113 replies to this topic

[scienceteacher]

Having had a catastrophic 1st stage failure (*Losing 1500psi in 30sec then sucking in regulator water at 75' and doing the torpedo to the surface) with an assigned last minute dive boat partner on Cozumel (*Notice I don't even call him a buddy) who went his own way;

I am a firm believer in the old Spare Air!

Do it yourself, don't let your life hang on someone's belt.

That diver may be out of air too!

If you think I am kidding check out some old issues of Undercurrent WHEN DIVERS DIE!

Dive buddies run out of air too.

I know that one first hand from getting stuck with a dive buddy who I followed into a cave on San Salvador Island at the Club Med. We entered a cave it was too narrow to turn around. It finally came out at 134' on alum 80's. We both ran out of air at 50'. That was way back in my, I will take anyone for a dive buddy days.

Ask your dive buddy real questions and probe until you get real answers on their skill level. Don't assume anything except they are a NOVICE until proven otherwise. Also, they may be Looking to Die on this dive! ARE YOU? LIVE LONG AND PROSPER TO DIVE ANOTHER DAY! HURRAH!

Trust in God and Trust in your own Spare Air! P.S. Stay out of caves unless you have quads, ropes, spare air and plenty of luck! ME, I HAVE INCREDIBLE GREAT LUCK BUT IT COMES WITH A GYPSY CURSE, BAD LUCK!

[Mermaid Lady]

I prefer an Air2. One less hose.

But I have an adapter to fit my second reg, which is equipped with a standard octo, to the larger Air2 connector. I will often use that when my dive buddy is relatively inexperienced.

[finGrabber]

I am a firm believer in the old Spare Air!

why not take a pony bottle instead?

[Mermaid Lady]

The downside I personally have in going to a 7' long hose on my primary is the loss of the in line swivel which I find to be a nice feature on my reg. But the issue of an O-O-A diver going after your primary is a real one, and knowing where your octo is in that case without having to think about it is important in any configuration.

With an air2 my standard procedure is to pass my primary reg to my buddy anyway. I also know where my air2 is at all times. I practice breathing off of it (and maintaining bouyancy) on every single dive, so it's not that big of an issue.

[secretsea18]

I am a firm believer in the old Spare Air!

why not take a pony bottle instead?

Weight. Actually both are same thing, but SA is just smaller. Lugging around a pony bottle is a total pain when flying. They always want to open up your luggage, even when you have removed the valve to do a visual inspection for security reasons .... they don't put the plug back in, crap gets inside... need I say more?

* I have a pony bottle, but do not travel with it.... for the above reasons.

[Geek]

I have taken a pony while traveling. I removed the valve completely, then checked the bag containing it. I even put a tag on the outside of the bag saying it was in there. So far, no problems.

I would not want to try to take one through security in my hand luggage.

[georoc01]

The downside I personally have in going to a 7' long hose on my primary is the loss of the in line swivel which I find to be a nice feature on my reg. But the issue of an O-O-A diver going after your primary is a real one, and knowing where your octo is in that case without having to think about it is important in any configuration.

With an air2 my standard procedure is to pass my primary reg to my buddy anyway. I also know where my air2 is at all times. I practice breathing off of it (and maintaining bouyancy) on every single dive, so it's not that big of an issue.

Using an Air2 is what my LDS teaches exclusively. All of their rental gear uses air2s. SO this is how I learned how to do it. They see this as the trend in rec diving, and with the traditional octo going away.

[VADiver]

The standard length octo is designed to get someone in an open water recreational profile to the surface safely. The octo is donated, you grab forearms and up you come. The LH is designed to be used let a technical diver sort out an issue @175' in a tunnel, ship corridor or what have you. Worse comes to worse and they can come out together. Give a LH to everyone with an OW qual and they will probably just get entangled or choke themselves on it. How many OW divers have you seen with an octo trailing behind them in the mud or sand? Now add 4'.

I disagree...the long hose setup works great in both the technical and recreational realm. Even in open water it's nice to have a little distance between the two divers during the ascent, which should be a controlled ascent...not two people shooting to the surface.

As for equipment management...this is not a technical diving skill, but a skill that should be taught (but it seems like it isn't) during open water. It's not acceptable for any diver to have gear trailing behind them...they should have the issue corrected by their instuctor or fail the class.

[VADiver]

My computer is not air integrated nor will I ever have one. Granted their kind of cool, but must be backed up with an analog SPG which would be just another hose to deal with so I don't see the point. If the you-know-what hit's the fan the crucial information you need is your depth, bottom time, and gas remaining. If my computer fails I have all of those available with my watch and analog gauges.

