Category — Equipement

Contrary to the title, I am not going to tell you how to convert your regulator. However, a member at The Deco Stop was kind enough to turn me on to a link to the XTX Tech Manual from Apeks. On page 14 you will find instructions for converting your XTX second stage regulator.

I converted one of my Apeks XTX 50 second stages this morning and it took me a total of 10 minutes and I was really taking my time.

The last couple of months of diving have been fantastic but I knew the role had to come to an end.  This week I am back in the states to do some paper work and get some much needed dive gear!

The first stop when I got back to New Jersey on Friday was the dive shop.  For the last two months Nando from Protech has lent me his sidemount regulators, two Dive Rite RG3000's.  They worked great except for the swivels he used.    For the right tank he mounted a Scuba Pro second stage so the hose routing could be reversed.  The left tank was a standard RG3000.  The hoses were shorter then standard and I mounted replacement  120 degree Scuba Pro swivels.  I want to thank Nando, becuase I didn't have access to anything but my Apeks ATX200's and they were sub-optimal.

That has changed!  I purchased 4 Apeks XTX50s with DST first stages.  No more dicking around with borrowed gear and worrying about it.  I am completely stoked to have my own rig and a dedicated set of regs.  Things are really coming together.  I can't wait to get to Mexico and get them setup.  I love the way new well tuned regs breath, especially Apeks regs.   In addition to the regulators, I got some 6" HP hoses, some dive slates for making survey slates, some new compasses for the survey slates, plus some other assorted goodies.

While we were at the dive shop, Allie tried on a bunch of semi-dry suits from Pinacle, Camerao and Mares.  NONE OF THEM FIT RIGHT!  The best suit by far was the Mares.  It was really slick.  The problem was the arms and legs were a couple of inches too long.  But it looked very well constructed and the seals were looking sealed.  The Camerao suits just didn't really fit, water would have leaked in from the neck defeating the purpose of the semi-dry.  And by the time she got to the Pinacle she was so exhausted, she only got through one suit.  She isn't sure how she is going to solve the freezing problem.  1.25 hours into a dive and she is shivering and her hands are numb.  She is going to keep looking and I will keep you posted.

The only other item of note is that I received my Sartek lights on Friday!   I am looking forward to getting them south of the boarder and in the water.  The new cable looks very slick and I have a new LION battery.  Gotta love the advertised 8 hour burn time.

I have one dive post that is waiting in the wings.  I had a very interesting dive at Pet Cemetery last Wednesday.  But I am going to save that for after I have spoken to the proper authorities.  Remember my advice about not relying on little plastic discs (line markers) to get you home, maybe I should expand that to not relying on the continuous guideline that was there 80 minutes earlier.  More on that in a couple of days.

Remember, in additional to diving the line, you really need to dive the cave.  Your never sure the line will be there when you get back!

Today was my 400th logged dive. John took the early ferry over from Cozumel. I picked him up and we left for the fill station. At the fill station I asked John to review all of his gear and let me know if he had everything he needed. I told him I didn’t want to get to Tulum and find out we were missing something. He assured me everything was there and we were ready to go.

As luck would have it, once we arrived at Grand Cenote and started to assemble our rigs, I realized I forgot John’s bailout regulator. I was supposed to loan him one of mine, and since it wasn’t part of my kit, I totally spaced on it. I jumped in the car and headed over to Xibalba Dive Center in town and Robbie kindly assembled a regulator and rented it to us. I was back at the Cenote in 10 minutes. Problem solved and we were back in business.
John and I decided to do one long dive. The plan was to head down to Lithium Sunrise and then return to the first arrow and make the shortcut jump down to Cenote Ho Tul and Cuzan Ha. The dive went very well, except that when we got to the second jump on the way to Lithium, there was another team with gear. I started to install our gear and realized I was in the wrong position. So I picked it all back up and re-laid the gear in. I really like nicely placed lines. Messy lines will make for a messy exit and they look hideous. This debacle wasted about 6-7 minutes. I hate to be robbed of the time, but I could just hear Patrick correcting me about my line placement.

