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In his reply to that incorrigible rapscallion John Todd, my friend Tom Mount
does some trolling of his own by resurrecting the old buttmounting debate.

Before the temperature rises too much, I think that a little
interjection of humor is warranted. Let me tell you a true story about
a fellow South Carolinian and a square light and things that go bump in
the night. To protect the innocent, I won't use his real name or his rank
in the Lexington County Sheriff's Dept. or much detail about the fact that he
is a member of the Lexington County Dive Team or that he was my PADI open
water instructor.

During the third week of July this summer, Kent (not his real name) flew
to Bonaire. For some reason, he decided to take his square light with him
for night diving the reefs. So he packed his sealed square light in his
luggage.  He checked this luggage in and it naturally made the trip in the
cargo hold of various planes on the way to Bonaire. When he got there,
he unpacked his his still sealed square light.  Not wanting to waste time
by verifying that the battery was connected, he took the still sealed
square light on a night dive. At a depth of about 50' it imploded.
Yes, 50'!!!!!! How do we know that he wasn't really much deeper?
Well Kent is an avid smoker. He has been known to cap off an offshore
dive by having a cig while still in the water (at the surface obviously).
In addition, he has to ride around in a police car most of the time so his
air consumption is prodigious. Also, if you can't trust a police officer
to tell you his depth, who can you trust? Add all of this together and the
fact that he was diving a single 80 and that he is a very mellow guy and
reasonably does not try to push his envelope and the claimed 50' depth is
credible.

Moral of the story: a square light with less than 1 atm in the battery
compartment may go bump in the night and scare the fish.

-John R.

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