Just make sure it is long enough and elastic enough to easily pop off your head.
I mostly try to avoid anything that can easily pop my head off.
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Just make sure it is long enough and elastic enough to easily pop off your head.
As for myself, after diving Raja Ampat’s currents on an LOB with a dinghy, I’ve decided long hose with bungeed second is not optimal for such diving. I asked the LOB to lend me their recreational setup and was much happier. I’m going to rethink what I will do with my setup going forward. Maybe maintain two different configurations for different kinds of diving.
@Caveeagle stop enticing me.... I have too many Jetstreams to pay for Xstreams.....
Interesting. What issues did you have in current?
I far prefer long hose for those kinds of situations (as opposed to say a 40" hose and a swivel) because if you need to donate gas, you have more hose to make up for any loss of position if two divers happen to drift at different speeds. I can see an issue if you tuck the excess and it becomes loose into the water as opposed to secured under a canister/knife/etc of some sort, but that's easily rectified.
I find the recreational setups in current are far more prone to dangling octos and excess hose pulling regs in various directions. You'd be surprised at how much surface area a hose can have when it's not streamlined and is reacting to the flow.
That's just my reasoning though, I'm not discounting your experience.
@JohnnyC, you guessed my issue correctly. On my first LOB in Belize, I was hanging onto the hang bar and the boat was swinging back and forth quite quickly, causing a “current” that unwrapped the long hose from around my neck.
If you store your alternate properly, you'll always know where to find it. Back when I used a standard octo setup, I always knew where my alternate was. It never dragged behind me.If you ever REALLY need that reg in a hurry, you know where to find it