Total run time for the dive was 2:32 minutes. John seemed really happy with the dive. He pointed out all the hand and body prints and I told him it is the result of being on the top ten list of places to dive. You really have to get off the beaten path and away from the typically guided locations to find pristine cave.

Diving the Megalodon has been great! In the last 21 days I put in 15 hours on the unit over 10 dives. I finally felt comfortable again, the last couple of weeks have been full of setup changes and discomfort. The only thing that remains is to move the clips up the 40cuft cylinders so they pull a little tighter into the body. I hate the feeling of bottles swinging forward and aft with each stroke. Just feels like it is robbing energy.

It was a pleasure to dive with John and I look forward to diving with him again. Just take a look at the picture of the scrubber. That is the evidence of two days of great diving. I love the satisfaction of pulling a hot scrubber out and checking to see how much I have burned through.

Saturday morning I got up and went to breakfast with a close friend. I still wasn’t sure where I was going to dive. After breakfast I went to The Gym for a run and an ab workout. While I was at the gym it came to me, a eureka moment! I decided I should go to Naharon with my Megalodon and do a CCR length dive.

I went home and pulled together my bailout and my rebreather and jumped in the car. I discovered it is almost exactly 40 miles from my apartment to the entrance of Cenote Cristal. The drive down was uneventful although a little lonely. That is the biggest drawback and the biggest upside of solo diving. The whole thing is solo. I always think of diving as a social activity. Talking about the dive, anticipating the dive, executing the dive and then taking about how big and scary the conquest was all make good memories. Unfortunately, talking to yourself about all those things might get you committed and is just not that entertaining.

I decided on an AL80 and an AL40 for bailout. I have the 80 plumbed into my manifold, so I can use it as diluent or for my BOV. 120cuft of gas gave me a max penetration time of about 50 minutes at the depths I was expecting. This was enough time to cover the distance and areas I wanted. I started the dive by going up the main line and taking the second jump into the Halocline Room. I counted two arrows after the jump, one to the left and one to the right. I guessed the jump to the right might be the end of the main line. I turned the dive in Chac’s Room. On the map it is marked at 1700’. The clock was about at the 45 minute mark and I was starting to feel a little distance pressure. The little man starts to talk to me, when I think about how far I might have to swim on bailout and as far as I know, there are no emergency exits. The Halo-Line is an excellent swim. The first three times I had been to Naharon, I really didn’t see anything. I was focused on the dive and staying a live. This dive was different, my field view really opened up and I saw so much more. One of the striking features of Naharon are the tiny silk covered stalactites. They are really amazing, and with the CCR I took plenty of time to wonder at them.

I returned to the main line and made a left swimming deeper into the cave. I made it to the end of the Main Line in about 15 minutes. It terminated near Chac’s Room as I had guessed earlier. The Main Line is a bummer compared to the Halo Line. The Main Line is a shortcut to Chac’s Room, I would use it as a transit route in the future to cut about 10 minutes off the swim. I turned the dive and headed back to the first jump off the main line.

When I reached the first jump, I was nearly two hours into the dive. I decided to make the jump and swim 20 minutes or so. I counted 4 arrows on the swim and after the 4th arrow the cave takes a hard left and then a right and then you go up onto a boulder / breakdown. On top of that boulder is a gorgeous garden of formations. I was clearly in a part of the cave which doesn’t get a lot of traffic. Even with no bubbles, I was getting a reasonable amount of percolation just from my pressure wave. I relaxed and enjoyed the view for a while and gave my poor calves a break. Then I headed for home.

Overall it was a very meditative dive. My recent tweaks have really paid off. Carrying two BO bottles is superior in a lot of ways to carrying one. More gas rocks and two bottles are so much more balanced then one. My neutral position is not pulled to one side or the other. And de-inverting the tanks really helped my trim.

