A good diving equipment configuration should allow for the addition of items necessary to perform a specific dive without interfering with or changing the existing configuration. Diving with the same configuration not only helps solve problems, it prevents them.

Following is a list of equipment as that is of prime consideration:

1. Mask: Low Volume mask reduces drag and requires less effort to clear it of water.
2. Primary Regulator: Quality regulator that will be passed to an out-of-air diver.
3. Short Hose: Should be long enough to breathe comfortably, but not long enough to bow and create drag.
4. Back-Up Regulator: Quality regulator that a diver will use as a reserve either in the event of a failure or in an air-sharing episode.
5. Long Hose: Optional in shallow, open water diving, but mandatory in deeper or overhead diving; the long hose simplifies air sharing. When used, the long hose, along with the primary regulator, should ALWAYS be placed on the diver’s right post.
6. Back-Up Lights: Tucked away to reduce drag but still allow for easy one-hand removal.
7. Goodman Handle Light Head: Allows for hands-free diving while allowing the diver to easily direct the focused light beam.
8. Thermal Suit: Appropriate to keep diver alert and comfortable.
9. Crotch Strap: Allows for custom fit, and supports two D-rings: one works as a scooter attachment point; (divers should not hang equipment here as it would hang too low); and one further up, closer to the back plate, which works for towing additional gear. The crotch strap also holds the BC in position and prevents the BC from floating up away from the body.
10. Hood: Where necessary to keep diver alert and comfortable.
11. Mask Strap: Strong strap that will resist breaking.
12. Necklace: Designed to hold the back-up regulator within easy access.
13. Corrugated Hose: Should be just long enough to allow for ear clearing and potential dry suit inflation while actuating inflator, but not so long that it drags or entangles easily.
14. Power Inflation Hose: Should be long enough for a diver to easily use his/her corrugated hose, but not long enough for it to bow or otherwise create excess drag.
15. D-rings: No more than two on the chest, positioned to reduce the drag of attached items; one hip D-ring to hold the pressure gauge.
16. Pressure Gauge Hose: Custom hose allows a diver to easily read the gauge after unclipping, but does not bow or dangle, thus avoiding excess drag.
17. Pressure Gauge: Quality brass gauge should be easy to read and reliable.

18. Knife: Waist-mounted in front, near the center of the diver’s body, for easy access.

19. Pockets: Hip-mounted to reduce drag.

20. Knobs: Soft knobs (to limit risk of breakage) should be opened completely.
21. Valve: Contingent on environment and diving activity. Dual orifice valves (H or Manifold) are an excellent way to increase safety and redundancy.
22. Burst Disks: Use of double disks prevents accidental burst failure.
23. Buoyancy Compensator: Adjusted based upon needed lift whether one is diving single or double tanks. Buoyancy should be sufficient to float equipment by itself while at the surface.
24. Cylinders: Contingent on environment and diving activity.
25. Harness and Backplate: Designed to hold the diver snugly to their rig while reducing drag and increasing control.
26. Primary Light: Hip-mounted, canister-style light; this is optional in some environments, but valuable in nearly all.
27. Alternate Lift Device: Lift bag, diver alert marker, or surface life raft, for open water diving. Halcyon’s MC system allows for storage in backplate pack for increased streamlining.
28. Overboard Discharge: Also known as a P-Valve; used with a condom catheter by male divers to allow for urination during long dives with a dry suit.
29. Bottom Timer: Wrist mounted to eliminate drag and entanglement.
30. Watch: Wrist-mounted, with a functional stopwatch to allow for timing safety or decompression stops.
31. Compass: Wrist mounted to eliminate drag and entanglement.
32. Fins: These should have no attachment buckles that can break. Replace with a more robust connection.
33. Guideline Reel: Use is contingent on the diving environment; it is usually mounted on the rear crotch strap D-ring for streamlining and to reduce clutter. Spools and other guideline devices are usually kept in the diver’s hip-mounted pocket.

Source: GUE Fundamentals of Better Diving Manual

The past few days after the return from the Khao Sok we’ve been quite busy sorting out all the equipment and gear for the next serial of training and diving. We’ve also been gifted with 2 teenagers from Sweden who are here to gain work experience during their 2 week holiday. Although they have come here for big blue diving we decided to steal them for the day and get them to work taking pictures of our new resort.

