Hello Bill,
I wanted to give monofins a try recently before buying one but no joy yet. So that experience is still off in the future for me. They certainly do seem to be efficient but I wonder if the level of effort might be greater then that required for an equivalent distance with an Aqueon. Your comments on the comparative efficiency are intriguing. I see you are in Kona, that is a distance from SE Florida to be sure. If you get one, do me a favor and take it down to Southpoint. A video of you cruising along the cliffs and grottos in all that blue water would be incredible (more at:
Southernmost point in the USA (Not Key West), An Amazing Place - FKA Kiteboarding Forums ). Hopefully you can get a new one from Cal. I used it mainly for horizontal dives as opposed to vertical when I was a kid. Heading over to Bimini this weekend, maybe I'll take it along and see how it does for vertical work.
I think I came by my first Aqueon a bit after you in 1974. The model I just bought works better than that one given some minor improvements. I was thinking of a few small modifications to improve performance further. Cal told me about a subsequent change that he developed that could offer some interesting properties particularly for deep descent. It would allow vertical diving with a head up attitude. The mod. that allows this is incredibly simple. I will give it a try, take some video and put it up for consideration.
Finally, I copied some info from the Innerspace website into the bottom of the post at:
Amazing Underwater Flight! - FKA Kiteboarding Forums
Agreed the data is for SCUBA divers but it suggests the Aqueon required 40 % LESS air consumption than fins, (probably rocket or jet fins maybe duck feet). You could do better with long fins and perhaps better still with a monofin but 40% better? An interesting question. All this suggests a fresh look at the Aqueon would be a good idea.