There are still some problems with my rig:

• It is too heavy. With two BO bottles, I have to really inflate my wing and it is pressing on my back. This is uncomfortable and inefficient. It wastes a lot of diluent and makes the volume changes that much greater.
• The door handles on the Armadillo Butt Plate suck! They are all wrong for AL tanks. And they make reaching the butt ring very difficult. And they just don’t seem to be in the right place. Donning and doffing tanks can be difficult with them.
• My Dive Rite Two Zipper pocket that is belt mounted is also in the wrong place. It is very difficult to get my wet notes out with the BO on.

Here are my proposed solutions:

• I am going to remove the single tank adapter and strap the tank to the back plate with the hose clamps. That should lower my profile and remove a pound or two of weight.
• I am going to remove the door handles and attach two d-rings to the butt plate. Like the original Nomad butt plate. This should fix the position of the tanks and make it easier to reach the goods on the butt ring.
• I may trim some AL off the back plate. However, this is not going to happen immediately.
• I am going to get a new bellows pocket mounted on my left thigh for wet notes and other spare crap. I want to ditch the Two Zip. Or I will start to hang it from my butt ring, like I do when I am side mounting.

I feel like I have seen some of Naharon. Total run time was 2 hours and 40 minutes. There is at least one circuit I would like to do and a bunch new passage to be inspected. I figure I will need another 10 trips there to feel satisfied.

Dive: 396

I wrote the following in response to someone asking about my experience in making the transition from Open Circuit (OC) Cave Diving to Close Circuit (CCR or eCCR) Cave Diving.

When I decided to take my Megalodon cave diving, I had about 50 OC cave dives and about 40.5 hours doing open water deco and wreck penetrations in New Jersey and the Saint Lawrence Sea Way. By this time, I felt very comfortable in my unit and had dived it in some very demanding environments. I was OC Cave Certified from NACD and IANTD certified on the Meg for Open Water to 145'.

When I moved to Mexico, I was very committed to getting Cave CCR trained. However, draw was just to great to wait for the instructor I wanted to be available. Plus, I was starstruck with my eCCR. I thought it was the perfect solution for everything and I just didn't want to wait to dive it. So, I talked to a handful of people here and made the decision to go cave diving with it. I started off slow. I did dives I could on a single 80 bailout. Luckily, most of the diving I do here is shallow, less then 50-60 feet, so you can do a lot of diving on a single 80. I dove in very forgiving systems and really put a lot of time and effort into it. I spoke to people who were diving their rebreathers in the caves and came up with my own procedures. Slowly, I progressed into ever more difficult and demanding dives. I discovered that what I thought was reasonable level of buoyancy control was crap when the cave magnified it. I also discovered that as the dives grew in length, my ability to dive the unit degraded as I got tired and my concentration weakened. At this point, I was diving the Meg exclusively and had abandoned OC.

Then I went for OC Side Mount training and my eyes opened up again. I learned my Meg is not the best tool for every job. Really, it is a horrible tool for many many of the jobs. For instance, diving Taj Mahal on the Meg sucks; it is shallow and there is a lot of up and down. Or Joe's line at Ponderosa, another horrible ride. Or Minotauro, too tight to take the CCR and appropriate BO and be comfortable.

I started to split my time between OC and CCR. Today, I spend more time in OC then I do CCR. It is just easier for me. I try to choose the right tool for the right job. For instance, today I went for a nice 2:40 dive at Naharon on the Meg.  I dove a 1.2 set point and plumbed my 80cuft BO into my manifold to drive my BOV, wing and diluent.  At a 1.2 you get an amazing amount of no stop time.  That place is perfect, the passages are larger and the depth is pretty much constant 50-65ffw. This is one of the places that makes me love my unit. The eCCR is the right tool for that job. I could see a lot of dive sites in Florida being perfect for a rebreather, like Little Rivers.

The short of the story is that I am still up in the air on whether I am going to go for the training. I have a bunch of people around me who have a lot experience and I am learning from them. I get to dive with some really committed folks. Unfortunately, I know that you don't know what you don't know, until you learn it. So, I am really torn, normally I am all over getting the training, here I am having trouble seeing the value.

