Let’s start with what not to do. Don’t skip breathe – that’s trying to take only every other breath, it is essentially holding your breath underwater which we all know is a definite no. Don’t just buy a bigger capacity cylinder this only masks the problem rather than solves it. That said some people will just naturally use more air than others so cylinder choice is to some degree inevitable. Don’t detune your regulator to become harder breathing you need as much air as you need, getting your equipment to provide only a proportion of what you need is a recipe for an accident (read negligent).

The fact is we were all taught how to improve air consumption, but when learning the motor skills of diving these points are easily missed. Here are the key points to reducing your air consumption:

1. Reduce drag, streamline your equipment. Don’t have lots of dangling stuff hanging off you, tuck slates and bags into pockets.
2. Improve your body position. Make sure you are horizontal in the water, like a bullet going through the water you want the smallest amount of area cutting through the water.
3. Use an easy breathing regulator. Having a good quality regulator you trust and like the breathe of will help massively.
4. Breathe properly, slow deep breaths. You need to make sure you move as much old air out of your lungs and fresh in. Although this may seem like good way to use more air, you need to use the air you have as efficiently as possible. Proper breathing is essential.
5. Don’t be neutrally buoyant. Bit controversial this one, we are taught to be neutrally buoyant, we actually need to be very slightly negatively buoyant otherwise it can be awkward to maintain depth with changes in cylinder pressure during the dive.
6. Relax, possibly the single biggest factor in improving air usage. It’s not something you can really try to do, it just has to happen and it only really happens as you gain experience and time underwater. Ironically the more you try to relax the less effective this is, it just has to happen. Consider it falling in love, you can’t force it, it just happens!
7. Don’t obsess over your air consumption. If you use a lot of air it is easy for this to become a worry prior to the dive. You will spoil the dive for others if you use your air quickly is a common concern. You have to breathe! You use what you use. Yes you may use your air much quicker than others but without getting dives in you won’t relax and gain confidence and experience which in time will become the exact things which improve your air consumption over time.

Scuba diving is about enjoying ourselves, worrying is not a great factor for enjoyment. So worrying about having vacuum cleaners for lungs won’t help! As I said above you use as much air as you use. I hope these tips will prove useful, if you have any other suggestions or feedback please comment below.

Liquivision is hardly a newcomer but we’d still like to introduce you to the Liquivision range and announce that these top notch dive computers are now available from us at Simply Scuba.

Liquivision was officially founded in 2004 with the aim of designing and manufacturing high specification computers. Nothing new there you might think! Well, less than a year later the F1 bottom timer was released which was the first ever dive instrument to feature an OLED display.

What is an OLED display you might ask? OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode and it is essentially a very thin, light emitting device that is made by placing a series of thin organic films between two conductors. When electrical current is applied a bright light is emitted. Unlike LCD displays, OLED screens do not need to be backlit as each ‘pixel’ is effectively a really small LED, emitting it’s own light. The lack of backlight not only makes them thinner but more power efficient.

Another great feature of the entire Liquivision range is the use of an incredibly simple menu navigation system. You won’t find any troublesome buttons on any of these dive computers, instead a gentle tap to any of the sides will move you through the menu screens, change settings and accept confirmations.

The Liquivision range currently includes three high specification technical orientated units with a fourth unit designed for recreational use coming very soon:

Liquivision X1

The Liquivision X1 is the top of the range unit capable of handling everything from full closed circuit rebreather (CCR) diving to a recreational splash in the water using air or nitrox. The X1 offers the diver both choice and redundancy.

Thanks to the integration of an open software platform owners can decide which software program they want to install on to the unit. All the programs are available for free download and there are no extra upgrades to purchase. The different programs could use different algorithms and models, display dive information differently, provide tools such as a digital compass, planners and simulators, menu systems. All of the programs are frequently updated at no extra cost.

The X1 features not one but two ceramic pressure sensors to add an extra layer of redundancy and safety. Ceramic sensors are more robust than typical silicone filled sensors.

Liquivision Xeo

The Xeo is the perfect all rounder with support for air, nitrox and trimix in both open and closed circuit (with pin upgrade). The bright OLED makes the screen very crisp and clear to read in all situations including complete darkness and low visibility. This small unit comes supplied with both a strap and also a bungee cord to allow fitting in the owners preferred manner.

Further customisation can be made to the Xeo via the display colour schemes. The colour of every piece of dive information from ascent rate to depth can be changed to suit the diver. If you prefer the display to be in green with the exception of one particular detail then just a quick entry into the tap menu system and scroll through some colours and its all done.

