Side Mount Training

Side Mount is the "new configuration", suitable for all divers and adaptable to all types of dives; is fully redundant, and its main advantage is the complete self-sufficiency of the diver.

Side Mount made its appearance in the 60's thanks to Mike Boone, an english speleologist, who first used this configuration to overcome flooded portions of caves, gradually replacing the closed-circuit apparatus hitherto used, to the advantages offered by the size and the increasing availability of modern regulators. The dimensions of the cylinders were dependent on the length of the flooded sections of the caves.

It is in the late 70s that Woody Jasper, United States, began to look at this system as the solution to the exploration of smaller underwater caves, where normal equipment did not allow passage.

In recent years, the system has been improved by Steve Bogaerts, who has adapted it to the harshest environments and the most demanding conditions. The sidemount equipment he developed and tested, the Razor system, boasts countless imitations.

The sidemount configuration offers many advantages over traditional equipment:

• Better streamlined, thanks to the cylinders position on the same level of the diver and behind his arms.
• Facilitates the task of transporting the equipment out of the water, allowing you to handle a bottle at a time, and without the hassle of the harness, which remains on the diver.
• Improves the position of the back, no longer forced by the backplate and the double tank. This also reduces annoying post dive back pain.
• It gives huge advantages in terms of safety: the valves are protected against impact, being under the armpits of the diver; easy visual and manual access to the valves translates into easy solution in case of problems to these or regulators; reduces almost zero the possibility of a total gas failure, since the system consist of independent cylinders.

Open Water Sidemount Diver

Minimum 3 full days; lectures, confined water sessions, 4 dives.

This course introduces the Side Mount equipment and techniques necessary to manage open water dives within the limits of the student experience.
Most important topics (but not limited to) are equipment considerations, gas management, buoyancy and trim control.
This training could be combined with the course Essential Diver for those who wish to take Cave Diver training with sidemount equipment rather than with the traditional gear.
If combined with another training, a minimum of 2 training days are required.

Tek Open Water Sidemount Diver

Minimum 3 full days; lectures, open water session, 4 dives.

This course is dedicated to those who already have experience with side-mount configuration.

Purpose are:
-Familiarize the diver with advanced techniques, equipment configuration and mindset required for Technical Sidemount diving.
-Enable divers to proficiently assemble and use Technical Sidemount equipment configuration.
-Teach divers the proper techniques to safely conduct decompression dives that warrant the use of Sidemount equipment configuration.