caruso
Banned
Of course they do. the vast majority of boat captains don't dictate what gear their paying passengers may dive with or how they use it. It's generally bad for business and raises serious liability concerns. Just think what would happen if a diver who normally carries a pony bottle suffers an emergency at depth and they are injured or killed, whereas the pony would have made the difference but wasn't used on the dive because the Captain said "I've seen divers use pony bottles the wrong way therefore you can't dive with yours either"..
Certified divers are responsible for how they dive and what gear they use and don't need a boat captain telling them what they can and cannot do, but that withstanding- at the very least in order for @Wookie's police to be something approaching fair and reasonable, the reason for the breathing off the pony needs to be determined. A diver is done diving for the day even if it's because another diver suffered an OOA emergency and he donated his primary and breathed off the pony to get them both safely to to the surface, or a hose blew on the main tank thus emptying it in 30 seconds or was diving a wall and got caught in an unexpected downcurrent that dragged him down to 200' and he needed to make a slow ascent with stops or because a large menancing shark was circling under the boat and the diver wanted to give it the opportunity to swim away before surfacing so they extended their dive?