The Xeo supports Trimix diving straight out of the box with up to 10 gas mixes but can also be upgraded to CCR with fixed PO2 set-points at any point.

Liquivision Xen

The Xen is a bottom timer with the same OLED screen as the Xeo, giving all the clarity and customisation. The huge numeral and text size makes it really easy to see in all conditions and provides all the essential information you need.

Liquivision Kaon (available soon)

Previously known as the Axiom, the Kaon is the recreational entry point in to liquivision range giving divers three different dive modes – Rec, Tec and Gauge.

The Rec mode allows for a single gas mix from 21-100% oxygen, allows up to three levels on conservatism, dive simulator, large logbook and on screen dive graphs.

Tec mode builds on the previous with two addition decompression gas mixes of up to 100% oxygen and provides more advanced dive planning function without getting as complicated as the Xeo trimix computer.

Gauge mode displays information such as depth and dive time, a resettable stopwatch and resettable average depth.

Combined with the OLED screen, tap navigation menu system, user changeable batteries and PC/Mac interface, the Kaon is a seriously high spec recreational dive computer.

The online project celebrates and promotes successful yet under-funded charities by directing its 11 million UK users to the work of these specially selected organisations. See more at www.bing.com/helpyourbritain.

Campaign director at Bite-Back, Graham Buckingham, said: “So many people are fascinated by sharks yet remain totally unaware of the tragic issues regarding over-fishing and the imminent extinction of some species. If they knew the facts they’d be horrified. Thanks to Bing we now have a rare opportunity to communicate these urgent marine conservation concerns with millions of people and inspire their support. It’s a big day for Bite-Back and our shark and marine conservation goals.”

Already Bite-Back’s campaigns have inspired many of the country’s biggest food retailers to halt the sale of threatened fish species including shark, swordfish, marlin and monkfish and won the backing of celebrities including Bear Grylls, Gordon Ramsay and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Now the charity plans to make Britain’s retailers shark-free.

The dive buddy system is touted as the best thing since sliced bread by the vast majority of recreational training organisations with good reason. All in all it makes diving safer to have someone next to you that can help you out should you get into a difficult situation. The only problem is… how reliable is that buddy? We’ve all been there, paired up with an unknown buddy on a trip, only for the buddy to wander off or pay next to no attention at all.

So what can define a good buddy?

Fitness

When diving I’d like to always think my buddy can get me out of trouble should the worse happen but unfortunately sometimes its not about how many times you practice a skill, sometimes it comes down to purely your physically fitness. Could you tow your buddy 100, 200, 300m+ back to the shore whilst performing life support? I’m not saying you need to be able to run a marathon before breakfast but there comes a point where low fitness levels pose a risk.

Communication – Before the Dive

For both divers communication in and out of the water is absolutely key. It is important to discuss each others training and skills to give an understanding of comfort levels. For example I have known divers who will point blank refuse to penetrate into an overhead environment whether it is a cave, wreck or otherwise. If that sort of information isn’t shared before the dive there is a reasonable chance that the divers could separate whilst one ventures into a wreck and the other waits outside….not a safe practice.

Divers should also decide on important hand signals before jumping in the water, especially if the divers have come from different training agencies where signals may vary. Make sure to agree on a plan for the dive including depths, times, separation procedures, etc. Be as prepared as possible to limit potential problems when diving with an unfamiliar buddy.

Buddy Check

A buddy check is never more important than when diving with a new buddy. Making sure you both know where your next breath is in an out of air situation is critical, you do not want to be searching for it at a time like that! Learn where everything is an how it works, it could be as simple as a different type of BCD clip but if you don’t know how it works in an emergency it could make things worse.

Communication – During the Dive

Unless you are both blessed with telepathy or an underwater comms system, communication is difficult and limited. Therefore dive buddies should actively communicate to ensure everything is OK, discuss change of direction, check air supplies, etc. Never assume that everything is OK and that your buddy is happily following you.

Awareness

Awareness covers nearly everything but pay attention to gas consumption, position relative to your buddy, depth, navigation, signals, surroundings, currents. Don’t fin around blindly, it only take a second or two to regularly glance over at your buddy to make sure he/she is OK and not trying to get your attention.

