Nomad Profiles

Southeastern Divers, Inc.

2720 Governors Drive SW, Huntsville Alabama 35805 - Phone: 256-536-8404

"Training the best divers in North Alabama since 1980."

Max Gilbert PADI IDC Staff Instructor

Nomad Profiles

Jill Heinerth and Brian Kakuk have written an excellent book on sidemount diving, the first in the industry. It’s called Sidemount Profiles. I devoured my copy as soon as it came in. In it, Jill and Brian describe the basics of sidemount and go on to discuss in detail all the places and experiences they’ve had diving sidemount. As they say, it’s not just for cave diving anymore. I thought I’d share some of my own experiences and impressions.

In the Springs

Vortex Spring: Located in Ponce de Leon, Florida, this dive site is a “comfort zone” for thousands of divers. Lots of us did our Open Water check out dives there, and lots of us go there for fun dives – to rinse our gear after salt water dives in the Gulf or for additional training. I still go there often, and it’s where I learned to dive sidemount in a Nomad. There are docks leading to the deeper water, but next to the docks, the water is shallow enough to stand up in. Just lay your sidemount tanks on the docks… or toss ‘em into the shallows, either way is fine! Walk down the steps, put your fins on and then kick over to your tanks. Clip them off, route the hoses, and you’re off!

In the Tropics

Roatan: Still new to sidemount diving, I headed to Roatan last July, on a “leap of faith,” as they say. I took nothing but sidemount BCDs with me. That’s right, I took multiple BCDs. I wasn’t sure if the nice folks at Fantasy Island Beach Resort would even let me dive Sidemount, so I hedged my bets. I took my own dedicated sidemount BC, and I took one I could convert from sidemount to back mount pretty easily. That BCD was basically a Dive Rite Nomad, but with a smaller bladder than the 50lb one that comes standard with the Nomad. It dived like a dream! I jumped off the boat before the rest of the divers and the captain handed me my tanks off the stern. Left tank – clip it off, regulator in my mouth. Right tank – clip it off, DIVE!!! I orally inflated the bladder on the way down to the reef until I was neutrally buoyant, then I connected my low pressure inflator, and routed the hose off my right tank. Nothing to it after a dive or two for practice!

Bonaire: A feast of diving, all in side mount. Boat diving in Bonaire worked just like it did in Roatan. No problem. Here, I wanted to get the feel for shore diving, wearing my tanks into the water. Walking with the tanks is not difficult, because the weight of the tanks was on my shoulders, not on my back, allowing me to walk upright. As soon as I got into water deep enough to float in, I inflated my BC, and I was ready to kick out to the reef on my back. Coming back in was also easy, even when we got tossed a bit by the surf. Since there was no tank on my back, I had no tendency to roll over, giving me really good buoyancy and trim control, even in the shallows. That control gave me the time I needed to pick and choose my best path to the beach. Score one for the Nomad!

Deep

Forty Fathom Grotto: I did all my technical training in back mounted doubles. At Forty-Fathom Grotto in Ocala, Florida, I lugged those 100 lb. monsters up and down about the steps, about 60 of them, to and from the water between dives. Side mount doesn’t change the fact that my tanks would have to go up and down the steps, but now the load is half as heavy. It’s much easier to make two lighter trips than one heavy trip.

Lake Jocassee: This crazy deep lake is the one that was formed when Duke Power built a dam at Seneca Falls, SC. You may not have heard of the lake, but you may have seen the river that got dammed in “Deliverance.” Yep, that’s the one. There’s a whole town down there, including the cemetery, a girl’s school, and an old hotel. Problem is, it’s deep, deep, deep. To get down there, you need technical training, which means deco, and deco means deco cylinders. Handling deco bottles in sidemount is easy as well. These bottles ride behind and above the main tanks, rather than in front of and below the diver, allowing for better trim and streamlining in the water. I’ve done dives with two deco gasses, as deep as 250 feet with no problem, and I’m headed for 300’ this summer, in sidemount. Again, the Nomad system by Dive Rite has everything I need to make such a complicated dive with no problem.

The System

At the heart of the Nomad is a Dive Rite TransPac Harness. Add a butt plate with rails to clip tanks off to, and use a Nomad Wing, and you’ve got the Nomad system. My hat is off to Lamar Hires and the other smart folks at Dive Rite. They invented a harness that works great for sidemount before they ever knew anything at all about sidemount. Good engineering is flexible, even under unforeseen circumstances. Kudos!

Try it

Southeastern Divers has Nomad BCs for you to try! Give us a call, and we’ll set up a time and place for you to discover sidemount diving in a Nomad. Once you get that tank off your back, you’ll never put it back!

See you soon ~ underwater!

max

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