Couple questions on a pony bottle for bail out

[TSandM]

What is the purpose of carrying a pony bottle? It can have two basic purposes: One is self-rescue in the event of being out of gas yourself, and the other is a separate source from your own gas, that you can share with or hand off to someone else who has run out of gas.

How likely is it that you will be out of gas? If you have some tools to do some basic dive planning, and you are responsible about monitoring your gauges, the only way you will run out of gas underwater is by having a catastrophic gear failure. Luckily, those failures are extremely rare. So I think it is fair to say that a responsible diver using good planning tools is very unlikely to be out of gas.

Now, if you are diving with another diver who is responsible about his dive planning and gas monitoring, and both of you plan to maintain rock bottom reserves, then in this very unlikely event of running out of gas, you will have a diver close at hand who you KNOW has enough gas for both of you to get to the surface. If you are diving the GUE system, you will not only make it to the surface, you will be able to execute an ascent which is basically NORMAL, so it puts you at no increased risk of any other bad outcome from your gear failure.

I bought this as a legitimate approach to the risk almost ten years ago, and I still believe it. The biggest reason for carrying a pony is not trusting your buddy to have enough gas for the dive, or to maintain reserves for you -- or to remain where you can reach him, or to be competent to execute an air-sharing ascent. This is the solo diver mindset, where someone has decided that buddies are unreliable and therefore it is necessary to provide self-rescue. In my world, buddies ARE reliable; on the occasions where I dive with someone (for example, a brand new diver) where I'm unsure of that, I either keep the dive so easy that I figure I can self-rescue at any point, or I dive doubles, or best of all, I bring along a third teammate who is MY bailout.

Dive with good folks and dive conservatively, and you don't need to carry another bottle and regulator on simple open water dives. Dive deeper or add complexity, you might want some redundancy -- but at that point, why not go for a small set of doubles? You're carrying an extra tank either way, but with doubles, you have so many more options.

 

[mrdre]

True, it is solo diving mentality. I love solo diving and dive solo a lot. Doubles are heavy. The setup is expensive. Beach entries and exists are tiring. I'm afraid of falling with doubles during beach entries and having hard time standing up (considering that I'm alone). With one tank and a pony I feel very comfortable. With a pony I don't worry about those extremely rare cases when I get separated from my buddy and have catastrophic equipment failure at the same time.

Even with my friend with whom I dive a lot I prefer to have a pony. If he gets a pony, then we consider our dives solo: just two solo divers diving together. I might spend 10 minutes trying to take a shot at some creature. He might try to get a lobster. Then we would find each other and continue the dive. It makes diving much more fun and safe. I just don't see what's wrong with that sort of diving. (except it being against some ideology)

 

[LiteHedded]

diving with a pony bottle wont kill you.

knock yourself out

 

[uncfnp]

diving with a pony bottle wont kill you.

knock yourself out

Wow, that's insightful. Thanks for your permission.

BTW. How does GUE work with spearfishing/hunting?

 

[LiteHedded]

Wow, that's insightful. Thanks for your permission.

BTW. How does GUE work with spearfishing/hunting?

we just go spearfishing/hunting like anyone else.

 

[Bob DBF]

I bought this as a legitimate approach to the risk almost ten years ago, and I still believe it. The biggest reason for carrying a pony is not trusting your buddy to have enough gas for the dive, or to maintain reserves for you -- or to remain where you can reach him, or to be competent to execute an air-sharing ascent. This is the solo diver mindset, where someone has decided that buddies are unreliable and therefore it is necessary to provide self-rescue. In my world, buddies ARE reliable; on the occasions where I dive with someone (for example, a brand new diver) where I'm unsure of that, I either keep the dive so easy that I figure I can self-rescue at any point, or I dive doubles, or best of all, I bring along a third teammate who is MY bailout.

Dive with good folks and dive conservatively, and you don't need to carry another bottle and regulator on simple open water dives. Dive deeper or add complexity, you might want some redundancy -- but at that point, why not go for a small set of doubles? You're carrying an extra tank either way, but with doubles, you have so many more options.

