Sand Dog 2.0

[swimjim]

A super huge thank you should go out to the guys that made this happen! Roger Van Frank and Allan Klauda are at the top of the list. I hope I am not missing anyone.

Swimjim

[simonbeans]

More from DAVID HAAS.

[SurfLung]

Outstanding, but where is the "youth"?

Good Point BUT... We had some very strong YOUNG GUNS represented by Jeff Vaughn and James #2. Both extremely accomplished young men who have both a fever for vintage and technical skills to innovate, repair, and develop solutions for Vintage equipment divers. I was privileged to sit in on a couple of their conversations and quickly realized these guys are the future! VERY encouraging!

Furthermore, Rob of the Scuba Museum is only in his 50s and is taking the Scuba Museum and VDH to exciting new levels of innovation and support. In addition to his Diverter mouthpiece, Rob showed us the new Phoenix balanced 1st stage he is coming out with... It features improvements over the first version. He's talking about revitalizing the VDH forum, too. LOts of good news at the Sand Dog 2.0!
https://thescubamuseum.com/Online%20Sto ... /695132283

[simonbeans]

Not to rehash the old vs young debate, BUT, we advertised this Sand Dog 2.0 event both here (which someone said was dead) and ScubaBoard, which is considered by many as the voice of diving. And yes, the majority of attendees were older. So maybe we should offer to provide Everything, like food, air, etc to get these “youts” that some think we need. Whoops, we did that.
IMHO, If the young don’t want to do this, their loss. I won’t waste anymore time being concerned about them.

[SeaHuntJerry]

Thanks Roger,Rob and Allan for hosting this!

[James]

Not to rehash the old vs young debate, BUT, we advertised this Sand Dog 2.0 event both here (which someone said was dead) and ScubaBoard, which is considered by many as the voice of diving. And yes, the majority of attendees were older. So maybe we should offer to provide Everything, like food, air, etc to get these “youts” that some think we need. Whoops, we did that.
IMHO, If the young don’t want to do this, their loss. I won’t waste anymore time being concerned about them.

Allan,

I can't thank you, Roger, and Rob enough for the efforts that went into this... It was a blast and I hope to get to more events like it. I do get where you're coming from... but I also balance it against the knowledge that without a big enough customer base places like TSM will go out of business. Then I HAVE to make all my own parts and I'm lazy! lol.
I do think that your whole crew has done an amazing job of keeping this alive... and now it is largely on people like Jeff, Mike, and myself and our peers to try to spread the "gospel" of how great this stuff is.

Regardless, thanks again for the planning, efforts, and hospitality that made it such a great time.

Respectfully,

James

[James]

Sand Dog 2.0

On the lead up, I belatedly started trying to catch up some of my rebuilds and projects…. I got a couple Healthways Scubas rebuilt and good to go with new diaphragm retainers and SnorkleJet venturi tubes, then went to put a DBE can on my Titan/Trieste mod… and ran into IP issues I didn’t have time to trouble shoot. So I moved on and bench tested a RAM that had been rebuilt but not dove recently… and it ended up having bad IP creep… so it sat home as well. Reassembled a Mistral with the original seat…. And it free flowed. All three of those are still on the bench for later! I did pack up my usual workhorse (A DAAM with Cyclone and HPR upgrades and hookah splitter for alternate and BCD hose), my kid’s DAAM (bone stock plus Hookah splitter), 3 Healthways Scubas (one being my original “most of a Scuba”), and Phil’s “Constral” (Conshelf VI mounted to modded Mistral cans with custom second stage… Frankly a better implementation of what USD tried with the 2005 Mistral). That and a box of random goodies from my “lab”.

I worked late on Tuesday night… and between that and being excited to finally meet and dive with some of the people I’ve “known” online I hardly got any sleep before making a 5-1/2 hour drive down to Ocala…. Where I checked into the hotel, and while starting to bring stuff in I met Mike and started talking reg stuff in the parking lot (Eben mentioned that in his write-up). By the time of the meet and greet, I was bushed and had a fair headache going…. Stupid night shift schedules!

