My schedule during the week or weekends is generally wide open. Most of the systems are open again. Anytime you want to dive I'm a PM/Phone Call away.

It was actually pretty cool at Orange Stink yesterday. At around the 11-1200 foot mark there was a definitive thermocline that you could see and feel. Drop down towards the bottom of the cave and it was a little milky white with a noticeable temperature decline. Halfway towards the cave ceiling the waters were crystal clean and a couple of degrees warmer. It was pretty neat.

I honestly completely forgot about that invitation. My original plan last week was to bust ass and get ahead at work so I could take Friday off and we ended up getting the day off anyways. I was planning on packing Thursday, leaving Friday morning and diving Fri-Sun while hammock camping behind Dive Outpost

Actual result? Sat at home, hating myself and my friends for ditching on every plan I made or tried to make this weekend. Might be up there next week tho.

I don't think I will be going back to Blue Grotto any time soon. It is just so freakin' boring there and its always packed on the weekends.

Paradise is a nice out of the way place that isn't always packed. I'm glad they are making repairs to the dock now. It was getting a little sketchy.

I am going to be in Ginnie over mother's day weekend camping with family. We are of course going to bring gear. I will more than likely end up taking CCR Cave once I get the required hours on it. I think it would be really great to take the class from Lamar Hires himself.

I don't have a huge fascination with caves, but a cave doesn't care about the wind blowing at 20 knots... My family loves camping as well and given the amount of great camping locations in close proximity to caves doesn't hurt me getting dive time!

Yeah man, sidemount rigging bailouts/stages/deco bottles is the way to go. I'll even sidemount my stages when I'm diving doubles. That all being said, if I'm in open water and running a couple deco gases and a stage, O2 is usually on a leash anyway so it's sort of a moot point and I don't really bother.

My trip to the SS Baja California was a couple weeks ago now. I have been meaning to get some pictures posted.

It was a great trip with the exception I got extremely sea sick on Saturday and was only able to do one two hour dive. Being in the water was my only saving grace. I really didn't want to puke in the loop on the CCR so I had my bailout a little closer than normal.

I have shamelessly robbed the below from a fellow diver on the trip to best summarize anything that my ass could write.

It was a great trip overall and I really do like how the side mounting has streamlined my bailout bottles. Thanks again to everyone for suggesting the configurations. Thats me in the first picture. You can see the ring bungee and nomad butt plate. I carried an al80 down and left it on the wreck the whole weekend. I kept a al40 on me as bailout. We did recover a lot more artifacts than are pictured. I will post up my personal collection once I get everything cleaned up. I thought everyone was pulling my leg when they said you would silt it out so bad the HUD would disappear. It happened more than once...

Sounds like a Large time, awesome diving and cool finds....

Very nice.  Not that I'm a wreck expert, but had to look that one up.
I have two to dive locally [torpedoed freighters], the Halsey and Amazone.  There aren't many trips going, so it's an issue of timing.
Artificial wrecks are great, but there is something else about the real ones, mindful of the tragedy.
Post more if you can.

Oh, btw, did you happen to see this dude lurking by the dock or your house?


Looking at those ampoules, maybe morphine?

Went and did some diving at Ginnie Springs over the weekend. Camping out at that place is a bit of a workout. Luckily we had an RV spot out near the entrance that was away from the madness. Trucks and UTVs blaring music all hours of the night was a regular occurrence.

Luckily my wife and son were able to sleep though it. It kept me awake a good bit of the night though.

There is just something weird about cave diving over where people are drunk on an inner tube. My family was waiting top side while me and my buddy went diving. My wife captured this picture when I came back up and my son jumped into my arms. Apparently he had a mild panic attach when he saw me slip under the surface.



I am heading down to Largo this weekend to do their "Heavy Metal" wreck trip. Should be a good time with my regular dive crew.

Awww....cute pic.

I almost don't dive at Ginnie anymore because it has become a party spot. I watched a group of college kids do some shots one day then help themselves to some guys scooter with attached camera housing. I guesstimated the cost of the scooter and housing/lights to be in the neighborhood of about 15 grand.

I know a lot of divers who are shunning the place because of all the shenanigans that go on. I've been there on beautiful days during both the week and weekend and most of the days it's like a ghost town. Divers have become an incidental part of their customer base.  

As I understand it the owners daughter took over day to day operations several years ago and decided to turn it into a party spot. Apparently over Memorial day weekend they will make several million dollars just in those 3 days alone.

Yeah I was told by the staff not to even attempt diving on holiday weekends. They said it is just a mad house of drunks. I could tell the guy was a diver by the expression on his face.

Sounds about right. I never trust anyone there not to steal my shit. Even went and had new keys cut for my car so I could stash them on paracord in my suit and not leave them in the wheel well of my SUV...

