of clipped chin straps makes life simpler). The same situation occurrs if the helmet dislodges your mask and you need to temporarily remove the helmet to adjust you mask.

3) Helmet mounted lights generally suck, but sump divers and those who work underwater may not always have a choice. Sometimes one just needs to have the hands free.

4) A helmet could interfere with gas sharing (the longhose) - especially if there are protruding helmet mounted lights. In sump diving the benefits of a helmet outweight this one drawback. The same is probably true if you do actual work underwater and need your hands free. Videographers should take note, though. Make you choice, know its implications, and plan accordingly.

5) Helmet mounted lights can dazzle your buddy (and hence need to be used with care). This is especially true in darkness and in emergencies. In sump diving the benefits of a helmet outweight this one drawback. The same is probably true if you do actual work underwater and need your hands free. Videographers should take note, though. Make you choice, know its implications, and plan accordingly.

What kind of helmet, then?

--> A low profile helmet that leaves ample space for the mask and that is easy to take off. The helmet does not need padding - your neoprene hood should be about adequate for that. And make sure that it is neither excessively heavy nor buoyant. Air must also be able to escape (as your exhalation bubbles will find their way into the helmet). Hence, it needs to have vents. Make sure that you can attach you camera and/or lights on the helmet.

 

[Paul M]

I use a Light Monkey helmet mainly because my cave dive buddies all had them before I started cave diving ("when in Rome"). When I needed to get it, it was on sale at DGX.
I removed the chin strap (too uncomfortable) and use a 6mm bungee. This stills hold well and makes it easy to remove and replace one handed.
I mount my primary light on the left side with the Razor adjustable mount and I bungee mount a secondary push button light on the right side.

Some odd (to me) comments about helmets being a problem and/or not preferred by instructors. Prior to my cave courses in Mexico, my cave instructor sent me a required equipment list. Among the many items was a helmet, which also noted 'not required but highly recommended. My instructor (a long time cave instructor) was also wearing a helmet, with his light, on every dive...he always does.

 

[DogDiver]

In cave diving. When I was diving back mount the tanks and manifold were the highest part of my rig. For the last 9 years of sidemount cave diving now my head is the highest part of my rig. I modified a skate boarding helmet and took half of the padding out. I have a mount for my LX-20 for task situations only. I mainly use a helmet for high flow tight caves only. It has saved my head many times. As for mask strap issues, 54 years of diving and have never broken a mask strap. Anyways, my mask strap is under my hood too. Your cave diving self sufficiency and problem solving. Weather your solo or in a team so air sharing especially if all the team is sidemount or CCR is not an issue.

 

[chrisch]

...
Some odd (to me) comments about helmets being a problem and/or not preferred by instructors. Prior to my cave courses in Mexico, my cave instructor sent me a required equipment list. Among the many items was a helmet, which also noted 'not required but highly recommended. My instructor (a long time cave instructor) was also wearing a helmet, with his light, on every dive...he always does.

The controversy started a long time back with some of the more hyperbolic DIR types. Generally the view was that the helmet was not a compliant item. As Scubacooled mentions in his rather good post the helmet mounted lights can be problematic. In recent years therefore most dive oriented cave diving has followed this trend and helmet mounted lights are mostly frowned upon. The habit persists both in sump diving, which is really caving not diving and some of the people that were diving caves before cave diving became a sport in it's own right.

As I am based in the UK I dive in France in the many superb caves there. They do not need any form of head protection and it is quite unusual to see anyone wearing a helmet. A few, mostly older, French divers do as it was at one time a habit in the CMAS training. I would suggest that for beginners the idea that a person needs head protection suggests either they are in an unsuitable environment or their buoyancy control is not good enough that they should be cave diving at all.

I find it equally irritating that people think you can never wear a helmet or you must wear one. Both are wrong. It is a tool, an item of equipment like any other and has it's place. Equally a small light mounted on the head can be useful (some clip to the mask for example) in many situations (open water too), but the primary light is hand held so you can point it where you are going. If you want a small head mounted light the ones that are easy to turn on and off are fantastic. Again this can interfere with a long hose deployment and as such needs consideration. The intelligent thinking diver will plan properly and choose the right configuration for the specific dive. The unthinking diver just chooses the same stuff every time, worse still they then say everyone else should follow that bad practice.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

No helmet needed.

 

[Boston Breakwater]

View media item 209684Hello, everyone. I dove without a helmet for 20 years. Earlier last year, I was talking with a non-diver. He asked me why S.C.U.B.A. divers don't wear helmets. I responded by saying helmets are generally used by divers engaging in specialty diving, and/or certain applications.
He then said "Nearly every sport worldwide...the players wear helmets."
Mmmmmm? It got me thinking?
I decided, I wanted a helmet, and started doing research. A friend of my had a "Light Monkey." helmet. I thought it was way to flimsy, and expensive. I found a YouTube video by Achim R.Schloffel of Innerspace Explorers of him gutting out aView media item 209685n orange skateboard helmet. BINGO. I found a helmet on EBay for $15.00 and eyeballed two dremel cuts in the side, fed the stainless hose clamp through...Done.
I mounted 2 Big Blue VL5800's. The slots are wide enough so I can tilt the lights up, or down to a small degree.I am not a Cave Diver, (Never will be....I'm scared.) I merely wanted to free up my hands.

 

[Dark Wolf]

View media item 209684Hello, everyone. I dove without a helmet for 20 years. Earlier last year, I was talking with a non-diver. He asked me why S.C.U.B.A. divers don't wear helmets. I responded by saying helmets are generally used by divers engaging in specialty diving, and/or certain applications.
He then said "Nearly every sport worldwide...the players wear helmets."
Mmmmmm? It got me thinking?
I decided, I wanted a helmet, and started doing research. A friend of my had a "Light Monkey." helmet. I thought it was way to flimsy, and expensive. I found a YouTube video by Achim R.Schloffel of Innerspace Explorers of him gutting out aView media item 209685n orange skateboard helmet. BINGO. I found a helmet on EBay for $15.00 and eyeballed two dremel cuts in the side, fed the stainless hose clamp through...Done.
I mounted 2 Big Blue VL5800's. The slots are wide enough so I can tilt the lights up, or down to a small degree.I am not a Cave Diver, (Never will be....I'm scared.) I merely wanted to free up my hands.

That is basically what I did, and for the same reasons. I mounted my action cam to the front, and a small light on each side. Works perfect, for what I do.

DW

 

[Boston Breakwater]

I pulled the bezel off one of them to get an old Scout clone working, but other than that they sit in my curiosity box along with my old primary light. Now THAT was heavy out of water.

View attachment 580668

Great photo. I like how you used items for the size comparison.