Rebreathers, Scooters and a Test of The Suunto Dx

On the 6th Feb 2013 Instructor David Armstrong ‘Dinky’ and Jim Dowling decided to have a little trip up to Dahab.
On the way the two dropped into Team Blue Immersion to supply some cylinders for a BBC crew arriving on the 8th…. more to follow.

The main purpose of the visit was to complete a dive in little Canyon.
Little Canyon is situated around 200m off shore and runs parallel to the shore for around 1km with average depth of 50m and maximum depths of just over 74m.

The main purpose of the days diving was to test the Suunto in relation to the two shearwater predators on the SF-2.

Both Shearwaters were running different algorithms. One was running GF 30/85 and the other was running VPM-GFS +2/85. The suunto was set on -2 personal.

The Suunto, even though it was the smallest computer on the dive, was extremely easy to read. The setout of setpoint switching is also very easy. Anyone who has ever used a Suunto will easily be able to navigate the menu’s of the DX.
During decompression the DX ran exactly the same as the Shearwater set on GF 30/85 and 3 minutes faster on the 6m stop compared to the VPM Shearwater.

The suunto gave the first stop at 25m after a maximum depth of 63m and an average depth of 47m. From 25m onward we had a 24 TTS. The Suunto gave 1m incremental stops all the way up to 4m. Although slightly different to traditional 3m steps and other computers the Suunto was extremely easy to follow. The 1m incremental stops meant the diver kept mooving so the deco gradient was more of a curve. Also with the 1m changes the drop in ppO2 was alot easier to control compared to doing 3m jumps.

All in all the Suunto is a fantastic CCR computer. Although it does not allow deco planning on it or external plug in’s for the cells the Suunto DX is an extremely packed CCR computer with enough on it to keep even the most hardened CCR divers happy.