Slightly delayed after spending some time on the road is now a post about an encounter with Steve Martin, side mount virtuoso. I met Steve during my stay in Malta where he currently lives and teaches side mount diving at every level. When talking to Steve there is absolutely no mistaking his passion for diving in general and for side mount especially. He is a man who knows what he likes and how he wants things to be done with an exceptional eye for detail.  Having seen him teach one of his courses at the same time as I did the Normoxic course I was glad for the opportunity to get in the water and try some of the techniques for myself.  Steve offers try dives where you get the chance to look at the equipment setup, go for a dive where you test some of the differences to normal scuba and then have a proper debrief including looking at video of what you did.
You can tell from the start that Steve knows what he is talking about and the fact that he has spent years pursuing this kind of diving around the world shines through.

Doing a wetsuit dive with two Alu 80s  by your sides is about as close to the feeling of freediving as you can get, still carrying a twinset! The first thing that strikes you is the freedom of movement and that is where I personally see the biggest advantage. Twisting, turning and doing somersaults underwater has seldom been so easy.  Though after being a bit overenthusiastic about the spinning I did get a bit disoriented.  As I said we tried out a number of different exercises so that I got the chance of testing the equipment properly. One of the key skills is balancing the gas in the two cylinders so that you don’t get heavy to one side or end up with one empty cylinder so this is done repeatedly during the dive.

Side mount is becoming increasingly popular at the moment and I’d recommend everyone to give it a try and see for themselves what the fuss is about. Since it is a fairly new trend it can be hard to find an instructor that really knows what he or she is doing so do your research before trying. Steve for sure is one of the guys who can show you from the first try dive all the way up to multiple stage trimix diving and make the whole experience fun.

I will try to sort out some video from Malta as soon as I can find the time to edit it together. Bryan, have faith!