I’m sure you will be on this page after reading the Early Days piece, perhaps I’m wrong and you are just interested in Dive gear over the last 30 years or so? Either way, I hope the posts here will be informative and interesting. Please do note, anything expressed here is my opinion, nothing more, and will be based on what I hold dear as an influence, not what other’s might think or believe! It will serve anyone reading this to note that when people ask me “what do you think....” they are largely expecting me to agree with what they have already decided, or to say what they want to hear…….sorry folks, I’m just not that person…..and never will be………. so if you are easily offended and a kit manufacturer, or you favour a particular manufacturer or piece of dive kit, perhaps this isn’t the place for you………… As I have already stated, I was not then, nor am I now a “rich kid”, perhaps knowing what I was like and what I would face in the future, my Dad gave me a piece of advice I have followed for the rest of my life, or until now at least, he said “Son, you can’t afford a bargain…..” I didn’t really understand until years later, when I had bought my share of “deals” and been bitterly disappointed on pretty much every one. I promised myself, after one particular deal went Pete Tong, that, from that point onwards, I would only buy the very best I could afford
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So my kit “start point”, I had bought Typhoon Hurricane Fins, a modernisation of the old solid Rubber affairs of WWII vintage, made in a PVC or Thermo-Plastic material, they cost around £50, were Black and White and I loved them. These were “No Frills” fins, but they were rugged, the straps were robust, they fit me well, didn’t cause me cramp or blisters, were as efficient as any fins of the day, and I used them to destruction over perhaps 5 years or so. I think I learned well from my Father’s wisdom and in this case it paid off, I should say they were second hand to begin with too, they’d had some pool use as “Demonstrators” for Aqualeisure, the Melksham dive shop. I had teamed them up with a £10 snorkel and a new Tusa Liberator Dive Mask, again a no-frills mask, but one that fitted well and was a “low profile” mask, an upgrade to the One-Piece lenses of the Cousteau era and far easier to “clear” in the event that you had a mask flood, or were doing skills & drills. Your snorkel is a much underrated piece of equipment, learning to snorkel better over those long pool sessions not only improved my breathing control, but also my buoyancy control on ascent. In open water they preserve valuable air as you transit from shore to site, or from the boat to the shot in calmer water, they are also useful when “searching” from the surface in gin clear foreign waters……… I chose the Scubapro R190 reg as it was the best I could afford at the time, it was a reasonably new design, it had sufficient ports to allow the main regulator (Reg) and a “spare” or “alternate air source” reg for safe diving, an inflate port to connect to my Stab Jacket, and that was it so to speak! The reg was around £100 without the alternate, and I’d been taught how to breathe off my Stab Jacket’s air should I be desperate, so the spare reg could wait a while…………
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I have already given a couple of lines to the Buddy Commando “Stab” Jacket which you can see in the First picture in this piece, these were a revolution to the “old School divers” in BSAC dive clubs, who had grown up with Fenzy and the like, and there was some justification for some of their criticism when you looked at the position of a diver on the surface. If a diver has an incident underwater, especially if you both had an obligation to carry out decompression stops before exiting the water, it was common practice back in the ’80’s & 90’s to inflate the casualty’s adjustable buoyancy life jacket (ABLJ) and send them to the surface. On reaching the surface, which you couldn’t do as yet (don’t become a casualty yourself….First rule of First Aid….), your buddy diver would be supported in a “head-up” position as the ABLJ, when inflated around the neck, acted like a buoyant “cushion” front and rear, as most of the buoyancy was to the front and under the chin…..unlike the “Stabiliser” (Stab) jacket which was worn around the core with the largest part of the buoyancy under the arms and to the rear, potentially landing you “face-Down” until recovered by the boat….. a potential for drowning in the eyes of many “old-sweats”, however, the younger and less entrenched divers would say the weight of your dive cylinder would act as counter-balance in such circumstances……I was with them on this point, and luckily I never had to see which came true……….
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As you will have read previously, my first dive suit was a Beaver Icelandic 7mm, Two-Piece Semi-Dry suit. For those of you wondering what the difference is between a straight-up “Wet-Suit” and the rather more grandly entitled “Semi-Dry-Suit” it goes like this: A “Wet-Suit” is exactly that, wet! Usually a Two-Piece suit, largely neoprene rubber which had pretty much put the older Shark-Skin suits off the market. They were easier to put on, lacking wrist seals or ankle seals, and thus allowed more water in and around your core, which meant that you got colder….quicker! The last thing you need to be when diving chilly UK waters, I assure you! The far grander “Semi-Dry-Suit” was usually the same 7mm Two piece affair as the wet-suit, giving effectively 14mm of protection on the torso where it was double thickness, however it had the benefit of tighter wrist seals, or “cuffs” as they were known. Having the same arrangement at the ankles, a “snug” fitting semi-dry suit out-performed the wet-suit, keeping the small amount of water that seeped in down the neck, or through the various zips, in place around your core, not “flushing” straight out again, thus it warmed up to around body temperature, and therefore kept you warmer, for longer…….The semi-dry-suit also had flexibility, it could be worn as a One-piece in warmer climes, where you wanted to be cooler in the sometimes oppressive heat, such as the resorts of the Red Sea………..ideal! The whole lot went under-water along with a weight belt, mine was a generic nylon web type with, rather unusually for the day, only Two large (12lb each) plastic coated, (the “Green” approach, keeping the lead from having any effect on the environment, before that was “trendy”) curved lead weights, one either side directly under the stab jacket pockets. I already had a decent dive-timer, my Casio “G-Shock” watch, pretty much de-rigueur for squaddies at that time, I also bought a dive reel and a “Surface Marker Buoy” (SMB) so I could be seen and attract attention in poorer conditions. This was an ideal set-up for me and I kept it for a year, before I decided to move on a little and get a better regulator, or at least an “alternate air-source”, as even the BSAC, not truly known for its driving innovation, or cutting edge approach to anything, was beginning to bang the drum for “Safer” diving practices……..