I guess there are some other points:

1. Everything is more complicated with a rebreather. There is more equipment and more checks. If you dive 3-4 times a week, this can be a burden. I like to throw my regs in a basket, pickup the tanks and go for a dive. The rebreather takes prep and breakdown and care onsite. I had to plan accordingly; I had to build in more time into all my budgets.
2. I had to become very conscious of mixed team diving. I dive with open circuit divers, like my wife. I need to be aware of that when doing my risk analysis and preparation. She needs to be aware of it and know the procedures. I now mostly dive OC when I am with other OC divers, unless it is a big dive that is eCCR appropriate. If you have to donate your bailout, it is gone. You can't get it back. You need to think about a solution for that. Are you going to make everyone carry a buddy bottle, or are you not going to be part of the team? Your team needs to decide.
3. I dive open circuit pretty regularly, so I am maintaining my SAC rate. I monitor it continually to ensure my gas planning is correct. If you abandon OC totally, your SAC rate will suffer and you need to take that into account when gas planning. Plus, diving a location OC, gives you a very clear picture for BO planning.
4. I have to be willing to pick the best tool for the job. Some times it is OC, sometimes it is CCR.
5. There is a fine art to loop volume/buoyancy management. I haven't mastered it yet. I am still working on how much dil or o2 to add given a change in the loop volume. I hate hearing the solenoid fire all the time. You can't just dump dil in, it will drive down the PO2, you can just dump O2 in, it will drive the PO2 up.
6. Sometimes air isn't the best diluent. A little Nitrox can dampen the swings in the PO2 when you have to adjust the loop volume because of the ups and downs in the cave.
7. If you are a solo diver or reject the idea of team bailout; Diluent/BO is the limiting factor. Every dive turns into effectively a stage dive. You have the CCR on plus you have a bunch of BO tanks. What a pita. Sometimes I can go just as far on my 80's side mounted.
8. Your rebreather's open water configuration may not work in the cave. If you don't live in cave country, plan on spending the first couple of days figuring out how to trim yourself out. I loved my tanks inverted when diving open water; with two SS backplates my trim was perfect. Recently, I had to deinvert them to fix my trim in the cave. I needed to change the balance point and I didn't want to add any weight. I am still looking for way to remove weight from the system. I am still working on my bailout mounting. The rails on the butt plate suck and are in the way and don't work well with 80's. I need something more like the original Nomad buttplate with the d-rings. Plus, fighting even the slightest problem in trim will wear you down. The loop really magnifies any energy you put into the system when finning to compensate. The change between cold water and warm fresh water can play havoc on your configuration.

Rebreathers are amazing tools, sometimes I want to sell mine and sometimes I want to hug it. I always have to respect it! It is like any high performance piece of equipment, it can harm you much faster then you can imagine.

On Friday, Patrick asked me if I was interested in joining a trip to Cozumel for a couple of days of CCR reef diving.  I hadn’t been to Cozumel in more then a year and the opportunity to do some CCR dives on our own boat was just too juicy.  The trip was organized by Protech of Playa Del Carmen.  They provided access to O2, Trimix, Air, Sorb, two guides and the boat.  Patrick was on his Megalodon and provided the CCR expertise for the trip.  The other guide was Dario, a native born dive master of 25 years and boat owner.  Dario is a super laid back guide and plenty of fun.  The boat’s name is Eusmilia and it is excellent.  It is about 10 meters in length and has space for 10 divers.  Each diver gets a locker under their seat to store their gear.  The captain is stationed on a tower.  And the boat is plenty fast.

The plan was to pick up the group of Canadians at 9:30, load up the units and go for two dives.  The first day the group wanted to do an 85ft dive for 45 minutes.  I was disappointed.  I didn’t make the trip over to the island to do dives I could do on a single 80.  I am here to make some CCR dives.  We discussed this a little an opened the range up to max depth of 100 feet for 60 minutes.  They were concerned about using Air as a diluent below 100 feet.  The actual dive ended up having a max depth of 120ft with a run time of 83 minutes.  The group elected to extend the dive while in progress.  The dive was made on Santa Rosa wall.  It was a nice dive, nothing extraordinary but beautiful none the less.