Actually Buddy Up

Stick close to each other to make communication easier but also to speed up response times should a situation occur where you need to get together fast. The ‘same ocean’ buddy system doesn’t work. If you aren’t diving appropriately close to each other you are as good as diving solo. Knowing where your buddy is at all times is massively reassuring whereas having to constantly look around your your buddy is not. Decide on your positioning before the dive and stick to it, you’ll both enjoy the dive more for it.

Overall..be safe, pay attention, look after each other and enjoy your dive.

If you are travelling by air, then it is always a better idea to take the o-ring out of the housing and pop it inside to avoid the housing sticking which can be caused by cabin pressure. Don’t forget to take a spare o-ring with you, it is always better to have extra kit just to be on that safe side.

The best time to prepare your housing is the night before your dive to avoid rushing. Hold up the o-ring to a light source and grab a magnifying glass to make sure that it is absolutely free of any hair or grit which may be lurking on the surface. Just the teeniest hair can cause that dreaded “flood” word …. Next grab a foam-tipped applicator sponge, (guys, you may need to ask your partners for these!) and check the groove of your housing for surplus silicone grease or more of those dreaded hairs and grit. I’ve been surprised many a time at what has been lurking, even after a pool dive!

O-ring grease is always a huge dilemma, especially for a newcomer. Too much or too little can cause a flood. Always make sure that you use the correct grease for your particular housing, so as not to degrade the o-ring itself. Simply place a small blob on your finger and gently lubricate the o-ring making sure that it is moist and nicely shiny. When placing it back into the housing’s groove, make sure that it fits nice and snug – even if it is a tiny bit loose, this could be that all important sign that it is time to replace it.

Finally, never forget to clean the front of the lens port – the number of times I have seen little fingerprints all over the front of the camera’s port, which in turn makes it even harder for the camera to capture your underwater subject in focus!

Now you have your housing all prepped, it is always a good idea to take it for a dive without the camera just to double-check that there are no dreaded leaks. Placing some sturdy tissue paper is always a good idea just to be sure. And none of those acrobatics please when entering the water! A slow, gentle entry with the housing firmly placed in your BCD or better still passed down to you will always help to protect that delicate seal from any nasty water droplets entering … Always descend with your port facing downwards and if you do encounter any dreaded water entering, then it is time to re-ascend to start a mission to save it, but never forget to do your safety stop.

If the worst happens, then take out the battery and the card. 99% of the time the card will always be safe. Grab a hairdryer and blow-dry the battery compartment. Leave the camera in an air-conditioned place or in the sunshine to dry out. My beloved Canon Powershot 570 flooded whilst in Lembeh and it took 4 months to recover, so don’t give up on your camera straight away … there may be life there just needing a little more recuperation time than you think ….

Touch wood, this isn’t going to happen and you are going to return as a very happy diver with lots of beautiful pictures … Make sure that you rinse your housing in a rinse tank to make sure that no salt residue is trapped in the buttons causing them to stick. Gently press each button and grab an old toothbrush for any difficult areas!

These are just a few tips to help you keep your camera safe on your underwater adventures. More are covered in my book “Underwater Photography for Compact Cameras” or DVD, both of which are available from Simply Scuba.

Of course if you have any extra tips, you are very welcome to post them here too!

Wishing you a wonderful Easter and lots of wonderful diving. Hope to see some of you very soon.

Maria

Cleaning

After a day of diving it can be very easy to get changed, travel home and forget about your kit until another day. This doesn’t do your suit much good, especially if you were diving in salt water. Take a few minutes to follow these instructions:

1. Rinse your suit with clean fresh water, both inside and out to remove contaminants
2. Ensure sand/grit and dirt is washed out of the zip
3. Give latex seals a good wash to remove contaminants such as sun lotion, body oils, perfumes and pollutants which can quickly damage them.
4. Hang your drysuit out to dry in a well vented area, preferably upside down to allow draining. A drysuit hanger is perfect for this job.
5. Make sure the suit is completely dry before preparing for storage.

Storing

A little preparation before putting your suit back into storage can really help keep it in good condition and performing well:

1. Lubricate your suit zip with bees wax or other product such as McNett Zip Tech that has been specially designed for the job. Using a oil based lubricant will only help attract foreign particles to the zip.
2. Lightly talc latex seals to help prevent perishing, the seals degrading and sticking together. Be sure to use an unscented and avoid baby powders as these can contain petroleum which can damage the seals. McNett Protalc is perfect for the job
3. If you are unable to store the suit hung up then store it with the zip undone and avoid excessive folding of the zip to prevent snapping.

