I'm a hypocrite.
I suppose, in thousands of ways, we all are.
But in this one way I definitely am. I think. Or maybe not. Because, today, I faced it and, in a way, overcame. Which guides me towards slightly less (though not completely exonerated of my) hypocrisy.
For years... shit... decades, I've been talking shit about sidemount off boats.
Because {insert tired, abused, obvious, consistently-repeated trope here}, and that's why diving sidemount off boats is stupid.
Turns out that it's not stupid. It's fucking awesome!
Now I'm not talking about technical anything. Trying to manage two sidemount tanks, or certainly anything more than two sidemount tanks off a boat... I'm still on the side of "what the fuck is wrong with you?" there.
But single-tank sidemount. I've been meaning to try it for ages now; ever since I had a student a few years ago who asked specifically about it, and we worked through it together, and when I first saw them do it... I was jealous. And started looking for an excuse to try it.
Today that excuse presented itself. Because I had another student who needed practice at it.
So I brought my 3mm shorty wetsuit. I brought my shitty, floaty fins. And I backrolled over the reef with a single sidemount tank clipped to my waist and hugged to my chest. And it was unexpectedly amazing. That is, I expected it would be amazing... but it was more amazing than I expected.
And, holy hell, getting back on the six-pack only needing to disconnect and pass up a tank... what a delightful ease.
I honestly don't know how much I'm going to dive single-tank backmount going forward.
Not like I dive a ton of single-tank backmount now. Nor in the foreseeable future.
But, as a now-ex-hypocrite, I can say that single-tank backmount is pretty unstable, poorly-balanced, unfortunately trimmed, and just all-around stupid.
Single-tank sidemount forever!
And to my friends who I've given shit about diving sidemount off boats in the past... I am sorry. Unless you've insisted on using two tanks. Then I'm only sorry for the owner of the boat. Who needs to replace the fiberglass you have almost certainly damaged.
Tech divers dive backmount.
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