BC SEAC SUB MITO

THE ITALIAN COMPANY SEAC SUB HAS GONE through some changes of distributorship recently, and it's now with the first and original distributor of Mares equipment in the UK.

Comfort
The Mito uses a parachute-style harness, so you have to grope around a little for the waist-strap when getting kitted up. The fact that the weight-pockets make both sides hang away from you doesn't help matters, but once you find the opposing ends they snap together easily enough by means of a big pinch-clip.
I found the sternum strap a little high, and it tended to pull loose at the buckle. This was a bit annoying, because I like to tuck the corrugated hose under the strap so that I always know where it can be found.
The backpack has three sets of slots, to allow you a choice of positions when fitting it to a tank. There is never any excuse for having the tank hanging by a thread, as it were. There is also a twin-sided jockstrap but I discarded it, feeling that it was unnecessary for single-tank diving.

Efficacy
Under water, any air used for buoyancy control will be where the diver wants it. I used the Mito with a drysuit to maintain a head-up position, and for righting myself after those moments when I went head down for some reason, and the air in my suit migrated to my legs.
The parachute-style harness leaves the front of the suit uncluttered, so there was never any question of me being unable to locate the suit's direct-feed valve when I needed it.
The integrated-weight pockets take only a maximum of 4kg each side, which is not enough for a big bloke in a drysuit. I augmented this with extra weights on a belt. However, discarding 8kg should equate to that amount of lift for a neutrally buoyant diver.
The integrated-weight pouches are mounted well away from the front of the harness, so there was no "heavy saddlebags" effect.
There is only a single zipped pocket, on the diver's right side. In combination with a drysuit,
I found this very difficult to access. It has a drop-down section to add capacity when needed.

Control of Ascent
Air in the wing could be jettisoned fairly easily, by either pulling on the corrugated hose to open the top-mounted valve, or tugging on the toggle and cord of the right-side dump valve.
This toggle was on the end of an over-long length of cord, which did allow it to tangle with the hose of my second regulator and my high-pressure hose. This meant that I couldn't always find it as easily as I would have liked.
It's easy enough to shorten the cord and, if it was my BC, I would have done so. The same goes for the bottom-right dump valve but, wearing a drysuit, I only ever needed it to drain water from the buoyancy cell.
The buoyancy cell is gently restrained by an elastic strap threaded around it to stop it from flapping. I found that I needed to raise the shoulder of the side from which I dumped air to get rid of the last quantity of air. As my main buoyancy control was afforded by air in the drysuit, I tended to use the corrugated hose-pull on the same side as the suit's dump valve.

Surface Support
With 23kg of lift available in size M, I found that there was plenty of surface support when the Seac Sub Mito was fully inflated. The wing is separate from the harness, so there was no torso squeeze whatsoever.
However, I would caution anyone when first using a Mito to be thoughtful about the positioning of any additional weights, because if they are too far round to the front of your body, you'll tend to be tipped forward.

Ease of Removal
Once back on our boat I simply sat down, undid my suit feed hose, the sternum-strap and waist-strap, and the two large pinch-clips that form the shoulder-strap buckles. I could then stand up away from my tank before stowing it.
The same would be true of discarding a set in the water, having inflated the wing first.
However, I did find that ripping away the weight pouches in the water took considerable effort, so I exhort any owner to get used to the action by practising before needing to do it in more dire circumstances.

OTHER BCS TO CONSIDER:
Mares Pegasus, £249
Halcyon Eclipse £399
Deep Outdoors Matrix Black II £499

SPECS
PRICE £299
STYLE Wing
DRY WEIGHT 3.4kg
POCKETS One with zip and drop-down extension
INTEGRATED WEIGHTS Yes
D-RINGS 5 stainless-steel
MAX LIFT IN SIZE M 23kg
SIZES XS, S, M, L, XL
CONTACT www.blandfordsubaqua.co.uk
DIVER GUIDE