So I've been told Helium is cheaper if you just buy a large cylinder from a place like AirGas and blend your own. Not sure what the actual cost savings amount to though since you need a booster to effectively accomplish that.

I'm still very new to sidemount. I'm starting Tec 50 tomorrow.
40 and 45 have been using one deco bottle... two should be interesting.
I'm not 100% in love with it. Partly because I feel like I'm doing something wrong all the time because there's so much crap running all over the place. It's a little frustrating for me.

Attaching 3 bottles on the boat before stepping off is a pain in the ass, but doable. Today would have been a great day to do it all in the water because the conditions in the ocean with like a lake, but whatever.

I'm using a Nomad LS, but my instructor isn't a fan of the rings and simply ran bungees from the inside, so I stripped the bungees, rings, etc. off it completely. I'll take a picture of my setup when I get a chance.
My buttplate really only gets used to clip off deco bottles and my goodie bag.

Helium is a bit cheaper if you blend your own, but by the time you factor in the cost of the booster and what now you're really not saving that much. The reality with trimix is that the most effective way to dive it anymore is with a rebreather.

PDC banks most of the popular trimix blends and its stupid easy to get fills from them. When you are dealing with CCR bottle sizes it just isn't that expensive. I've read reviews where guys had great luck with those chinese boosters that can be had for just under $3k. $3k buys a ton of fills when you are talking 2-3L bottles.

I've been side mounting for the last couple months. I tried doing the loop bungee thing and didn't like it. I much prefer the comfort and ease of use on the rings over the loops. That is just my opinion and there are plenty that don't agree.

When I was at Ginnie last we didn't have a very close spot. We geared up at the truck and with the CCR and two bailouts I thought I was going to die by the time I made it to the water. Next time I will just make two trips...

On the boat it hasn't been to difficult to gear up. I usually dive with a 40cf of bottom gas and a 40cf of 50% as my dives right now aren't crazy aggressive or deep. I've carried two 80cf tanks as bailout and the only difference for me was the out of water weight. It didn't really change much in the water for me.

I am supposed to dive the Rhein and Araby Made in October on the Ultimate Getaway. IIRC they are 250' and 210' respectively. It should be a good time.

Speaking of Ginnie, here's a pic from the Ballroom last time I was there (March, IIRC):




Also went to the Rainbow River yesterday to test out my newly repaired boat motor (adios, $588.03 I could've used on other stuff ) and try to fine-tune my bottle rigging for both my main tanks and my O2 bottle/stages before I start full cave. Won $225 worth of O2 sensors and traded them to my instructor straight up for that money off my cave class, so I should be able to start doing some full-level dives with him soon. This was just using the O2 bottle with the rigging set as it was installed:




I'm replacing the whole setup with just the wormscrew band, bungee, and bolt snap at the bottom, and tight bungee with a bolt snap around the neck. That should bring it up closer to my armpit to prevent the regular stage bottle hang going on right there... looks like ass, but I had no idea it would be that bad until I actually swam in front of the camera. I've been sick as hell all week so nine feet was my max depth I could stand because I couldn't get my ears to clear. It was pretty extreme.

I just wanted to share some pictures from a couple weeks back.



I'm taking off my 50% here to fit in that hatchway a little better. I ended up getting stuck. It wasn't one of my finer moments. The rest of that picture set will not be shared.






Okay my sidemounting friends. I have some questions. After taking the recommendations from here and rigging my OC bailout to sidemount I have a few rigging questions. From the pictures above I would like some help on my rigging. I know of one issue for starters; my ring bungees were a little lose due to me going from my 7mm to a 3mm wet suit. Would that be the only reason that the tanks don't hang level? Is this due to the fact that the AL40s are buoyant on their tail and are actually floating up? Although this is a vast improvement on how I was originally slinging them, I still feel their is more improvement in my trim to be had.

If it is truly due to the buoyancy of the AL40 what options do I have or is it a non issue.

Actually, I'm glad you asked the question, because I've wondered what divers are doing differently when it comes to their stage/pony bottles. Mine is pulled in fairly close (I carry an AL30 pony), yet I see other divers that have their ponies going ass up to an extreme degree (see below pic from a recent Lake Michigan dive of someone on the same boat).

Body/cylinder relationship:  Like it or not in side mount you have to conform your body to the cylinder as much as you conform the cylinder to your body. That means that pain in the butt superman position with your back arched and thighs in line with your torso. Yeah, it's a pain in the butt and in all honestly you don't look that bad but that will help a little. In most of those pictures the cylinder is horizontal, but you're not. However, that's part and parcel of diving a rebreather you're probably never going to be completely horizontal in one of those things.

Clocking: When it comes to Aluminum cylinders you're going to need to clock the top and bottom clips at 3 and 9 O'clock. If you run them valves up then the 9 O'Clock goes on the right side and the 3 on the left.

