Info Are Pony Bottles Dangerous?

[MidOH]

I don't even think my average buddy can switch to air2 (ick) and primary donate.

I have witnessed air hogs swim past there own buddy, and 2 other divers, to get the DM's octo. Lol.

 

[steinbil]

"Proper" gas planning, 3rds, do take into account catastrophic failures and are used more frequently in situations where you absolutely need the buffer (caves, wrecks, very deep, etc). The average rec diver is using a turn pressure of about 1/2 with a plan to return in the 500-750 range. A critical failure (incident if you had a pony) is now an emergency. Dark, cold, snowy waters and your 6ft of separation is enough to cause problems. Having a redundant air source gives you time to address most problems while you either 1) get to your buddy and begin sharing back gas or 2) signal and surface while not being tethered to your buddy

In my opinion, there's nothing magical about any fraction. Proper gas planning will depend on the circumstances, and just diving 3rds is not it. There are probably many valid ways of doing it, but it should account for gas sharing in an emergency from the deepest/furthest point in the dive. Call it "rock bottom" or "usable gas" or whatever, the point is to have an appropriate gas reserve for the dive. The rest of the gas you can use as you see fit. If you "must return to the starting point at all costs" then you need to at least dive 3rds on top of the reserve and take into account that your buddy might need more air than you, is there current, other obstacles etc.

As you describe it, the average Rec diver is not using proper gas planning. I think they should. Let's leave it at that.

I agree that having redundancy is an advantage on more advanced/deeper dives. I just think for a lot of rec divers "just adding a pony" might not make them any safer, and for some it might even contribute to giving them a false sense of security or pushing their limits instead of taking steps to learn to be a better/safer diver. This is obviously not true for everyone that uses a pony, but I do think it happens.

When I dive I'm not going to babysit a shịtty partner unless they're my family. I dive so I can go see what I want. I'm often on a scooter and now that I have my own it will be even more so. We're all down there to float and be away from people.

Fair enough, then you're solo diving. Do as you wish. My point is that if you have that mentality, it's quite ironic to complain about buddies not being reliable and that it's easy to get separated. (Not that you did, but I hear that sentiment from a lot of posters that seem to blame others for their lack of buddy communication skills).

If your profile is correct, you only have a few to several dozen dives. Do hundreds more dives, with different characters in varying conditions of current, visibility and dive objectives and you will almost assuredly look up and see nobody around you. Generally you should have a good idea which way to begin to look, but still sheet happens. Have you ever had a buddy panic and bail or have an equipment problem and just leave? It will happen sooner or later.

Agreed, I'm still quite inexperienced, and maybe my perspective will shift as I gain more experience. However, after 90+ dives in cold black/green water with visibility ranging 2-30ft and tidal currents, I still think it would take a lot to get separated from me. Mostly because if I don't trust my buddy, I don't let them out of my sight. I've had a few people pop to the surface towards the end of the dive or during ascent, but I was aware that it happened and found them on the surface. Now, I did have an instructor sneak up behind me while I was focused on my team mate doing drills, so of course it is possible to lose track of someone if they deliberately try to lose you - especially if you trust them and they're not really your team mate.

By the way, I appreciate you sharing your story and also the way you responded to my question. It was not meant as a dig towards you.

Also, what activities are you doing during a dive? What are your goals, photography, exploring, hunting? or is it just to play follow the leader? If you are trying to capture a particular image or scene with a video or camera, your attention is necessarily focused on that subject for X amount of time. What if a diver spears a fish and so does his buddy? Do you think both people are available physically or mentally to provide assistance? Not happening. A buddy system can and does work for a lot of people, but not for everyone all the time.

I don't spearfish or do photography. If I did, I would only do it with buddies I know I can trust and that are part of a team with shared goals. Outside of that, it gets very close to solo diving, as I see it.

Really for recreational diving? I think not. The planing is for one critical failure NOT two. You have a critical failure, you go to your pony and the buddy is on his own to make the ascent. If he runs out of gas or has a simultaneous, instantaneous critical failure (and he does not have redundancy himself), then you buddy breathe or die.

We don't plan for everything.

In case my wording was unclear, I agree you normally only plan for 1 critical failure. My point was that I think proper gas planning should account for 1 diver to have a complete loss of gas - so my reserve should be enough to share gas with my buddy in case he has a catastrophic failure. I don't also plan for what to do if I also have a catastrophic failure - that is one step too far, I think.

 

[SlugLife]

I never understood this sentiment. Buddy diving is a two way street. Even with terrible and non-attentive buddies, I've never gotten separated. Why?

What kind of visibility and conditions?

Where I dive, I lose complete visibility of a buddy 3 feet away sometimes. I too haven't had buddy separation yet, because: 1) I mostly dive solo 2) I almost never dive with insta-buddies. 3) I spend the entire dive watching the buddy, which is not fun.

Some of the places I solo-dive have are actual zero-visibility, and others are close to it. You wouldn't even see your buddy 80% of the dive, if there were 12-inches away.

Is that fun? No

If it's not fun, I have better things to do with my time and money.

that's why I prefer better buddies.

That's nice. When you can always choose your buddies, and those buddies are reliable. For me, that would mean never diving.

So, instead, I take the most reliable dive-buddy of all, my redundant air.

So maybe the people saying this are not the most attentive themselves...

You're assuming negative characteristics about people you disagree with.

 

[SlugLife]

If someone is that freaked out about critical failures all the time and that’s all they think about the entire dive, that doesn’t sound like fun to me. I would find a new hobby.
I’ve dived with people like that whose entire lives revolved around “critical failures” and “what if’s”. They are no fun to be around.

