Thanks again everyone. One final question on the sharing of "gas" from the main tank with a single regulator? Why is this an issue? I am carrying a pony why do you need access to my tank? If for some unknown, unforseeable reason you do, why cant we share a regulator? I mean we are talking about something that is remote in the extreme aren't we? We would need two simultaneous major malfunctions to require you to need access to my main tanks air. At least it seems that way to me.
Hi Twiddles:
Whew! I bet you think you got an eyeful; imagine what it would be like if all of these peeps were in a room together. I so bad want to mention D*R, but if we were in the room, I fear getting shot! Just kidding.
Seriously, to your question above about sharing a regulator. In theory it works great, and you should have done it in OW class, swim around, etc. But were you panicked? Probably not- you were just checking a box so that you could become a diver. But once class is over, rarely do people think about the vital skills they learned, and even worse they don't practice them and neither does their buddy. They want to strap on that fancy computer and all of that colorful gear they bought and just jump into the big blue. So now you're swimming around and all of a sudden, imagine your buddy signals out of gas. You jump into savior mode and think your going to give them your regulator, they'll breathe for a bit and then you'll breathe for a bit and you both will repeat as necessary. Now toss in, you actually have to move, preferably ascending through the water column. Depending on the hose length you have you may have to be pretty close together, and with you two sharing a regulator, hopefully you are damn near face to face or some similar configuration. So you start moving towards the anchor line or however you want to get out, and those breaths just aren't lasting like they did, and your partner is thinking the same thing! Uh oh. Now this was just an example. It is not as easy as it sounds and unless you practice this and you buddy does the same, it may be the start of the end for one or both of you and next thing you know- blow and go! Unplanned task loading leading to more panic. Now if you had a primary regulator and a backup, then you could take out at least one factor leading to increased task loading. That's a start.
Now with practicing and discussing things, like in skydiving, plan your dive and then dive your plan. What are you going to do during the dive, how deep, how long, what if's, emergencies, etc. Diving should be a lot more than just strapping on your gear, pony bottle, whatever, and returning to the boat with 500 psi. But you have to plan that, your buddy should help, and both of you should understand it.
If you are going to rig a bottle for carry, make sure you know what's in it, note the ease that you may access it, and how to put it into service. There are tons of ways some right, some kinda' shaky, but whatever works for you I will say.
Finally, I would like to leave you with two links, I think one of the posters here wrote one of the articles, and I do hope he doesn't mind me sharing. They are both great articles and in a word to sum them both up- prevention. From
Lamont and from
NWGratefulDiver. These are in no order of preference, FYI.
Please be safe and have fun diving!
With kindest regards from North Carolina,
Thomas