Ring Bungee: Yours is too long, shorten it up so that the ring is towards your back, that will help tame things a little bit. I like having the 1st stage almost in my arm pit. You shouldn't have  things that loose going to a thinner wet-suit. Heck me, it's bungee don't be afraid to stretch that stuff out.

Top/Bottom Clips: It looks like the neck choker on your top clip is loose, but I could be wrong. When I blow up the image it becomes harder to tell.

Front Waist D-Ring: Most of us use a D-ring on the front of the waist strap. Aluminum cylinders have a tendency to start to float up and the easiest solution is to clip them off to a D-ring on ht front of your waist strap. Mine are positioned about an inch or two from my hip bones. You'll probably need to adjust the length of the bottom clips and the d-ring but if your patient you can find that sweet spot where the cylinder will hang in approximately the same spot no matter where it's clipped.

Hope it helps.

That's basically how I have mine set up except for neck chokers and a top clipy thingy doohickey.

Have you tried shortening your top clip?

Not sure who you're responding to, but the diver with yellow fins in that pic isn't me.

Nice pics. What's the orange thing stuck in the hose retainer on your bailout bottle?

Thank you for taking the time to post! the optima is pretty ass heavy. So much that they even sell a special wing with a trim pillow on it. I am just not going to pony up the $500 or so dollars for a few extra degrees in trim.

My tanks are defiantly not clocked so that is something I can play with and see how the tanks react. I wont be able to do that with standard stage bottle rigging will I? The carrying handle would be diagonal correct?

Right now I am clipping into the nomad butt plate. Are you saying to ditch that and go back up to the waist strap? If that is the case my bottom clamps are way too low. I couldn't clip them off to my waist belt if I tried right now.

I knew the ring bungees were lose. This was my first dive in a 3mm suit in over a year. It felt good to ditch all of that weight! I will have them a good bit tighter for this upcoming weekend in Key Largo. All of my chokers are a little lose. I looked at the pictures you had posted previously and it looks like you have yours as tight as they will go. I'll give that a shot too and see if that helps tuck the tank up under my arm a little better.

Thanks again for the help. None of my dive buddies are a fan of side mount so they are about worthless with helping on setup. I'll dick around with it this weekend and post some more pictures next week.

@Marie those are 50 lbs lift bags. Where I dive we do a lot of hot drops and drifting deco. We shoot the bags to the surface as a DSMB so the boat can follow us. I carry two as "two is one, one is none".

You should be able to clock both the top and bottom clips. The top clip should be held in place with the neck choker and the bottom clip via the worm gear. You may need to cut and reposition the carry handle so that it rest at the 3/9 O'clock position respectively.

This guy makes some fairly inexpensive but surprisingly good side mount gear. The bladder that they offer is about the size of 6 liter MSR water bladder and provides about 15 pounds of life when it's pulled around your waist. I don't know if it's something your truly interested in but it might be an option if you're desperate to get perfectly horizontal.

Yes,no, maybe, add a pair of D-rings to the waist strap of your CCR first. The D-ring should be located in somewhere in the vicinity of your hip bones. This will give you the option of clipping off the bottom clip of your tanks when they start to float up on you. This is what we do with aluminum 80's. When we start the dive we clip them off on the butt plate as we breath them down the bottom of the tank starts to get floaty, usually around 2000 psi. The we'll unclip the bottom clip and attach it to the front waist D-ring. Now the floaty tank returns to it's approximate position along side our body.

If you really want absolutely perfect trim you can try a pair of sliding D-rings. Personally, I never saw the need for that but some people do.

As a relatively general rule of thumb steel tanks require rails for the bottom clip while aluminum tanks require D-rings or something like these to clip the bottom clip onto. On my warm water rig I use this to clip my tanks onto. It sits somewhere around the top of my butt crack/small of the back area. Then when the tanks get empty and start to float I simply unclip them and attach them to the D-ring on the waist strap.

If all you're going to dive are aluminum tanks for your bailout/deco gasses then I'm spend a few bucks and play around with D-rings or the plates I listed. If you're going to go back and forth between steel and aluminum then I'd leave the butt plate and play around until you get a best fit solution and learn to live with it.


Personally, I'd set the bungees up for your 3 mil and leave it. They'll stretch enough when you wear your 7 mil that it shouldn't be a problem.

Hope it helps

Re-did my rigging and tried my hand diving with two LP80s, an AL80, and an AL40. The only thing I should have to worry about for the time being is an AL40 unless I were to do a dive that I'd need 50% and 100% O2 to deco on... Even upon completion of full cave class (next endeavor) I won't be doing any stage dives for a while. Not mentally ready for that and not afraid to admit it

Well my first time diving in the Keys was a success this past weekend. It was flat calm with little to no current all weekend. We did 90 minutes on the Spiegel Grove Saturday morning followed by 60 minutes on the Eagle and 60 minutes at Victory Reef. Sunday morning was supposed to be the Dwayne but it had several fishing boats parked on it so we went back to the Spiegel for another 90 minute dive.