The second dive was in the same class but a little shallower.  We dove Santa Rosa reef.  We had a run time of 72 minutes and a max depth of 60ft.  At the end of the day I had to make a decision on whether I was going to return the next day.  I asked the group what they wanted to do the next day.  They answered, “What will bring you back, Hans?”  I answered in my normal manner and explained that I wanted to go a little deeper then we had today and make longer dives.  I suggested we head down to the southern end of the island for the Devils Throat or the Punta Sur area.  We discussed doing a 130-150 foot dive.  The group agreed and the Canadians requested their fills be Trimix 12/35.

Sunday came and the wind was blowing out of the South East.  This was not very promising for a run down to Punta Sur.  The island curves around and the reefs are exposed to the South Easterly wind.  So it can be a rough and wet ride.  Patrick and I made the trip over to the island and we picked up the other guests.  We started to load up the gear and we explained to them that the boat ride would be at least 45 minutes and it would be rough.  The Canadians were troopers and volunteered.

The Eusmilia is a very stable and capable boat.  The ride down was not that bad at all.  When we arrived at Devils Throat the Plan was for a max depth of 130feet and a run time of 60-80 minutes.  We all geared up and dropped in to meet the Dario on the bottom at 100ft.  The first thing that I noticed was my VR3 wasn’t giving me any depth.  It wasn’t in dive mode.  I thought to myself, “F*ck, the batteries are messed up?”  Then I remembered, the night before I was being slick and added a patch of Velcro to the back of the VR3 to keep it from slipping around.  The genius that I am, I placed it over the hole for the depth sensor.  Dur!  Now I am getting ready to enter the swim through trying to remove this piece of Velcro.  I got it off and the dive went as planned.  The VR3 reset and then started working correctly.  Note to self, don’t cover the depth sensor on your dive computer.  The dive ran for 76 minutes.  I had a total deco obligation of about 15 minutes.  It was amazing.  I just hung out off the wall watching the deep blue and the coral heads pass buy for an hour.  It was exactly what I needed.  The current did all the work.

The second dive was a little more eventful.  It was planned for a max depth of 100ft and a run time of 60 minutes.  We dropped in and went our separate ways, exploring the numerous swim throughs working our way back and fourth through the pinnacles.  It was awesome.  When we were ready to surface, I neck clipped my BO bottles to my left hip.  I was using two 40cuft tanks, one with air the other with 70%.  The two bottles got tangled.  I decided to unclip one and work it out of the tangle.  As luck would have it, I bobbled it and it landed on my calves.  I reached for it and it slipped through my legs.  I stuck my head up and told Patrick, I lost my BO bottle.  He just looked at me and told me to go get it.  I dropped down to 30 feet to get the bottle.  On the way up, I did another safety stop and shot my SMB.  While I was stowing my SMB, I dropped my spool.  I thought I had clipped it off, but when I got on the boat, it was gone.  Patrick says the water gods are angry with me for using bright green line.  I just think I am a klutz.  I traded a spool for a BO bottle and regulator.  I guess that was the cost.

If you are traveling to Playa Del Carmen or Cozumel and want to do some rebreather diving, Protech is fully equipped to handle all your needs.  Patrick and Co did a great job and made both days very enjoyable.

You never know what you are going to find when you go for a dip into the forums. Today I found something very cool! Skipbreather over on http://www.rebreatherworld.com has created a Megalodon Canister from a fire extinguisher. You are going to need to register to view the post, however I think it is worth it.

The Megalodon is a closed circuit rebreather made by Inner Space Corporation.

This photo was created from a collage of photos posted at Rebreather World by Skip Breather.

Cenote Cristalino is an alternative entrance to the same system that Ponderosa belongs. Cristalino is just before the entrance to Ponderosa on highway 309. The parking for the cenote is just off the road. The entrance fee was $40 pesos. I chose Cristalino because I am still not signed up to get into Ponderosa and I wanted to check out the eastern end of the system. The gate keeper at Ponderosa can be an extreme PITA and it is expensive at $100 pesos.