Just for clarification, do you only have an SPG attached to your tank or do you also have a depth gauge attached? If you don't have both, which piece gives you your depth if your computer fails?

Your buddy...

I have my primary depth guage and a backup clipped in my pocket. But I have a buddy to run the depth if mine fails...we call the dive and he runs the ascent.

[pmarie]

When I decided that diving was not just a passing fancy I went into the LDS and asked my instructor out to dinner. Then I said that I want to know about diving, not just what is expected to be taught in class, but the reality of diving.

He was direct and I appreciate that in the biggest way. I love direct. A diver is not going to signal that he is out of air, he's going to go for the breather he knows works....that's the one you're using. Well, that makes sense to me, I would certainly go for equipment I know works. I always check both regs before I hit the water, even if they are back to back dives/trips.

I have a longer hose on my primary, an Air2 a my second on my main reg set up. On my spare reg set up I have both a typical octo and an equivilent to the Air2 on another BC. I have to switch out my AI computer, but I have an SPG, Depth and compass on it as a back up. I am still trying to figure out what other computer I want, which one would be a best choice for type of diving et al; so that part is still in process......

[Racer184]

The first setup I bought had a traditional octo.

Then I bought the "Air 3" low-pressure inflator + second stage + pneumatic noise maker. They installed it for me and handed me back my "octo" second stage.

A few dives later, I got to thinking about that "octo" sitting on the shelf in my garage being useless. So I had it re-installed. So now I am diving with my primary regulator, the traditional 'octo' regulator plus my bc-inflator regulator.

So I am now in my divemaster internship I am there in the pool or the ocean with the 'octo' that the students expect.
If someone rips the primary out of my mouth, I can find my low-pressure inflator / regulator immediately.

...getting stuck with a dive buddy who I followed into a cave ...

I tell ALL of my insta-buddies that if they go anyplace to small for them to push a school bus through completely to the other side that I will watch them go in and I will not follow..... and I will watch them die and never feel guilty about it. I am NOT qualified to go in there, I have no training for that.

I also tell them if they see me start to go in there to assume I am narc'd and try to stop me if they can safely do so.

[georoc01]

The standard length octo is designed to get someone in an open water recreational profile to the surface safely. The octo is donated, you grab forearms and up you come. The LH is designed to be used let a technical diver sort out an issue @175' in a tunnel, ship corridor or what have you. Worse comes to worse and they can come out together. Give a LH to everyone with an OW qual and they will probably just get entangled or choke themselves on it. How many OW divers have you seen with an octo trailing behind them in the mud or sand? Now add 4'.

I disagree...the long hose setup works great in both the technical and recreational realm. Even in open water it's nice to have a little distance between the two divers during the ascent, which should be a controlled ascent...not two people shooting to the surface.

As for equipment management...this is not a technical diving skill, but a skill that should be taught (but it seems like it isn't) during open water. It's not acceptable for any diver to have gear trailing behind them...they should have the issue corrected by their instuctor or fail the class.

Sounds great to fail the student. But lets get what is going on during an open water class. You are doing 4 dives. Most of the time is spent at the platform doing skill drills like mask removal. Most people do their cert dives using rental equipment provided by the instructor's shop. And most are doing their ow dives very soon after doing their pool work. So the student does fine in such a short period of time and passes.

Now flash forward to when the student is doing some real diving. Months have passed since they did their certification and the task loading of their first dives post cert. Yeah, they have some equipment dragging and probably shouldn't be out there. But don't blame the instructor for thinking they shouldn't have passed them. They did their jobs as the certification companies spell it out. Its then up to the student to take that freshly minted cert card and become a better diver just like we all had to do immediately after getting our drivers license for driving a car in the real world.

K.I.S.S. is important with newer divers. That's where the air2 comes in handy. Its attached to a hose that you need to know where it is (your inflate/deflate hose).

Today I did my 102nd dive. It was at the location where I did my 9th dive here, a local quarry. I shudder to think how many mistakes I made on that dive back then and didn't realize it based on what I know now from my experience.