I mentioned "PTSD insurance" (traumatic experiences attempting CESA from 90ft) but this is another major benefit. For example, the whole debate about swivels/elbows, flex-hoses, failure points, and so on is mostly irrelevant when I have redundant gas. Redundant air converts entire classes of problems are converted into minor annoyances.

I dive to enjoy myself. I dive to enjoy myself. It's nice not have even a hint of needing to check my gas every 15 seconds, stick to 30ft or less, and have a nagging feeling I'm seconds from drowning.

Could I CESA from 60ft? Probably most of the time. But maybe not if I have cramps, my buoyancy is fked, there's an entanglement, or I realize too late I need to start surfacing.

 

[steinbil]

Where I dive, I lose complete visibility of a buddy 3 feet away sometimes. I too haven't had buddy separation yet, because: 1) I mostly dive solo 2) I almost never dive with insta-buddies. 3) I spend the entire dive watching the buddy, which is not fun.

Some of the places I solo-dive have are actual zero-visibility, and others are close to it. You wouldn't even see your buddy 80% of the dive, if there were 12-inches away.

So it would seem you're not doing typical recreational dives. I can see that zero-vis diving would be very different, although I can imagine ways to combat that if necessary (like touch contact). However, I don't think this applies to 99%+ of recreational dives. So what I object to is if you use your very special circumstances to make statements that imply the same sentiments would be valid for other people.

That's nice. When you can always choose your buddies, and those buddies are reliable. For me, that would mean never diving.

So, instead, I take the most reliable dive-buddy of all, my redundant air.

Fair enough. I understand why some people solo dive, even though I refrain from doing it. It's not that relevant when it comes to typical recreational diving, though.

You're assuming negative characteristics about people you disagree with.

Maybe. I was implying that these "negative characteristics" might be correlated with certain statements, as a generalization. I didn't try to or mean to directly attribute it to you. I think calling it an ad hominem is a stretch.

 

[SlugLife]

So what I object to is if you use your very special circumstances to make statements that imply the same sentiments would be valid for other people.

In the section you quoted, I made NO general statements. I made a contrasting statement to something you said, which sounded general.

However, I don't think this applies to 99%+ of recreational dives.

This looks like a general statement to me, applying to nearly all scuba diving.

1) The normal diving in my local lakes, if you avoid zero-vis spots, is 1-20ft (on a great day) visibility, and the drops in visibility can be sudden. Unless one diver is CONSTANTLY monitoring their buddy, staying as closely as possible, moving slowly, etc, then buddy separation is practically guaranteed. Almost all of the local lakes I'm aware of have similar visibility.

2) The stories of inattentive insta-buddies are everywhere, and practically everyone has that story. There's nothing rare about your insta-buddy just swimming off to look at something, paying no attention to their buddy they just left behind.

This isn't remotely rare, or close to 1%. Even 1% can be a big number, when it comes to accidents or incidents, especially across hundreds (or thousands) of dives.

One reason divers run out of air, is because of something their buddy does. Perhaps their buddy swim-swim-swims like crazy, and you get a workout trying to keep up using more air. Perhaps the buddy wants to go deeper than expected. Perhaps the buddy doesn't want to surface. The are other examples, that follow the basic pattern of the unpredictable insta-buddy throws off your dive plan and air-usage. And that same unreliable insta-buddy, just might be the one that swam off with your redundant air, or perhaps has none left for you because they used theirs too.

 

[Boarderguy]

then you need to at least dive 3rds on top of the reserve and take into account that your buddy might need more air than you,

That's asinine. 3rds plus a further reserve? Again, we're talking open water rec diving. Once you got the air sharing button you're going up to a stop and swimming in shallow or to the surface of safe to do so. 2 divers swimming at 15-20ft can make a small reserve go a long way. Breathe the tank down, shoot a bag. Go up once you're below 500 psi. Easy peasy

 

[steinbil]

That's asinine. 3rds plus a further reserve? Again, we're talking open water rec diving. Once you got the air sharing button you're going up to a stop and swimming in shallow or to the surface of safe to do so. 2 divers swimming at 15-20ft can make a small reserve go a long way. Breathe the tank down, shoot a bag. Go up once you're below 500 psi. Easy peasy

Nice try selectively quoting. Here is the full quote, try reading it again:

If you "must return to the starting point at all costs" then you need to at least dive 3rds on top of the reserve and take into account that your buddy might need more air than you, is there current, other obstacles etc.

Obviously this almost never happens in recreational diving, which is why 3rds is not very relevant. If I plan on returning to the start point of the dive, I dive 1/2 + reserve. If **** happens I could always surface before returning.

 

[Boarderguy]

Nice try selectively quoting. Here is the full quote, try reading it again:

Obviously this almost never happens in recreational diving, which is why 3rds is not very relevant. If I plan on returning to the start point of the dive, I dive 1/2 + reserve. If **** happens I could always surface before returning.

It was selective to point out the ridiculous nature of that statement. Open water, rec diving. You're getting distracted with your gue/dir mandates. Diving 3rds with a reserve in OW single tank is like wearing a condom after getting a vasectomy and being celibate...

 

[steinbil]

Hint: If you have to selectively quote to make a statement sound ridiculous, maybe you're missing the point.

I'll add the most important part of the quote, then, since you seem so adamant to try to create a straw man:

The rest of the gas you can use as you see fit. If you "must return to the starting point at all costs" then you need to at least dive 3rds on top of the reserve and take into account that your buddy might need more air than you, is there current, other obstacles etc.

My point was, and has always been, that diving 3rds for recreational diving is almost never necessary. I only added the last part to pre-empt people nitpicking about hypothetical situations. For most of my dives I don't even have a turn pressure, but I always have a gas reserve, which is the important part.