The walk to the Cenote takes about 5 minutes down a nice path. The Cenote is beautiful and was mobbed with locals. The Cenote is broken into a couple of sections by groves of mangroves. I had decided I wanted to tend to the north and west when I entered the system so I made a left at the waters edge and setup. I was the entertainment; there were lots of people intently staring at my gear as I mounted up. I can only imagine the spectacle as I put on my sidemount tanks and purple helmet. Little kids kept asking me where the cave was in Spanish. I gestured under the ledge.

My hopes ran high because I had assumed that the Cristalino area would have been less traveled then the Ponderosa area, and I was expecting it to be in better shape. I had made this assumption because access is a little more challenging and it is a decent distance from Ponderosa. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

I started my search for one of the lines. As I headed southwest along the edge of the collapse, I came upon a sit cloud. I thought, “hmm… weird… where is this silt coming from? There aren’t any other divers here.” I never got my assumption confirmed, but I did find the end of a line. I tied in and made my way. The very first thing I noticed was the damage to the ground. It looked like someone dragged themselves out through the mud. It is really sad the damage we are doing. People are clearly careless or completely unaware that the passage they are in is way too small for them. The line looped around and terminated at Cristalino. On my return, I jumped to the right on the second arrow. Swam to the end of the line, jumped and went right. I made it about 50 minutes out when I turned the dive. It was a rather uneventful dive. When I got back to the loop, I had some gas so I made a short trip out the first jump at the double arrows. The dive is beautiful, once you get past the majority of the damage near the Cenote. There was a decent amount of percolation. The highlight of the dive was the extensive break down. There are lots of big cracks and slivers of rock balancing. There was some bedding plane. I enjoyed the dive and I am planning on going back so I can work my way over to Azul and then up to Ponderosa.

I am happy to report that my Dive Rite MR11 burned for the full 98 minutes of this dive. I am going to burn it down for another 120 minutes or so to check its total burn time now. Maybe it was really just a faulty charger.

A benefit of Cristalino is it is open till 6pm and no one was chasing me out. I do a lot of my diving in the late afternoon and evening. I appreciate the flexibility of being able to surface when I want. And the locals are really cool. When I was walking down to the Cenote with my gear someone offered to carry one of my tanks. He insisted and I obliged. After the dive, I left one of my tanks near the water’s edge, so I could make two trips. When I got to the car and turned around, one of the locals had carried it up to the car with out my asking. It was really surreal and it made me feel really welcome. In almost all cases, Mexicans have proven to be extreme friendly and hospitable.

Yesterday Allie and I went to Naharon to complete her full cave class. Those of you have been down there know how unbelievably dark this cave is. We went with two Dive Rite MR11's and three battery packs. Again I was very proud of myself having charged the batteries per Dive Rite's recommendations.

The first dive went as planned. We spent 87 minutes in the water and did the three jumps that lead to The Road to Mayan Blue and then turned the dive. We did our surface interval and planned a significantly shorter dive with a run time of about 54 minutes. As soon as we hit the darkness there was trouble in the wind. Allie's light's color was a little blue but not that bad. My light was in great shape. At about the 25 minute mark my light crapped out, well it flickered and I switched it off. At this point Allie's HID was dimmer then my Photon Torpedeo. We exited safely on my backup light and her HID.

I have concluded the light gremlins are out to get me right now and that I should be careful and take extra lights. I also started to play with my chargers and compare the results of charging and I think I have a bad charger. The two new lights came with two new chargers. One charger seems to charge the batteries and leave them feeling warm. The other charger reports a full charge after 20 minutes and the battery is cold. I have checked this a couple of times with some consistency. I will get a hold of the shop and get an opinion on this issue and report back to you later.

I have to say this is complete load of cow dung and I guess you get what you pay for. In 4-5 years traveling to Asia, Mexico, Australia and in the states I have never had this much trouble with my Sartek batteries or chargers. It is infinitely frustrating and I am regretful that I didn't lay down the bucks (Or have access to.) and get two more Sarteks. I can't believe a major dive company produces a product like HID lights that has some many caveats about how to use it. End rant.