[NJBerserker]

I saw a lot of the equipment dragging first hand today at Dutch Springs. Usually I'm not in the immediate vicinity of open water classes as those whom I usually dive with are experienced and qualified so we go see the deeper attractions. Today however I had one of my fraternity brothers who was recently certified join me for the day. He only had two non-training dives and wanted to get more experience. Upon our decent I noticed his octo and gauges dangling wrecklessly, so I grabbed him midwater and streamlined his outfit for him. As we did our other dives I noticed almost all of the OW classes and Newbies (I mean that kindly) were dragging at least something. It was definitely shocking to see that happening and a pain to swim through all of their silt. The last dive of the day he asked to borrow my spare reg necklace to see if he liked diving that way (We were hanging out with Pir8 and the crew from Lehigh Valley Dive center so almost all of us were on long hose, backplate, etc.). He liked it way better than his standard configuration and plans to use it when he buys his first reg set. He also liked my OOA procedure. When I explained that I would donate my primary to him and switch to my secondary his response was "cool. . . I love equipment that works". Just throwing this out there since the topic went that way. It does seem to show that newer divers can understand and implement some of what is considered the "tech" configuration. Then again, as it was also brought up, we were taught by hard-core North Atlantic wreck divers. I bought my bp/w, long hose reg, etc. from the jump. It is what is common for our local diving and it works for me. In more tropical climates I can understand divers not getting the exposure to the setup that I got. For my first day of AOW my instructor wore his drysuit, manifolded doubles, the whole nine as he had a wreck diver class after us and didn't want to bother changing tanks. Nine out of ten divers with their own gear at the quarry were diving backplate wing and long hose as well. I guess it's just how we roll up here.

[Capn Jack]

Mark,
I really don't agree with how you all think those long hoses are "superior in looks".... I will refrain from my opinion of the appearance of that setup. Not only that but the darn (wanted to use a different word here) "necklace octo" would really get in the way of my camera and would probably get all mucked up with sand and silt. (I surely would not want to be having to use that after some OOA diver ripped my primary regulator from my mouth.) And after all, what is more important than taking fabulous pictures of what there is in the ocean to see. As they say, "to each his own".....

For me, my primary hose is ... get this ... SHORTER than the standard length! Yep. Shorter. The dive shop had to order it for me. I am so happy to have gotten the special shorter primary regulator hose, because now I don't get a raw patch on my inner lip from the regulator pushing against my cheek, due to the hose being too long.

Mark, any chance of having any business up my way? Got some photos to show from the India trip to share. Since I can't post any photos in the posts (unless I am just too stoopid to figure it out, which is possible.)

Robin

You didn't read my sentence correctly - I wrote it slow, knowing you might read it too fast!

The long hose is ugly. The people (like myself and DG) are superior in looks.

I do agree we all like different things - although I can't say mine has ever gotten in my way.

If your buoyancy is as good as your pix - how do you get your neck in muck?

No plans to be in NYC anytime soon - DC will be as close as I get - although if you want to take me to the Prime House, I might take the train up for a weekend.

Hi Mark,
I did read your post slowly, but totally missed your sarcasm with your lovely, beautiful, studly diver appearance I really thought you considered it looked studly, My bad....

There are plenty of sandy/silty places (muck sites {especially in Lembeh and Anilao} .... but look in the sand first!) where I am just about resting on the bottom, with my camera actually on the bottom to get the perspective up close to the bottom dwelling critter. And I say look before resting, those darn urchins and other stuff in the sand/bottom (like bobbit worms, inimicus scorpionfish and other poisonous stuff with spines love to be right where my knees want to be ) {By the way, put really hot water on sea urchin spines to stop them from hurting, and fire urchins really do sting more than the plain black kind } So I am right down there in the muck and I actually tuck my Airsource into my cummerbund to keep it from getting dredged in the sand and out of the way. If I could get rid of that too, I would, but I actually do need it for putting air into the BC when I'm waiting for the boat, or signaling the boat to find me to collect me.

Too bad you don't have any plans for NY anytime soon, and given the increase in prices I'm not sure dinner at Prime House is less than my monthly income, though I'd love to got there. I'm going to Lembeh Nov 27 for 9 days ... wanna come along, to dive and observe the proper technique for mucking around?

Robin

Robin
Glad you finally read it right and got my humor - probably too much time staring through those jeweler's loupes at uw camera o'rings.

I'd love to go to Lembeh, but have no clue what my schedule looks like - we've bid a huge contract that may have me tied up until Feb. I would very much like to learn the muck techniques that bring back those FANTASTIC pix you get - and I'd even be your tank bitch and beach fluff if you bought me a beer or three.

Mark

[VADiver]

I am a firm believer in the old Spare Air!

why not take a pony bottle instead?

***I just reviewed my post and thought it sounded a bit sarcastic...I don't mean to offend, just add a comment.****
Or why not plan the dive to finish up with a nice mimimum gas reserve based on getting both divers safely to the surface. A good buddy team is essential for a safe dive.

Relying on a spare air or a pony bottle is not the best way to plan a dive, but that's another topic thats been beat to death by the "Pony bottle -vs- WTF, a pony bottle?" group.

Edited by VADiver, 03 August 2008 - 08:05 PM.