Diver in travel group kept running out of air and sharing on every dive?

[rgkv]

No not at all. Nice young lady who just uses a lot of energy down underwater.

all fine and dandy untill the day comes when a diver signals " No, I;m low on air myself"

 

[boulderjohn]

The concern with sharing air and continuing the dive assumes that the receiver is empty or near empty. If the diver still has lots of air but is just sharing air in anticipation of running out later and thus ending the dive early for everyone, it isn't all that dangerous. Years ago I dived with a group of New Zealand instructors and dive shop owners who were vacationing in Fiji, and an air hog owner did it regularly.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

At LCBR last May, we had a couple on our boat that seemed to almost always shared air at the safety stop. Very nice couple so I asked them about it. They explained that it was to mitigate LCBR's strict "back on the boat with no less than 500 psi rule". She was better on gas consumption than him so their general plan was to arrive at the SS when he had the 500 PSI and then share.

 

[Scared Silly]

If someone comes to me to share gas the dive will be ending. That has happened once.

For the OP without any prior discussion from that diver your best course of action is to talk privately with the dive guide or captain and share your concerns.

 

[professorpaddle]

My opinion only based on the assumption that they were actually running out of air, not just sharing, cuddling or getting to know other divers by sharing air without the need, which sounds super weird.

On the first dive I would probably be concerned and then on the surface when everything settled be curious about what changes would be made to prevent it.

Second dive I would start wondering why the buddy was not as concerned as I was, and I would probably let the buddy know, they should be watching their buddies gas and adjusting their dive accordingly with communication to the DM.

Third dive, if the dive buddy and the person were still doing it and certainly if it expanded to others in the group, I would have quietly chatted with the DM.

My personal 2 cents. I would want to help them improve and change habits for safety. If they were ambivalent or uninterested, I would rather dive solo then participate in re-enforcing that type of behavior. I understand on a guided boat that is not really optional but I would have said it out loud even if people got pissed off.

 

[scubadada]

...Average depth was 71 feet. Average dive time was 46 min.

I assume that is the average maximum depth and not the average average depth. An average depth of 71 feet is reasonably deep and a 46 min dive could not be done with an AL80 and a typical RMV of around 0.5 cu ft/min, leaving anywhere near a reasonable reserve.

 

[Outbound]

Sharing gas with a designated buddy is fine in a true OOA situation or if agreed upon beforehand so that the heavy breather can match the dive time of the lighter breather. But I'd be pissed if I saw a diver hop from person to person and then come to me expecting me to share air in a non-emergency situation. Screw that. Get a bigger tank or cut your dive short.

 

[BRT]

As I recall, on some trips TS&M used to share gas with her husband cause she breathed like a mouse. If she shared some of her gas with him, they would eventually surface with relatively evenly matched tank pressures instead of her with 1500psi while he had 600psi.

Sharing gas isn't inherently dangerous. If it feels that sketchy then practice it some more. The "why" is of course an important factor.

I would make the argument that sharing air in a non-emergency situation is good practice. Of course....you cannot just come up to someone who isn't already in agreement and continue the dive using their air. And you can't wait until one diver is really low on air. But I see no safety issue, and some training benefit, to sharing air in the middle of the dive.

 

[Sascha314]

Sharing air itself should not be dangerous. The only concern is, if it is because someone ran out unecpectedly or unnoticed oog.

If some buddies, who know each other and their sac, do it because they have an uneven sac, its not inherently unsafe.

Make a gas plan depending on the dive, based on the worse sac. If you share well above the minimum gas its ok to even out and have a longer dive - maybe as a courtesy for the whole group.

 

[ReadyDiverOne]

Well, I have a pretty strong reaction to this, and that is that this is a very, very bad idea and practice. The out-of-air diver (I assume she is OOA or why would she share air at every safety stop?) is learning really bad habits, which is to say she's learning to dive her tank dry and then always rely on someone else having air. This is blindingly obviously a recipe for disaster. One day, she will look up and her buddy will also be out of air, maybe because of fighting a current or a leak or what have you, and then what?

I say this as a self-confessed air hog photographer. The thought of planning to share gas just never occurred to me, nor should it have.

If she is not OOA, then I still think this is a bad practice if done more than once or twice, FOR practice. It sends the signal to everyone else in the group that there is a safety situation, which can then create its own issues.

Just a terrible practice IMHO.