The solo mindset is not because you are diving with bad buddies, it is because you are diving alone. Decide what dive you are making and dive appropriately. Even at that, I don't carry a pony as a rule, I carry it when I feel it is required for the dive.

I figure that if one needs to dive in solo mindset while diving with a buddy, the bad buddy may not be the diver they think. Buddy and team practices should be used when diving in that manner, I've used them, they work. The major problem I've seen with buddies is that they don't talk to each other before the dive and expect the dive to go the way they want it to go after the splash. The only way I've seen that work for me is with guys I've been diving with for years.

As for diving doubles, I may have to carry a pony because my doubles are from my "tech diving" days and are 4 or so decades old, center post, and use a j-valve for reserve.



Bob
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The most important thing to plan when solo diving is to make sure that you are not diving with an idiot. Dsix36

 

[DaleC]

I just love the way people who don't use a piece of gear try so hard to explain why they think people who do, use it.

Why I dive a pony.

Shortly after taking OW/AOW I encountered the crazy world of recreational diving where complete strangers meet up in parking lots and decide to depend on each other under water and saw a lot of ways people could die. Separation, poor gear placement, lack of skill, "it will never happen to me" attitude... I also began solo diving early because I was self employed and dove mid week, when others did not, and I do many pursuits solo. And I began vintage equipment diving.

Were those things against my training.. you bet. But that training also created those crazy divers so I don't put much stock in what some agency says is right.

To counter the skills deficits I saw I was drawn to the dir philosophy, as many are, because it seemed to address those issues in an intelligent way. I bought the Fundies book, Dress for Success, and Cave 1 / Tech 1 manuals, entered into many discussions in the dir forum and talked with a couple of instructors to try to come to terms with what I saw. In the end, while much of what that regime offered made sense, it did not fit my style of diving (solo, vintage) enough to justify going down that path and was too expense for me to pursue as a want, not a need. Two of my dive buddies did go that route and we still like each other.

Instead I developed for myself a method of self reliance from diving's past and present that allowed me to achieve my goals with a reasonable measure of safety. I reversed gears and reengaged diving in a way wherein, if I could not plan and execute the dive independently, I would not do the dive at all. I became very in tune with my own limits and abilities, not what a card told me, and where those abilities fell short, I improved them. From this position of strength I can dive independently, or be a good team mate. When someone does buddy with me, they at least get a capable partner who understands the difference between good and poor techniques. I can dive solo, vintage, team etc... I have many diving acquaintances, and a few good friends, belong to a club and enjoy diving every week of the year. I've also explored some unusual sites, found some stuff and conducted a long term fish study - happy, productive diving. What more do we want?

I am intelligent, discerning, and skilled enough to be able to do so. A pony does not confuse me, cause me to forget gas management, or cause me to swim off in the opposite direction and ignore my buddy any more than doubles cause me to dive too deep, for too long, incur the bends, or swim into caves.

People can dive what they want. If they choose to join an established regime, more power to them. If they choose to still wear their snorkel on the mask, ok. If they want to hump doubles on every rec dive they do fine. If they choose only to dive with certain people or not at all, cool.

I dive a pony because I've discovered it works for me and have field tested that assumption through trial and error for years now. Never with a negative result. Never have I said to myself "I wish I didn't bring that" or "that thing almost killed me".

 

[uncfnp]

we just go spearfishing/hunting like anyone else.

Most of the hunters I know pursue it as an individual sport. Just wondering how this works as a team.

 

[PfcAJ]

Most of the hunters I know pursue it as an individual sport. Just wondering how this works as a team.

Simply stay together. Much the same way you stick together while doing any other sort of underwater activity.

 

[mrdre]

I'd looove to see a spearfishing GUE team... sticking together.. Just one guy spearfishes, while others just has to stick together? Or maybe everybody has spearguns? In which hand you have to hold your spear? What does GUE say about that?