I have been diving for the last 4 years with two 10 Watt Sartek HID lights. I love my Sarteks. The build quality is excellent and the batteries rock. The lights have been all over the word and have spent a lot of time off the coast of NJ wreck diving and cave diving. They have really taken a beating. Each light has been back to Sartek once in those 4 years. The first went back because I blew the ballast in my bag. It was returned to me in 4 days, all fixed up and with a new rotor switch. I was very happy. The second light went back because the switch boot failed. It flooded just a tiny bit; just enough to let the wires and switch corrode. As far as I am concerned both light have served me well.

About two weeks ago, after a dive at Chac Mol, I opened the canister on one of the Sartek’s and found a little moister in the can. I thought to myself, “Oh, that must be some condensation. Interesting.” The battery was a little corroded. I decided to switch out batteries the next day and go for two more dives at Sac Aktun (Grand Cenote). I dove with Patrick and Katie, we did two dives totaling 169 minutes. One run was up to Lithium Sunset and the other over to the Cuzan Ha loop. At the end when I was cleaning up, I opened the light to disconnect the battery and I found about 1/8 cup of water in the can. I definitely had a flood. The light was still functioning; however the battery connectors were looking pretty bad. I examined the unit and found that I had punctured the cable at just outside the elbow. I think I put the can on butt mount and then pull the cord to get more slack and I was pulling on it when it had a nasty twist in it. Or the thing just wore out after being abused for so long. The score is now 1 Sartek HID out of order and two batteries.

I switched over to Allie’s Sartek and kept diving. I immediately bought a new HID from Protec for Allie, an MR11. I used Allie’s light a couple of times and it died on two dives in less then ½ hour. This was a complete bummer. Additionally, a new phenomenon developed, it only starts about 85% of the time.

The first time this non-starting issue occurred was when Patrick was borrowing the light during my side mount class. He turned it on and nothing. We waited a couple of minutes, he flipped the switch and it worked. This same thing happened to me while I was shadowing Allie’s full cave. We finished a lights out drill, I flipped the switch and nothing. I tapped the head and it came on. The score is now 2 lights dead and three batteries. Luckily, it was the end of the day. That night I went to Aquanauts and bought myself a second MR11.

Aquanauts didn’t want me to dive the new battery the next day, so they lent me a battery. That battery lasted 12 minutes on the first dive. The dead light prompted a light trade underwater with Steve. We completed the trade in 3-4 minutes in the cave. It was a cool experience. Now, I have Steve’s 21watt light saber. All goes well for the dive. Then we start the second dive. It is down stream at Taj. It was a training dive. We do another lights out drill. I switch the light saber on and it lasts about 4-5 minutes and dies. We exit the cave on backup lights and all is well. The score is now: 2 dead Sarteks, 1 dead Dive Rite and 1 dead Halcyon.

I go home and very dutiful charge the loaner battery from Aquanauts. I show up at Minotauro today very confident and proud that I am sure I have a charged battery. My chest was all puffed up. I know I did the right thing. Allie and I get in the water to do our S drill for dive one and guess what? My MR11 has a very nice blue light. It is the sign of another dead battery. This one lasted just about an hour before dying. This prompted my second light exchange with Steve, who was very understanding.

It is almost comical, every day this week, we actually had a light failure during Allie’s full cave. No need to simulate a light failure, I was providing them. The Sartek’s are going back to the states on Friday. I now own 2 Sarteks and 2 Dive Right MR11 lights. Tomorrow, I will bring 1 extra MR11 battery, courtesy of Patrick. With my luck, two out of three Dive Rite batteries will work. I hope.

My opinion is the Sartek lights are superior to the Dive Right lights. The build on the Sarteks is better. The charger actually works correctly without any fudging. And the batteries are way less finicky. If I purchase anymore big lights, I am going to spend the money and go with Sartek. Additionally, I think I am going to convert both lights into LION. It is a couple of hundred bucks, but the burn time goes up significantly.

How is that for some awesome alliteration in the title? I just tickle myself.