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The things people wear. Starting with Jackets. Actually BCD's come in
three styles. Front Mounted, Back mounted and the Buoyancy Jacket.
I've tried both the front mounted jacket and also the Buoyancy jacket (also known as a STAB Jacket, as in STABiliser jacket). 
The BCD is a device to control our buoyancy while diving. On the water's surface, the jacket can be fully inflated to keep you above water without and movement from yourself. When underwater. A diver will generally spend quite a lot of time at one depth and so the BCD will be inflated to a level where the diver is neutrally buoyant and will only rise or sink depending on if the diver is inhaling or exhaling. The BCD can be inflated orally or inflated mechanically from air from your tank via a low pressure inflator or sometimes Jackets carry an additional air source known as a crack bottle. This is only used to inflate the jacket and is there for emergency purposes only. BCDs tend to have multiple pockets and clips for holding a large proportion of additional dive equipment such as surface marker bouys (SMB), dive tables, torches (in american I mean flashlights), etc. The back of the jacket forms a harness to hold the air tank. Front mounted BCDs look similar to life jackets. They are worn in conjunction with a separate harness for the air tank. The good side of front mounted jackets is the cost, compared to other BCDs they are quite cheap, however, the negative side to these jackets persuades most divers not to bother with them. As the front mounted BCD is only on your chest, when inflated you have a tendancy to flip over onto your back. While under water this can be countered quite easily while you are moving but when stationary, you must keep re-orienting yourself. While on the surface, with it fully inflated, swimming on your front is difficult and tiresome. You can swim on your back but then you can't see where you are going as easily. My advice, go with a jacket. They are well worth the extra money. When people dive while wearing dry suits, they tend to control their bouyancy underwater using their dry suit and to ignore their BCD. As I have never worn a dry suit much less dived in one, I am unable to comment on this bad practice (Opps. I mean, of course, this perfectly justified practice). Your BCD is connected to your air tank by a low pressure inflator which is one of four pipes (five with a dry suit) that are stuck on the top of your air tank. I refer of course to the Octopus. I'm not sure what the real name is but that's what I'm calling them. A Scuba DiverAnd all that goes with him/her. Back to the Start. You know you want to. Go on. Do it! Please send your comments, helpful or otherwise, to [email protected] |
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