Sun Sep 27, 2015 1:47 am
So, after about 2 weeks with a dry Kraken staring at me from the garage (or was it the other way around?), finally got a chance to try it out earlier today. Not a double hose virgin anymore!
Thought of posting first impressions here.
*A quick disclaimer: I'm not a vintage enthusiast and just want the right tools for the job. In my case that means taking pictures with no bubbles in my face and no cracking piece of plastic hanging from my mouth. That's what I was expecting from the reg, although I do appreciate it's charm and beauty. Oh and it did attract a lot of attention at the dive centre.
a) My impression at the very first breath, still at the surface: wow.
That thing is smooth! Not exactly "easier" to breathe in the sense that every regulator I tried to date pretty much delivers as much air as I request. It just delivers it in a pleasant, soft way. I couldn't really feel when cracking pressure opened air supply as I do with single hoses. Very nice start.
b) In the water, it behaved pretty much as Herman described: I could notice some difference in breathing effort depending on body position underwater, but nothing dramatic. In my case this was compounded by what comes next, so I'm pretty sure these differences will be even smaller once I get it right.
c) I ran into a number of issues that should be fairly easy to avoid:
- I tried to install the hoses as described in the forums, but in the end the right hose had a different "twist" than the left one and I couldn't tell until I was underwater. This caused the mouthpiece to be in a diagonal orientation in my mouth. Pretty annoying, I had to bite it to keep it in place. User error, easy to fix hopefully;
- I had my VDH plate routed in an unorthodox way, so to speak, which just didn't work for me. Eventually the whole thing slid up, which caused two problems: the harness became loose and the can was way up, banging at my head. This compromised reg performance (noticeably but nothing dramatic really). Will revert to exactly as described by Luis in the forums and it shouldn't happen next time.
- the Dive Rite Travel XT wing has a really short inflation hose. Will need to replace it with a longer one.
All easy to fix mistakes, just pointing them out so other beginners out there can try to avoid them.
d) The wing did provide more than enough buoyancy at both surface and bottom with an 8/7mm wetsuit and 13kgs of lead. Still need to check if it will be enough for deeper dives as suit compression increases. I'll admit I was worried it wouldn't pass even the shallow test but having seen and felt it in action, now it's hard to get why many people begin with much bigger wings (unless one is diving overweighted, why opt for 30+ lbs of extra buoyancy that will not be used?)
Everyone talks about how BP/W makes achieving proper trim MUCH easier but I honestly didn't feel any difference from jacket BCDs. Besides I don't really want to "be trimmed" by my BCD as I feel the "wrong" position is better for photography. In this regard the Travel XT was very unobtrusive.
e) as expected, the reg did free flow immediately when I had my belly facing up, as well as at the surface when out of the mouth. In this sense my impression is that a conventional single hose does provide more freedom of movement, if that's important to one's diving requirements.
f) after the plate slid up and the can got really close to my head, I was utterly impressed at how noisy our breathing sounds down there. The reg [edit: all regs but rebreathers I mean] does produce a loud, weird sound. No wonder so many critters hate it when we breathe from a single hose reg right next to them. I do expect the Kraken will help me get a bit closer without spooking everything away.
All in all, very happy with the Kraken so far. Thanks again Bryan, Luis and Herman, well done!