New for 2013, we are offering Sidemount Diving Courses in Cyprus at Scuba Tech Diving Centre.
After a lot of research into the different sidemount diving systems available, I chose the Razor Sidemount System. There are a number of reasons for this choice but I will go into this a bit more at a later date. Today, I want to talk about Sidemount Diving itself.
Sidemount Diving originally comes from Cave Diving. It basically describes an equipment configuration that allows the Divers cylinders to be mounted alongside the diver, underneath the shoulders and along the side of the hips instead of the usual "tank on the back" configuration.
Now Sidemounting is gradually becoming more popular in mainstream diving and Technical Diving.
Why is Sidemount Diving so popular?
There are a number of reasons for the rising popularity of sidemount diving around the world. I think number one is the safety benefits of this configuration.
With Sidemount Diving, you can sidemount either one or two cylinders and two is actually the preferred method since it is gives more stability. This means you have more breathing gas to take on each dive with you, so you can stay longer and you have a redundancy gas supply in the event of an emergency.
Also there is greater accessibility to the valves and first stages of the regulators. If something goes wrong with these while they are behind your head on back mounted cylinders, it is a guessing game as to what has happened and you must run through pre-determined drills to ascertain what has happened, which valve needs shutting down etc. All the while precious gas is escaping. Cylinders mounted at the side of a diver can be seen and diagnosed immediately. Leading to a much faster fix.
The Sidemount Configuration is extremely Streamlined, since the tanks run under the armpits in line with the body. This streamlining helps to reduce water resistance which should allow the diver to travel through the water with greater ease, meaning less fatigue and a better air consumption.
I personally have found that the Sidemount Configuration with 2 cylinders is much more stable in the water. It is extremely easy to "trim out" and the way you can attach and detach the cylinders underwater and at the surface, makes life very simple when getting in and out of the water and passing through narrower areas on the dive itself.
So, in the opinion of this Diving Instructor, who has dived several different types of Diving Configuration, I can heartily recommend Sidemount Diving for Divers for Ease, Comfort, Better Trim and Safety.
Courses are available from Scuba Tech Diving Centre. The PADI Sidemount Specialty takes 3 days and costs just 300 euros (all inclusive). If you want to try before you do a Sidemount Course, we also offer a Discover Sidemount Diving experience.
For more information, please contact us at ScubaTech Diving Centre, Cyprus.
Scuba Tech Diving Centre is based in Protaras, on the east coast of Cyprus. The Diving team love scuba and we offer it all from absolute beginner trying to dive for the very first time to diver training courses from PADI, BSAC and TDI for all kind of diving. So whether you have single tank, twinset, rebreather or sidemount diving, Scuba Tech is the place in Cyprus to come. Our inhouse technicians can also look after all your diving equipment to keep it ship shape and dive fit.
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