I can say I completely understand why guys have died on that wreck. With all of the permanent lines ran on it, its very easy to get ahead of yourself. We went down a couple deck levels and checked out the place. We got to see a lot more of the inside of the ship than I thought. The boiler room was pretty cool as was some of the living quarters that we made it into. I haven't dug an awful lot but are there readily available deck plans for that ship?

We went out with Conch Republic. Those guys were great. They were a huge help in getting bailout bottles on and off as well as getting in and out of the boat. My only complaint from tech standpoint, they use PVC uprights as tank holders that are bolted in. Only the back 6 feet or so is without these tank holders. All rebreathers and doubles have to get staged back there. With the amount of rebreathers and doubles we had on the boat it made things quite a bit more crowded than I like.

The barracuda down in the keys are a lot more "friendly" than the ones we have on the gulf side. They made deco a little unnerving at times.

Only pictures of me that have been posted yet.

How'd your side mounting work out?

It was better than before. Tightening up the bungee did most of the work. It made the tanks come in tighter. I have not had a chance to work on clocking the tanks. I am starting my ccr trimix and want to have this down before hitting the 200'+ stuff. I felt really good in the water though. I've moved my waist drings as suggested and that seems to work out when needed.

Heading out Wednesday for my first big tech expedition to the Rhein. Might be a little bumpy but it will be a good time none the less. I get to meet and dive with Richie Kohler and Michael Barnette so I am pretty excited about that.

Well the trip as it sits just got bagged due to weather. Looks like it may be another Fri, Sat, Sun trip back to the Baja California. Running 10/50 at 115' is a bit of an overkill though.

Sorry about the trip.  
I follow AUE Michael Burnette, is the other guy with them as well?  Very interesting projects/dive they get involved in.  I believe he shoots fish on some of the deeper dives as well.  I see he posts more on Spearboard than SB.

I got blown out in Pompano yesterday but dove this morning.  Are you from Port Charlotte?  Jim at Fantasea is the man.  I'm gonna go get my steelies topped off in the morning then light out for P'Cola on Friday.

Yeah Jim has done all of my tech training. Where you in there last week in the back with the white doubles that were split?

Yeah that was me.  I was hoping to meet you.  

I really enjoyed the presentation.

We did meet! You just didn't know it. We talked in the back by the fill station for a while talking about how many hands those doubles have been through. haha

Right on!  I already asked one guy earlier if he was on Arfcom and he looked at me like a had a rose growing out of my forehead, so I just gave up on the idea lol!

I'm not a side mount guy but is that the correct hose routing for your long hose with the O2 clipped over it?

To me it looks fine.  That's how I do it when I'm carrying a stage while side mounting.  The thing is with side mount is there are so many ways of rigging it, they tell you to find what works for you and practice all the skills often.

Admittedly, I didn't see or think of that until just now, so thanks

I was solo diving that day, so donation of the long hose/reg wouldn't have been an issue. On a regular dive in a 2-3 man team, I wouldn't be carrying my O2 bottle very far if I had one, as we'd typically drop them in the cave once you're out of reach of any sticky-fingered open water diver. If someone had a total gas loss in the first few hundred feet of cave, there is some serious equipment maintenance or lack of preparedness going on - IMO the chance of that would be greater farther into the system. I could wait until hooking the bottle on to deploy my long hose after getting everything clipped on in the water.

If it did happen, the most important part is getting an arm's length of hose out so you can fully extend it... and I'm fat enough that wouldn't be a problem, cause there's at least that much going from my waist up and around my neck LOL

I'll remember when I start diving with stages/deco bottles though - I haven't taken full cave yet so right now I'm limited to 1/6ths of doubles on paper. The only reason I had them out that day was to get the rigging set up and do some swimming with them on.

Solo or not maintain your standard system

I'm a little different because I have the long hose looped but short hose bungeed to the tank so I hand off the short hose and then usually the whole tank (CCR, revo mini). Anyway it just looked like the O2 is clipped through your long hose at the bottom so if you did have to hand the long hose off you'd have to adjust equipment before you could get full length to pass a restriction.

So for my 80th dive on the rebreather I broke the 200' mark in my mixed gas class. We dove the Lowrance out of Pompano that bottomed out at 201' entering through a blast hole in the bottom of the hull. Good times were had. We did 30 minutes on the wreck and had an hour of deco. Mixed gas card should be in the mail later this week.

I must say I am a huge fan of the Shearwater Cloud. Now that they have rolled out the Desktop version it is pretty cool to have everything sync from my PC to my phone.