Bungee 2nd stage necklace, adds difficulty to doff in water and hand gear off to boat?

[divad]

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.

 

[JohnnyC]

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.

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.

 

[tbone1004]

@Caveeagle stop enticing me.... I have too many Jetstreams to pay for Xstreams.....

@JohnnyC agreed, I also have less hose torque with the long hoses than I do with any other setup. I use 7' hoses on all single hose backmount setups because it's the most comfortable. I suffer from TMJ so given my choice I'll dive my double hose for long dives because it puts less torque on my mouth, but when I dive single hose backmount, it's always with a 7' hose.

 

[Caveeagle]

@Caveeagle stop enticing me.... I have too many Jetstreams to pay for Xstreams.....

Haha! I do think the Jetstreams stow better on a stage bottle, and gives you more of a ‘handle’ to grab. ..so no need to ditch them all.

As it would apply to this topic.. I have found a couple good ways to perma-mount a neck bungee to a Jetstream. The reg body is just easier to loop around. I have used a prusik that I sort of twist into an x around both sides of the reg body.

In any case! Bungee that reg!! Any way you want, but keep that sucker right where you need it! For a few seconds of getting in/out of your gear... it’s well worth the effort.

 

[tbone1004]

@Caveeagle I just use 1/8" bungee with double fisherman knots on each side. Never pops off on its own

 

[Fastmarc]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.

After the dive, if it's rough, this can be easily the most strenuous part of the dive. You just want to get out of the gear and hand it up as soon as possible as you are being tossed around quite a bit, tying not to bang into the tossing boat while trying to stay close enough to hand up your equipment. Now I have to unclip my pony and hand it up. Then get out of my BP/W which is a bit trickier than a jacket BCD. On my last dive because I had air in it, the bottom immediately popped up when I undid the waist strap, making it a little more tricky to remove from the shoulders. I don't remember it doing that on the previous dives, so maybe I just had an unnecessary amount of air in it. I'll test that out this weekend.
I just don't add to the difficulty.

The suggestion of using a bungee that allows you to pull it out looks interesting. I'll see if I can find that on amazon or make myself if I can find the right sized bungee here.

My reason for going to the bungee setup is really for streamlining. I've never had an issue with my octo-holder coming loose.

 

[tbone1004]

@Fastmarc

You need to get most of the way out prior to getting to the surface.

While on your safety stop
Order of operations assuming a single tank bpw for this.
Pony bottle gets fully stowed and unclip it from you. The top clip will go to your left hip d-ring to "nose clip" it.
If you have a 7' hose, swap to your secondary and you can coil the hose up and clip to the right shoulder d-ring. If on a 40" hose, just clip it off.
While breathing on the secondary, you grab the back of the necklace and pull it up over your head so it is in front of you. Once here, you clip the necklace into the bolt snap from the primary so it can't flop about too much.

At this point, you are in your full harness, breathing the secondary, have the primary clipped off, necklace off of your neck, and the pony on your left hip.
From here, if you have a crotch strap and know you won't be waiting on the surface for too long, you undo your waist strap *while horizontal or ideally slightly head down*, unthread your crotch strap, and buckle the waist belt back. If this is a "normal" thing for you, I would consider a crotch strap with a buckle. Dive Rite sells them.

This should take you about a minute or two, so you can do this on your precautionary stop and call it a day. Once you are ready to head to the surface, if surface support is waiting for you and quick, unclip the pony and hold it in your right hand by the valve since you need your left for buoyancy control and to orally inflate the wing once you get there. If not, just leave it clipped off until they're ready.
You hand the pony bottle up, and once they are ready to grab your gear, all you have to do is undo the waist buckle and slip down and out of it. Since the wing is somewhat full, it will try to lift off of you anyway, so just have to position your body so you can slide down and out. Super easy.

 

[Dogbowl]

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. No point in wrapping it back as I was still hanging onto the hang bar. The hose would’ve just unravelled as soon as I made it right. My husband’s hose also unravelled on a dive or 2 but I didn’t ask him how it happened. It just did and I fixed it when I noticed it. Not much current in Belize so it was fixable.

In Raja Ampat, my long hose unravelled as soon as I backrolled off the dinghy. We hit moderately strong currents. I noticed the unravelled hose and swam to my husband to get it fixed but the currents were strong, I was dropping a little too fast, my ears started to hurt, he was in my face and obstructed my arms from equalizing...you get the picture. One thing after another. I’m not experienced enough to deal with so many issues all at once. After my husband tried to make it right but failed, I said “screw this long hose” and left it dangling until I could find my guide and aborted the dive. 20:20 hindsight, I would’ve switched to my backup and fixed the dang hose myself but that was 20:20 hindsight lol. I’ll admit the hose wasn’t tucked in tight because I can’t get my Transpac to buckle up tight enough due to the straps being pretty new and hard.

So the long hose unravelling has been a recurring problem that I’ve had where current is a factor. That, and my problem with removing the bungeed second and handing my gear up to the dinghy.

Switching to recreational length setup solved both problems.

 

[rongoodman]

@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.

It's much easier to just pick out a prominent rock or piece of coral and hang over it until the boat comes back. No need to go for that wild ride.

 

[Storker]

If you ever REALLY need that reg in a hurry, you know where to find it

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.