Welcome to Big Blue Anders and Alicia!!

Here’s what they had to say about their first day…

“Today was the first day here at Big Blue for us. As Marine Biology students from Sweden we are here to gain work experience in the diving industry and its associated marine branch. We will be here for about 2 weeks and we hope to learn a lot about diving and also get a view of how the company runs. When we first came this morning we met Kayleigh who will be looking after us during our stay here. Today we have met almost everyone at Big Blue and all of them are really nice and welcoming. We were shown around and now have more understanding of how things work around here. The coolest thing so far must have been when Christos showed us all the equipment that is needed for technical diving and we learned about how to make sure you get the best air combination in the tanks depending on the depth of the dive planned. To sum up, we had a great day here at Big Blue! Everyone we met has been really friendly, happy and they are all very professional! We can hardly express how grateful we are to Big Blue for letting us come here and learn. We can’t wait for tomorrow!”

Christos has also been given a long awaited day off and decided to go free diving this morning as the sun rose over the mountains of Koh Tao. Not a bad way to spend a day off.

Below is a collection of our hotel we use for all our technical diving students.

HAMBURG — Nobody can take a deeper breath than Tom Sietas.

The 31-year-old German has blown away the competition in the nascent sport of “free diving,” in which people vie to see how long they can hold their breath underwater. Thanks to a large set of lungs and advanced training techniques, Sietas has pushed the boundaries of physical endurance far beyond what was thought possible.
Doctors once assumed brain damage was certain for anyone whose respiration stopped for more than three or four minutes. And yet, on June 7, in a swimming pool in Athens, Sietas submerged himself underwater for 10 minutes and 12 seconds, shattering the world record by more than a minute.

Sietas, a lanky fellow who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 165 pounds, doesn’t appear any worse for the wear. “I’m a pioneer in my sport,” he said in an interview, relaxing at a cafe at this river city in northern Germany.

He’s taking a short break from training these days after a busy summer. In September, he sat in a plexiglass tank of water on the stage of “Live With Regis and Kelly” in New York and vied for the record in a slightly different category, in which he was allowed to soak up pure oxygen beforehand. This time, he held his breath for 17 minutes and 19 seconds before he bobbed to the surface.

“Tom, are you okay?” a nervous Kelly Ripa asked her German guest as he opened his mouth to gulp in fresh air.

“Much better,” he replied with a smirk.

In July in Hamburg, he set the world record for swimming the longest distance underwater without taking a breath: 700 feet, or almost nine lengths of the pool.

Like other extreme sports, free diving has exploded in popularity in recent years, attracting an estimated 10,000 competitors to organized events.

The sport draws on a long tradition of underwater breath-holding, including Asian pearl divers who swim to depths of 100 feet to harvest oysters and abalone. Even today, most free divers prefer to test their limits in the freedom of the ocean, instead of indoor pools.

Sietas discovered the sport in 2000 on a trip to Jamaica. He was scuba diving but was constricted from pain in his ears that got worse the deeper he went. Instructors taught him how to equalize the inner-ear pressure, a trick that worked so well he ditched his scuba tanks and began testing how deep he could go.

“I was so happy,” he said. “I could go down 15 to 20 meters” — 50 to 65 feet — “and the whole undersea world was just so wonderful.”

His scuba instructors noticed that he had a talent for holding his breath. They provided a little coaching. By the end of his vacation, Sietas was going without air for more than four minutes.

“I was like, ‘Whoa, if you put some effort into it, Tom, you could be really good,’ ” he recalled.

Back home in Hamburg, he began training with other free-diving aficionados. It wasn’t long before he was attracting attention. In 2004, he smashed the world record for underwater breath-holding (without extra oxygen) with a mark of 7 minutes 48 seconds.

Sietas attributes his success to a strict training regimen that he has developed himself. It is a combination of strength exercises, endurance workouts and concentration tactics. When he is submerged, he goes completely limp and blanks his mind to lower his heart rate and conserve energy.

“I have a strong will and a strong discipline,” he said.

Elite free divers also rely on an advanced technique called “lung packing,” by which they force extra air into their lungs by inhaling through the mouth and swallowing at the same time.

Sietas said he has developed other breathing patterns as well but is reluctant to divulge his secrets for competitive reasons. “I don’t want to share all my knowledge,” he said.

