Sonar

There are on the market today portable underwater direction-finding units that home in on each other by sound. These provide similar functionality to a strobe light, but with ( theoretically ) longer range, and are ( theoretically ) unaffected by water conditions and visibility. They are also very expensive, and prone to failure when a large object or wall gets between the two units. A number of times I have seen people get lost because they counted on one of these gadgets, and it didn't work.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about these devices is that their users seem to be mostly beginners who place unfounded faith in them, probably because they paid so much for it at the dive shop. They seem to hit the water in "brain-off" mode, counting on their expensive gadgets to get them home, and making little or no effort at other forms of navigation. Unfortunately, these people are probably the least able to cope with the emergency situation that arises when they find out just how reliable their little sonar toy isn't. Learn to use a wreck reel instead.


regulator

There are a variety of choices you can make here, mainly concerning adjustability. High-end second stages come with one, two, or even three adjustments. Some are actually useful, others are pure marketing nonsense. With thick gloves on, you may not even be able to work them in the water. All user-accessible adjustments have a much narrower range of operation than the internal adjustments that a technician can make. My experience is that if a reg is malfunctioning, the user adjustments will be useless to stop it. On the other hand, if you're a gadget person who likes to fiddle with things, some of the adjustments actually can make a noticeable ( although not essential ) difference in breathing. On the theory that extra moving parts are extra failure points, I would avoid adjustable regulators, but that's not really possible anymore. With most manufacturers, the non-adjustable regs are the bottom of the line, and you don't want that, so buy a good reg, and if it has a few useless bells and whistles, live with them.

Printed from njscuba.net