Before Use

1. Before getting in your suit be sure to re-check your zip for anything that might affect its integrity
2. Use talc to dust latex seals to make it easier to get the seals on and more comfortable to wear
3. Check the operation of the inflator and dumps to make sure they are in full working order.

Here are some simple Do’s and Don’ts to bear in mind:

DO

• Use clean (ideally warm) fresh water for cleaning
• Store the suit with the zip open
• Dry in well ventilated areas. If drying or storing in a garage be aware of paint and other chemical fumes that can damage latex seals.

DON’T

• Clean your drysuit in a washing machine – as you can imagine it doesn’t do it much good
• Clean your suit with any solvents or cleaning products that aren’t produced for the purpose
• Store in direct sunlight. UV will break down latex seals
• Fold the zip. Keeping the zip flat will reduce the chance of the zip cracking
• Force the zip. If it gets stuck, pull it back, clean out the teeth, lubricate and try again.

Got a tip or trick for maintaining your drysuit that we haven’t listed? Help out your fellow divers by leaving a comment.

A few general assumptions, ladies are a different shape to men, side, back, front, all different. Women have hips. They also tend to have shorter back lengths. Armed with these few facts we can make a good case for diving with a ladies BCD rather than a unisex (read male) one.

Possibly the biggest issue are the hips, these cause several problems:

1. The weight belt digs in
2. The BCD covers the weights and pushes them in more.
3. See point 2, you now can’t get easy access to the weight belt causing a safety concern.

Swap to a female BC and you will find that it is cut a lot shorter so it sits above the hips, giving you access your weight belt. Go one giant leap further and dive a BCD with an  integrated weights system and now the weights are away from the hips and comfort reigns!

Breasts and the chest strap. Two items that are at complete odds with each other. For years BCD designers have insisted a chest is a critical component for feeling secure in your BC. Modern female specific jackets have either removed this, or relocated them, or turned them into a hybrid support system.

Coccyx. Any instructor having taught female divers will know the complaint of the tank rubbing against a ladies coccyx (where our tails used to come out of backs, if you believe  in dinosaurs). A feature I believe was introduced by Seaquest (now Aqua Lung) on their Diva BCD a decade ago was an angled back plate, like a cheese wedge with the narrow bit towards your head and the fat bit at the base of your spine, this would angle the cylinder away from your lower back avoiding this rubbing.

At the time of writing this the ladies BCD rated as the best is the Aqua Lung Pearl i3 for those of you not familiar with the system then watch our YouTube video of the i3 system in action. If you are not a fan of i3 then consider the normal Aqua Lung Pearl BCD its heritage from the original Diva is unquestionable. I have not come across a customer who has purchased these BCDs without being very pleased with their purchase. The only complaint of these BCDs is they are towards the top end of the price range but if you are a diver a good BCD must be a key component of your dive kit.

Do you own a women’s BCD? Are you pleased with it? Please let others know your thoughts and comments.

To qualify you will need to trade in a multilevel decompression dive computer which will allow you to purchase one of the units are the prices below:

Vyper Air £329.00
D4i £295.00

To take advantage of this fantastic offer you’ll need to send us your trade in multi-level along with the completed form which is available here. Once your computer has been received and verified by Suunto (they have final say) we will issue you with a Simply Scuba voucher code that is redeemable against the computer of your choice allowing you to purchase it at the Trade In price.

This offer is available until the 15th April 2012.

In most retail environments you get to try the products before you buy. Buying a new car, you take a test drive. Buy a mattress you get to lay on it in the shop. Buy a regulator, you get to look and touch it but not actually use it for diving. Would you buy that car after only sitting in it?

When I bought my first set of dive equipment, I went with what I was told was good and within my budget. To be fair, it was OK. However later I realised BCDs could be far more comfortable and regulators a lot easier breathing. For my first year of diving my air consumption was terrible. When I swapped to a better regulator (Mares MR12 Voltrex for the history buffs…) my air consumption miraculously improved. Was it a case of the wrong regulator, or my gain in confidence under water? Possibly a bit of both.

On our web site we have lots of customer reviews, most products have good independent feedback, both good and bad (yep we do publish the bad stuff too). The issue with all feedback is it is based on the user’s experience and knowledge, sometimes the comments are clearly incorrect (we always point this out in our comment next to the feedback). If an inexperienced diver says it is great, is it truly great or just great in their limited experience? New divers – don’t take this as criticism, we love your feedback, experience can’t be gained quickly! Luckily we have a large community who correct people’s biases (true crowd sourcing), often a poor review triggers several other points of view. If a product continues to receive bad feedback we will remove it from our stocks, we only want to sell the best.