Sietas is also blessed with an above-average pair of lungs. But doctors who have examined him said they aren’t as large as you might expect: about 15 percent bigger than an average person of his height.

Kay Tetzlaff, a physician from Freiburg, Germany, who has examined Sietas and other free divers as part of an ongoing study, said they are able to expand their normal lung capacity by almost 50 percent through lung packing.

“That, of course, is enormous,” Tetzlaff said. “These guys have some features that make them come closer to diving birds and mammals.”

Some, like Sietas, also benefit from high levels of hemoglobin in their blood, which enables them to absorb oxygen more efficiently.

Although free diving can be a risky sport, especially for those who practice in the depths of the ocean, Tetzlaff said it is difficult to hurt yourself by holding your breath. Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the blood send signals to the brain that make it almost impossible to withstand the urge to breathe.

Overcoming that urge is the biggest challenge for free divers. Given that Sietas has exceeded the 10-minute mark for static apnea — the technical term for holding your breath without moving — Tetzlaff said it was hard to calculate the limits of what is humanly possible.

“I have to admit, I don’t know, honestly,” said Tetzlaff, who directs respiratory clinical research for Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. “Ten minutes is incredible. Maybe you could do another couple of minutes. I can guess that might be possible.”

Sietas said he is careful not to push himself too far when free diving. He said he has never lost consciousness, although he came close a couple of times early in his career.

For now, Sietas is thinking about shifting his focus to deep diving and is contemplating training in the Red Sea or Mediterranean.

But he is also fiercely protective of the records he has set and served notice that he would aggressively respond to any challengers.

For example, he said, he was interested in the notion of a televised competition with David Blaine, the American illusionist and stuntman who held his breath for 17 minutes 4 seconds on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in April. That marked a world record in the category that allows entrants to breathe pure oxygen beforehand. Sietas broke it five months later.

“David, of course, is a showman, but he’s also a very great athlete,” Sietas said. “It would make very dramatic scenery if we went head-to-head, but I am the better diver. I am very sure of myself.”

Jonathan Su, 29, of Sunnyvale apparently drowned while diving for the mollusks Nov. 9. He is the eighth abalone hunter to die off California’s North Coast this year.

A submerged body recovered off the coast of Sonoma County was tentatively identified Tuesday as that of missing diver Jonathon Su of Sunnyvale, the eighth abalone hunter to die off the North Coast this year.

Su, 29, was hunting for abalone with a cousin near Fort Ross State Historic Park on Nov. 9 when he dove underwater and apparently drowned. The body, clad in a wetsuit identical to Su’s, was recovered Monday by a state Parks and Recreation Department search team on the ocean floor near the spot where Su was last seen.
At least 15 abalone hunters have died off Sonoma and Mendocino counties in the last 19 months, authorities say.

“Abalone diving is very hazardous,” said Sonoma County Sheriff’s Sgt. Glenn Lawrence. “My understanding is [Su] was an experienced diver, but there were 12-foot swells. Even an experienced diver can get in trouble.”

The body was found in about 20 feet of water with an abalone diver’s weight belt still attached. There was no indication that the diver was caught in thick kelp, which has led to the drowning of other divers this year.

“He went down and never resurfaced,” Lawrence said.

An autopsy will be conducted.

Abalone season draws about 40,000 free divers to the North Coast each year. The sport is riskier than it appears, and authorities say some divers do not appreciate the hazards. The use of scuba tanks is banned to protect the badly depleted species.

Abalone divers have been killed by being swept into rocks by unexpectedly strong waves, becoming entangled in thick kelp, or suffering heart attacks in the cold water. One was killed by a great white shark.

Abalone were once abundant off California, but with over-hunting, the giant mollusk has become scarce. Divers are now permitted to collect abalone only north of San Francisco and under strict limits: no more than three a day and 24 a year. The seven-month season runs from April 1 to Nov. 30, with a break in July.

Authorities say a lack of familiarity with local conditions contributes to fatalities. All 15 divers known to have died since last year came from outside the region. In Su’s case, the waves were rough the day he went driving, said Jeremy Stinson, supervising ranger at Fort Ross State Historic Park.

“People who want to come here to abalone dive need to be aware of their own limitations,” Stinson said. “They also need to be aware of the ocean conditions.”

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