Earlier this year I spent a week in Mexico with Dive Aventuras, learning how to side mount dive in recreational environments. I was able to spend my week diving the Hollis SMS 50 side mount kit. While diving the rig I felt less strain on my back and neck and found it much easier to move around underwater.
For those of you who don’t know, side mount diving is diving with two tanks on your side vs. a tank on your back. More and more divers are diving side mount in recreational environments due to the many benefits. There are many technical divers who would love to argue that it’s only for overhead environments, I do not agree with them, and I’m not the only one.
I decided to take the PADI Side Mount course, which I was able to complete in two days. I first spent some time in the pool getting the rig together, because I am short, I needed to make some adjustments to where the cam bands on the tank would sit. This took some playing around as when the tanks empty in air, the tanks would float up more. So we decided to add some d-rings to my belt buckle, so when my tanks started to float up more, I could clip the tanks to my side d-rings. Anyway it took a day or two to get everything streamlined and comfortable for myself. Even after that I tried diving with different size tanks and just one tank, using the side mount rig. It was fun to play around and try different things out.
If you are looking to try something new in diving, side mount diving is definitely an interesting step to take. Dive shops from around the world are now teaching the PADI Side mount course.