Returning to my analogy of cars. I doubt many of us have driven more than a few cars when we decide to swap. Someone like Jeremy Clarkson gets to test hundreds so should have a  good idea of what is good and bad. Luckily working at Simply Scuba gives us access to lots of new dive gear which we can test, not a luxury many divers get. But why not? The answer is simple, it’s economics. As a dive store we have to buy the stock, if we sell it or use it the cost is the same. This is surely true in the car market too but as consumers we expect to try the goods before committing. Is it now time to raise the bar (excuse the pun) in the dive market? If you could borrow the equipment for, say a weekend (at a small nominal cost (maybe the same as renting) which would be refunded if you purchase those items from us (not the ones you borrow but new)) would this be a good service?

The dive market is very competitive and despite divers’ general perception, the profit margins are quite low. Would a service of try before you buy make you, as divers, our customers, more likely to recommend us to your dive buddies and make purchases from us? I don’t see raising prices to pay for this service above our competitors would help our sales, so we have to sell more to recover our out lay out on the equipment.

We would really appreciate it if you would leave a comment here on the blog with your thoughts and suggestions. If you can see any flaws in this idea, again we would love to hear.

Rebreathers have been around for years in various formats and levels of complexity but I’m talking about a rebreather has requires minimal training and set up, allowing a recreational diver to enjoy the benefits of improved gas consumption, greater bottom time and and significantly reduce or even eliminating exhaust gas venting.

Recreational rebreathers are hardly new for 2012 but the support and training for it will have a massive boost with new training material (Rebreather Type R) developed by PADI and the involvement of big manufacturing companies such as Hollis (American Underwater Products – AUP). PADI had some very strict requirements of what a sports rebreather should and shouldn’t do by looking at the reasons behind previous incidents including:

• Not turning on gas
• Not turning on electronics
• Not doing pre-dive checks
• Not maintaining the rebreather
• Not maintaining skills and complex drills

These are some of the simple but important requirements for a rebreather to meet PADI’s Type R approval:

• Automated pre-dive check with limited diver interaction
• Intelligent sensing including gas analysis and CO2 monitoring
• Simple bail-out with no return to closed loop
• Simple assembly and less parts such as single gas and interlocking parts

The soon to be released Hollis Explorer eSCR is the latest to join the list of recreational rebreathers. At the moment the Explorer is unique in its use of a single gas in the form of a 32-40% Nitrox mix. The Explorer has been designed with a heavy influence for the travelling diver. A 40% mix is much easier to find around the world than a 100% Oxygen fill, plug and play absorbent cartridges which are estimated to last about 2 hours depending on use will be available from certified dealers with qualified technicians having the option of being able to re-pack cartridges in the field if needed. The whole unit is designed to be replaceable with very few serviceable parts which also allows divers to remove the heavy pieces for flights and renting those parts at their destination.

The explorer is actually a hybrid rebreather, using technology to intelligently switch between semi and fully closed loops to offer the diver the best option at the time. Pre-dive is effectively a self diagnostic check with a few prompts to the user like turning the gas on. After each instruction and confirmation the Explorer will physically check that the instruction has been carried out to prevent mistakes and incidents. Bail-out has also been simplified as much as possible. In the event of a problem the system will alert the diver via an LED visible display and vibrating regulator to either switch to open circuit or redundant bail-out tank. There is no option to return to a closed loop status once the units has given instruction to bail-out.

The PADI Type R rebreather training is split into two courses, the Rebreather Diver and the Advanced Rebreather Diver:

The Rebreather Diver course is aimed at qualified entry level divers and above who have some open circuit scuba diving experience. The course will qualify divers to use a Type R rebreather to a maximum of 18m within no decompression limits. The course will teach the essential skills and responses to problems which, in most cases, will mean switching the mouthpiece to open circuit and ascending.

The Advanced Rebreather Diver course will the diver to have completed the Rebreather Diver course first on the same rebreather and will expand on the knowledge learned including the use of a bail-out cylinder. The Advanced Rebreather Diver will be qualified to dive to 30m (40m with PADI Deep Diver certification). The only real difference is the skills required to bail-out to a separate cylinder to allow ascent from greater depths.

A diver is qualified on the particular rebreather that they passed the course in but qualifier programs will be available to allow crossover from one unit to another.