In line with the DIR philosophy of scuba diving, we both use nearly identical scuba setup. Any differences are noted in the comments for each individual item.
UPDATE: We are taking an extended hiatus from cold water diving and have sold most of our cold water gear. The table below lists only our remaining equipment.
| Item | Make | Model | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Stage | Apeks | DS4 | Simple, reliable, and proven environmentally sealed balanced diaphragm first stage. |
| Primary 2nd Stage | Apeks | ATX50 | Fitted with a 7-foot (Olga 6-foot) hose and a small bolt snap. The DIR style
long hose has all the advertised advantages and none of the rumored disadvantages.
Sharing air is easy even under tricky circumstances - i.e. swimming through
a dense kelp forest. As for the regulator itself - it is a pleasure to breathe from. |
| Backup 2nd Stage | Apeks | ATX50 | With a 22 inch hose, hanging below our chin on a surgical tubing necklace. The cracking resistance is detuned when not in use, but can be cranked up when needed. |
| Backplate / Harness | Halcyon | SS Backplate | Alex. Fitted with a stainless steel tank adapter made by Scott Koplin. The adapter has a 5.5 lb lead inlay making the complete backplate 11 lb negative. For tropical diving, we have the same adapters, but without the lead. A nice backplate. |
| Koplin | Small | Olga. A true work of art. Fits Olga's petite figure much better than the regular size backplate. Fitted with the Koplin weighted tank adapter it is 9.5 lb negative. | |
| Bladder | Halcyon | Pioneer Wings | Alex has 45 lb, Olga 36 lb lift. Great streamlined design, well made bladder. |
| Weight System | Homemade | Ditchable Ballast Pockets | We have designed and constructed homemade weight pockets from polypropylene webbing and a plastic buckle. The pockets are held in place on the harness belt by an extra tri-glide on the left and a buckle on the right. Very compact size, good fit next to the canister light. Each pocket holds either a 3lb or 4lb weight. |
| Power Inflator | Scubapro | BCD Inflator | We have replaced the stock Halcyon inflator with this little thing. It is easier to operate with small hands in thick gloves. |
| Computer | Cochran | Nemesis IIa Nitrox | This is our greatest violation of DIR principles. While we
would not dream of using one of these for planning and executing decompression
or overhead dives (we would still want to carry one to get the amazing
amount of information about the dive for later analysis), we believe that for
open water no decompression diving the advantages of using a computer outweigh
the disadvantages. In our opinion, the convenience of having all dive data, including the tank pressure, in digital form on the wrist justifies using the hoseless units. The other "air-integrated" features and calculations are, of course, useless and we never pay any attention to them. Since we always maintain close awareness of each other's dive parameters, a computer failure only means the inconvenience of calling the dive. We have learned to deal with the numerous quirks of these computers and have managed to safely execute hundreds of dives with them. |
| Compass/Slate | Scubapro | LS-1 | We have attached a retractor to the slate/navigation board
and keep it clipped to the left shoulder D-ring. When not in use, it is fastened
to the harness webbing with a bungee cord to minimize entanglement problems. It works fairly well, it is handy and easy to navigate with, but it is a bit of a dangly and the retractor is not an optimal solution. Searching for an alternative, we have made a curved slate from a 4" PVC pipe, to be bungee-mounted on the left forearm. Unfortunately, a wrist mounted compass does not fit next to the slate and we have not found a better place for it. There is no way we could keep the slate in a suit pocket, we perform fish surveys and write on the slates constantly during the dives. |
| Undersuit | Homemade | Polartec 300 | Jumpsuit with vest and booties. It is very comfortable, but a bit on the light side. |
| Wet Suit | Seaquest | 3/2 | Our tropical suit, good full body protection. |
| Boots | Henderson | Octoboot | Solid wet suit boots. |
| Weights | Sea Pearls | Coated | We use 6 - 8 lb each in cold water. These weights have a very good quality plastic coating and fit well in our homemade pouches. |
| Ankle Weights | Tomcat Industries | Coated | 2 x 1.5 lb. The ultimate goal is to wean ourselves from ankle weights completely. These are good for that because the 1/2 lb pieces can be removed one at a time. |
| Mask | No Name | Single Lens | Alex. El Cheapo mask which works well because the skirt is very narrow between the lip and the nose and thus does not leak around his moustache. The field of view is not that great. |
| SeaQuest | Idea | Olga. Great dual lens mask, very low volume. | |
| Mask, Spare | No Name | Single Lens | Alex. The same as his regular mask. |
| SeaQuest | Idea | Olga. The same as her regular mask. | |
| Fins | Mares | Quattro | We love our fins, especially after we have replaced the stock straps with our homemade stainless steel spring straps. Easy on and off, no entanglement problems. The fins work well with the modified frog kick. |
| Backup Light | |||
| Underwater Kinetics | SL4 | Olga. | |
| Shears | Sea Snips | More useful than a knife. Carried in a sheath on the left side of the harness belt. | |
| Diver's Alert Marker | Halcyon | Very Big, Closed Circuit | 6 feet long closed circuit safety sausage with radar and light reflective tape that triples as a 52 lb lift bag and redundant surface flotation. It is rather large, but held below the backplate with two bungee loops and clipped to the crotch strap we don't even notice it is there. |
| Safety Spool | Halcyon | 100 ft | Alex. Used to send the marker up from depth and for miscellaneous other tasks. |
| Koplin | 50 ft | Olga. Meticulously designed and crafted. It has a bigger center hole making it easier to operate in thick cold water gloves. | |
| Dive Log | Cyber-Strategy | Scubase | A customizable dive log and photo album software we have written. The details are here: Scubase Dive Log. |