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Vent: Everyone swears by the Kirby Morgan 37 band mask but I stuck with my old hat for a 60 foot wreck dive last week
The dive went perfect and I had zero fogging or comms issues while the guy next to me spent half the bottom time adjusting his fancy new mask, so can someone explain why the whole industry tells me I'm behind the times for not upgrading?
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davidkim1mo ago
I used to be all in on the KM 37 hype. I bought one two years ago after every instructor I knew told me it was the gold standard. But after three fogged-up dives in a row on a 90 foot ledge, I grabbed my old Ocean Technology hat out of the truck for a 70 foot reef dive last month. Night and day difference. Zero issues, clear view the whole time, and I didn't have to mess with the equalizer button once. The guy I was paired with had a brand new KM 37 and he spent the first ten minutes complaining about a leaky seal. I get that some people love them for deeper helium mixes or long saturation work, but for recreational or shallow commercial stuff, the old hats just work. I'm not saying the KM 37 is junk, but I'm done pretending it's the only option.
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kimfisher1mo ago
Man, a buddy of mine switched back to his old hat after his fancy new mask flooded on a deep wreck.
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Yeah, a few years back I was diving a 130 foot wreck off the coast of Georgia and my mask started flooding bad. I had one of those newer full face setups and it just wouldn't seal right on my face no matter what I did. I had a buddy with me who had an older Kirby Morgan hat tucked in his bag and let me borrow it for the next dive. Night and day difference, like @davidkim said. That old hat just locked on and I could breathe naturally without fighting the equalizer or wiping fog every five minutes. I ended up buying a used one from a salvage outfit after that trip and I haven't looked back since. Sometimes the tried and true stuff just works better for the kind of diving most of us do.
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