no doubles experience going into sidemount

[gschaut]

At P1, I put hang lines off the side of the stairs, and lowered the tanks into the water. Did the giant stride in harness and fins, & clipped on my tanks in the water. Practice for boat diving with SM.

I was using ring bungees, so I climbed out of P1 with both tanks on, and de-geared on the bench at the top of the steps.

[Greenwood_60]

Only problem I could see is if you showed up to a Cave class in SM gear, but the cave instructor only dove BM, then there might be some issues.

It would be wise to ask the instructor before the first day of class. Some instructors can teach students in sidemount, and others can't

Is it really an issue though? I would imagine any cave diver will at some point dive in a mixed team. Of course you should run it by your instructor, but I wouldn't be put off if your instructor planned to dive BM. It's a good experience.

[jxh2297]

I know of a class just last week where one student was in sidemount, the other student in backmount and the instructor on a rebreather. Not a problem at all

[mfsmith1964]

^ I was in the class mentioned above. It was denitely not a "no problem" class. It's difficult to juggle that many configurations and knowing the little caveats of each config. Defnitely had to be way more anticipatory and aware than most other dives with divers of the same config.

[phillip1]

I think the days of BM are numbered, there may or may not be a slight advantage in BM if you do ocean deep diving with many stages, rough seas etc.. but other than that SM is just better. In fact everyone I know and IMO almost everyone getting into SM wonder why they even started to BM in the first place, people such as myself.

I just did a 6 stage 17000 ft cave exploration push dive last month and I see zero advantage to doing that in BM so the carrying more stages BM on your back is a totally bogus argument IMO. Oh and it was in a cave that required removing tanks through multiple restrictions etc.. but a very very big cave after that, in fact one of the most decorated cave in the world and in BM cross it off your list and many others too, so I still don't get why people even still bother with BM it is so limited.

My friend Eric got trained in SM and would not even think of diving BM in the first place due to #1back injuries and #2 SM is just so much more flexible, you can cross at least 50-60% of caves off your list if you dive BM and even more cool passages only accessible in SM or through SM resctictions etc...

Of all the dives I have done since I switched an easy 70-80% would have been either impossible or severely complicated in BM due to the actual cave size or logistics.

and no I am not a hardcore SM cave explorer diving only tight gnarly caves, no I simply dive a configuration that has no limitations and that is so flexible that I can dive anywhere I want and get tanks form any dive shop anywhere in the world and I have a perfectly safe and reliable cave diving rig that is super comfortable and very very safe and redundant.

The only reason why it is good to know BM is if you dive mixed teams, yeah there are still people who dive BM! today, you would know the BM rig and know how to deal with the situation better I think.

There is absolutely no reason I can think of to have to do a cave class in BM and IMO if any instructor says that then maybe you should look for a different one, IMO it is good to know BM for the reasons stated above but that is it really.

Oh I almost forgot SM is way more fun.

[MK7]

I think the days of BM are numbered, there may or may not be a slight advantage in BM if you do ocean deep diving with many stages, rough seas etc.. but other than that SM is just better.

Haven't you mentioned several times on this forum that you've never even seen a Florida spring?

You might want to save your pontificating for a subject in which you have some knowledge.

[skip]

Haven't you mentioned several times on this forum that you've never even seen a Florida spring?

You might want to save your pontificating for a subject in which you have some knowledge.

jeesh, if that were a forum rule, there'd be no forum!

skip

[CaveMD]

Haven't you mentioned several times on this forum that you've never even seen a Florida spring?

You might want to save your pontificating for a subject in which you have some knowledge.

...it's funny, even though he's never seen a florida spring, he's still right though.

[phillip1]

Haven't you mentioned several times on this forum that you've never even seen a Florida spring?

You might want to save your pontificating for a subject in which you have some knowledge.

I see absolutely no reason whatsoever that my SM rig would not work in a spring, we have a major spring here on the North coast I am exploring with the DRSS team and it is not dive able most of the year due to way to high flow, but when it is I use SM and see zero problems with it and it seems the same diving wise other than a bit more finning and hide and seek with rocks to get in.

Thomas and I were the first to explore it and having never dove a spring we had a bit of a hard time at first but absolutely not in any way cause we were SM or BM but because we needed to learn the hide a seek method, great first dive once we figured it out, the water temp is really cold too so if temperature has anything to do with SM not working in FL I think I got that covered too...lol

I think when (and it is on my must dive list for 2012) I come to FL I will use SM.

If I am not mistaken SM cave diving was invented in FL by FL divers diving FL springs and caves no? I am confidant it will work just fine and I will be having way more fun than BMters.

[MORGAN]

Actually it was invented by British sump divers, but there's sure a lot of SM'ers in Florida!