Buddy Air Balancing?

[Meng_Tze]

I disagree with teaching this to beginners, for whom air-sharing is going to be stressful and often involve loss of buoyancy control, and for people not using some kind of long hose setup, because air-sharing on a 24" hose doesn't permit any kind of enjoyable diving. And I vigorously disagree with teaching that this be done close to or at rock bottom.

spot on there TSandM

 

[Meng_Tze]

.. I don't consider any agency to be my dive Bible.

I don't need someone to advocate it for me. You dive long enough you start to get creative. It's not a bad thing to be able to swim well together on a long hose. If we ever had to get out of a wreck on one tank, we have experience moving together. So...we just are practicing when it is also convenient for the dive.

Think back to when you started out.........wasn't everything your instructor said/showed/instructed in some form assumed to be correct, safe and 'gospel'? That is the issue here, not where we are talking about somewha experienced divers, who are able to manage gas, know what they need t get up. This 'buddy balancing' seems to be taught as part of OW, where people just start out. It potentially sets new divers on a dangerous path.

 

[Diver Dennis]

I missed that too MT. It certainly should not be taught in OW.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I missed that too MT. It certainly should not be taught in OW.

Probably not but considering that most recreational courses don't teach any gas management at all, even to the instructor level, how would the instructor know better?

 

[Diver Dennis]

Good point Mike, now that is something that SHOULD be taught, gas management. I don't have any problem with regular buddies doing it, as I posted originally. I also think that there is too much instructor bashing at times. It's important to take into account what instructors are taught to teach, although a good instructor could add gas management to their curriculum.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I never blame instructors for the required content of scuba classes. I blame the agency who wrote the course and the standards.

 

[joe rock]

If your buddy is your redundancy instead of a pony bottle and you have switched to your buddy's air supply to extend your dive time then where did your redundancy go ?
N

To Nemrod's point, if instead of air balancing with a buddy, a pony user said when they get to X-psi they switch to their pony to extend bt what would the reaction be? :no
:dropmouth

 

[joe rock]

Now maybe this is just semantics, but isn't there a big difference between practicing a skill (air share, breathing off your pony etc.) and using air redundancy to extend bottom time?

JR

 

[MikeFerrara]

To Nemrod's point, if instead of air balancing with a buddy, a pony user said when they get to X-psi they switch to their pony to extend bt what would the reaction be? :no
:dropmouth

If the "pony" was sized such that it was more comparable to independant doubles, it would be absolutely expected.

Also, that's pretty much how nemrod described pony use in another thread...switching to it when the main tank was low (not empty) and reserving the remainder in the main tank.

 

[joe rock]

If the "pony" was sized such that it was more comparable to independant doubles, it would be absolutely expected.

Also, that's pretty much how nemrod described pony use in another thread...switching to it when the main tank was low (not empty) and reserving the remainder in the main tank.

Never saw that thread.

Mike, what size pony would you consider it to be expected?

JR