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Hi Guys, I had sent an email to Mr. Bill Mee last September regarding how the WKPP types dive open water/ in the ocean. There are also two posts in the archieves which bear a quick read on this subject, one by Mr. Irvine to Mr. Glenn Goettler titled" WKPP openwater diving" and one from Mr. Mee to Mr Thomas Easop titled "Re: Tom's article." Search the archieves at www.aquanaut.com for them. Now I will attempt to re-type the substance of Mr. Mee's response to my private email: "For most of our ocean diving we use a single aluminum 80. We usually dive Wednsday afternoon and weekends offashore Ft. Lauderdale. All of our dives are drift scooter dives and range from 120' into the shallower part of the multi reef system. Brownies third lung has developed a line of gear(www.Halcyon.com) based on WKPP specs. We use a custom designed stainless steel backplate with a single tank adapter. The webbing is continious and a single piece with a loopable crotch strap and dual d rings. One ring is for the scooter tow rope and one is for the float reel. We also use a tank mounted 6 lb weight which levels the body while scootering. Between these there is no need for a weight belt when diving wet. If you are going to use a dry suit you would probably be better off using a steel cylinder to avoid the hassle of waist mounted weights. For wet suit diving we use a small capacity bc( called a scab wing)(stealth wing by Brownie's)which has an extremely low drag profile. As for redundancy we run a conventional neck strapped short hose and breath a shortened long hose(48") all supplied from the same first stage. The multiple regulator redundancy is an unnecessary cluster for openwater short exposures. The hoeses are routed under the right arm as is the backup. " snip " Our general rule while diving openwater unless there is a really convincing surface support system , is to minimize deco exposure whenever possible. We always try to be in a position where if we had to blow off all of the deco it would not be a life threatening issue. " snip "We always dive as a team as per WKPP standards(rule #1)therefore your buddy is part of your overall support system. " I have edited Mr. Mee's comments to save bandwidth as he also addressed other issues in his gracious reply. I hope he will not mind my reprinting them in part as it is for a good cause and he is most likely too busy to retype this excellent but elemental information. Still I would like to thank him once again for his effort. Cheers, Al Marvelli aka KybrSose@ao*.co* -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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