The meet and greet was great to put faces to names, and really impressed on me how much Allan and Roger did to set all of this up (once again, thank you for all you guys put into it!). After, Scott Bonser and I had dinner across the street and I loaded up on Tylenol before stopping at Allan’s to get my pony tank filled by Roger (which I then ended up not using, lol) and called it a night.
Thursday we all went to Alexander Springs. I got to see some amazing gear y’all put together (the assorted triples were a stand out to me) and enjoy diving in the company of other DH divers (a first for me).

I’ve previously always used a BCD of some form, other than in my small pool at home… but seeing the people rocking no BCD, combined with the benign conditions and general vibe, made it really tempting. I said as much to Mike while he was extolling the virtues of the Dacor version of the EZ Pack, and he offered to let me dive it… I initially declined, because my next dive was going to be the testing the Constral for Phil, and experimental reg didn’t seem like the time to take that step.

Incidentally, the Constral was a treat… Dove the same as a well tuned RAM.

Well, after that I decided I did want to try Mike’s Dacor backpack so we headed back down. George Fee offered to let me try his Jet Air, so we set it up…. And it freeflowed. So I set up Most Of A Scuba… and it freeflowed! So I said screw it and put my Cyclone/HPR DAAM on it and enjoyed the hell out of the freedom of it. And now I’m working on putting one together for myself, damnit!

The next day Eben and Jeff rode with me to the river drift dive. That was another first for me, and having a few stops to stand up and wait while the groups got closer, or just to talk Jeff and Mike (hardly saw Eben… He ditched us! Lol), made the VDH DSV that I had on the hose loop just the ticket. It’s normally a cool toy that doesn’t get used for how I dive, but that day it was used in earnest a few times. The river itself was pretty cool, and after was when Rob showed us the updated Phoenix.

Eben, Jeff and I had lunch on the way back to the hotel, and decided to link back up in the afternoon to hang out and talk gear and whatnot…. Which I quite enjoyed. Later that evening was the get together at Allan’s that Eben chronicled already… James “Nemrod” won the Snark, after they initially thought it was me on the ticket they pulled. So close to greatness, lol. But James, in a fit of kindness that seams to be his norm, told me he already had a grey hose set… so he kept the reg and mouthpiece and gave me the grey hoses (they are a perfect match for my grey copy of the Diverter Mouthpiece… Thank you James!). I gave a couple things to George for his Dacor that he didn’t have with him… Hopefully they can be of help (and he lets us know!).

As mentioned on VDH, Allan and Roger did a bang up job of organizing and hosting the whole thing!

The next day, people were mostly hitting the road back home…. Though a few of us decided to go to Paradise Spring. James came by to visit, and pass off a tank that he was sending to someone who needed it. Jeff, his dad, Roger, and Dan showed up to dive. The entry was not conducive to aftermarket hips, so Roger sat out the diving… Leaving Dan stuck with me.

All I can say is Dan is a great dive buddy… I had a rough dive, and he backed me up, stayed a positive presence and had no recriminations about me causing his dive to shortened/altered. I know it’s what we should expect of anybody we dive with, but damn is it reassuring to see it happen for real!

On a more positive note, Jeff let me try his 2005 Mistral and he tried out one of the HW Scuba’s… Result of that is that I learned the 05 mistral doesn’t deserve the entirely bad rap it has (it’s not trash, it’s just “meh”), though I’ll take a RAM or Constral over it anyday! And Jeff liked the Scuba (it had a new exhaust diaphragm clamp with Theraband for the diaphragm, and a SnorkleJet venturi)… So we talked trade goods, and he got a Scuba, VDH clone backplate, and some work due out for him, and I got a DX Overpressure. I still think I owe him some….. but damn it’s a pretty reg!

I then hung out with Roger and Jeff’s Dad (his name is escaping me right now) while Jeff and Dan did another dive… and then it was time to go separate ways.

I know I missed some things in this write-up… but the shorter version is that it was a hell of a good time, and I wish more of you could of come. There was talk of trying to make it an annual event again, and (selfishly, I suppose) I hope that comes to fruition.

Respectfully,

James (2?)

[swimjim]

Thank you James for taking the time to write this up. I think you nailed what a Sand Dog is like. I sincerely hope this will once again become a yearly event! By the way, I also put a Cyclone and an HPR second stage on a DAAM. It really breaths nice. I call it a "Hot Daam"

Swimjim

[kworkman]

Since I was not able to make it, I created a little keepsake for anyone who was there and would want one.