luis wrote:Here is a picture of the normal gear I use in the Caribbean. You can see the BC bladder, but I don’t even know is there. A horse collar is far more intrusive, cumbersome, and clumsy. I dove with a horse collar for decades… never again. This feels a lot more minimalistic than a horse collar or any other flotation device I can come up with.
Note: when someone ask me which is my favorite tank my answer always is a rental aluminum 80 in the Caribbean
Dittos on the aluminum 80 in the Caribbean. Though, I now own two aluminum Catalina 63s. I love them. I can generally out last most of my buddies and solo the 63s take me as long as I usually want to go in moderate depths.
Steel 72s can be problematic in Florida, thus the aluminum 63s.
Horsecollars, yeah, same here. I do occasionally use my faux USD Seatec horsecollar. And when I do I am reminded of why I went to a back inflate (wing/bp) in 1976. I just cannot abide anything pushing on my cheat. It is a phobia I have and I do not like it. If anything can make me panic, pushing on my chest is it (and red wasps or bald faced hornets in my cockpit)
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A horse collar can semi-work decent as long as it is essentially kept empty and used for surface resting. At the 2012 SD it came in handy, glad I had it, since a rip carried me quite aways from my intended submersion point. Had I been without a BC it could have been fun since I exhausted myself swimming, which is not easy to do. Yeah, I was glad I had it.
My other issue with the horse collar is that when used with the military type harness the sternum and waist quick release loops cannot be reached. This has caused me several issues, enough to swear off that combination of equipment.
And, sorry, this is the modern gear forum with double hose, so, I do not have to pretend I like the military harness. I love them for the look, I love to play with them in places like Silver Springs or Alexander Spring and I love having them in my collection but I find them less than dandy for real diving in the ocean and is why I went to the Snugpack in about 1968ish. Why?, well, several reasons, most notably is my phobia over anything touching my chest---I do not, NOT, NOT, abide sternum straps, vintage or otherwise
Anything with a sternum strap is not a move forward for me but a retrograde slide into a rediscovery of why my gear choices has evolved into what it is today.
I am into function first. The stuff has to work, that is my primary requirement and it all must function together.
I do have this problem, GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), it works against my Minimalism
. I keep cruising the vdh webstore and buying stuff and then my buds at Scubatoys for what I cannot get at vdh. I think I need two clear out some stuff so I can get more stuff
. I feel an Ebay adventure coming on.
Nem, the obstinate one