Halcyon Tek Shorts allow you to easily add two thigh pockets to your wet suit or dry suit. The shorts are donned over the exposure suit you are wearing. The shorts are made of neoprene with a draw string to hold them up. The pockets are well designed and velcro tabs allow the pocket to lie flat when not in use, but expand into a spacious bellows pocket when opened with shock cord loops to clip gear to.

I used the shorts on a trip to the Nullarbor's Cocklebiddy Cave where they were very useful to stash a lot of gear for our planned three day stay at Toad Hall over 4km into the cave. Prior to the trip I replaced the cheap tape waist draw string supplied with the shorts with some thin shock cord as the draw string slipped when tightened. The shock cord also slipped but not to the same extent. The low cut waist of the sorts felt like they were almost falling off when I loaded up the pockets out of the water. As I was wearing them over a two piece pro wetsuit, I counteracted this by donning them over the long johns and then put the wet suit jacket over the top and secured them in place with the crotch strap of the jacket.

In the water the pockets were easy to access even when carrying multiple stages. The shorts were comfortable and flexible to wear. Coming out of the water the first time I noticed the pockets were carrying a lot of water as there were no drain holes. This was later remedied by punching a couple of small holes in the bottom of each pocket, but should have been done by the manufacturer.

In summary, the positives:

• well designed spacious pockets
• comfortable and easy to access
• one pair of shorts can be used over a variety of exposure suits

and the negatives:

• supplied with a poor quality waist draw string
• low cut waist
• no drain holes

Price

• LDS: $140
• Online: $120 + postage