Do you actually see people diving with pony bottles?

[lowviz]

...//... This is an incorrect assumption- there are LOTS of things that cause diving fatalities that are ultimately labeled as drowning, including panic, but also including poor fitness, equipment failure, environmental hazards, and just plain bad luck.

Do you realize where you take the leap from fact to fiction?

Please point that out for me. That is where I lost the flow of this conversation.

To me, and I'm no expert by anyone's standards, a pony is a sign of appreciation of the clear and present personal hazards in one's choice of a dive. It is also an attempt to counter them to a reasonable degree. Diving and its associated risks are extremely situational. Panic, poor fitness, equipment, environmental hazards, and bad luck all figure in to whether or not you should alter your gas supply with a pony. It is a personal decision. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. You appear to be looking for a fundamentally right or wrong answer.

Please re-read the OP.

 

[rek_diver]

Please point that out for me.

The post of mine that you referred to is not directly related to the pony bottle topic. It was about the other poster incorrectly stating that the majority of fatal accidents are because a diver failed to check his or her SPG and ran out of gas and panicked.

I was pointing out that although panic is one cause of fatal diving accident it is not THE cause, and that there are many reasons to panic other than a diver running out of gas because they didn't check their SPG often enough.

 

[2airishuman]

That's good if you do that. But, getting back to the case I mentioned in my previous post, if you were an air hog & your OOA buddy in panic grabbing your pony bottle spare 2nd stage at 80 feet deep & sucking the air like a race horse. Would you think you would still have enough air by the time you were back on the surface?

Dan.

I practice primary donate.

If I'm diving a twinset, that will be a long hose, and I'll have a secondary bungeed around my neck, I'll switch to that, and we ascend at our leisure. Both cylinders serve both regulators, and all gas is available to each diver. My reserve is calculated with air sharing in mind.

If I'm diving a single and a pony cylinder, I might have either my primary or my pony regulator in my mouth depending on how far the dive has progressed. Either way, I will have a secondary bungeed around my neck that is connected to my primary cylinder, and I'll switch to that, and we'll prepare to ascend. It is possible that I will switch from the bungeed secondary to the pony cylinder at some point either to balance gas use or to reduce the likelihood of a freeflow in extremely cold water. In any case, I will have calculated a reserve for both the pony and the primary that will allow air sharing.

There are several things to point out here:

• The initial procedures for air sharing are exactly the same regardless of whether I am diving a single, a single with a pony, or a twinset: The other diver gets whatever I'm breathing and I get the bungeed secondary.
  
  
• My gas planning allows a sufficient reserve to get two divers to the surface at all points during the dive. Typically my total reserve will be much larger than the very common "500 PSI in an AL80" reserve, which works out to 13 cf and has to be split among two divers.
  
  
• The other diver doesn't have to do anything unusual. They get a reg, they breathe it until we get to the surface, just like any other primary donate air sharing event.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The post of mine that you referred to is not directly related to the pony bottle topic. It was about the other poster incorrectly stating that the majority of fatal accidents are because a diver failed to check his or her SPG and ran out of gas and panicked.

I was pointing out that although panic is one cause of fatal diving accident it is not THE cause, and that there are many reasons to panic other than a diver running out of gas because they didn't check their SPG often enough.

There are many reasons, but all or most of them can be avoided by maintaining gear, being aware and knowing how much air you have during the dive. Some of the posts here seem to be advocating the pony as a crutch for a problem that shouldn't exist.

 

[2airishuman]

I was referring to him already emptied his AL80 & sucking on his pony bottle. This is a case of an air hog diver on warm-water recreational diving single AL80 with a pony bottle to extend his dive with his wife who is also on a single AL80 w/o pony bottle.

Why would anyone dive that way? If you're going to extend the dive by using the pony bottle, you use the pony bottle first, or at least, early enough in the dive that there is a substantial reserve in the AL80. It is not safe to deplete the back gas supply down to minimal reserves for exactly the reasons you give.

 

[Dizzi Lizzi]

I think I've seen 1, maybe 2 here in So Cal. None in Hi. None in Cayman brac.

 

[CuzzA]

There are many reasons, but all or most of them can be avoided by maintaining gear, being aware and knowing how much air you have during the dive. Some of the posts here seem to be advocating the pony as a crutch for a problem that shouldn't exist.

If maintaining gear, being aware, and knowing how much air you have are the solutions to the problems that exist in diving, then why is redundancy taught/required in the deep diver specialty and solo course?

 

[Lorenzoid]

Not all deep, coldwater dives are in drysuits.

The situation you presented that I was responding to was the possibility of a regulator freezing up. You're seriously going to dive in water that cold without a drysuit? I guess some people do.

I appreciate all your responses. You have obviously given the pony tank more thought than I have. You say there isn't much difference to using one large tank and the combination of a smaller tank and a pony. Maybe--I don't know. I admit I have not worked through the issues, if any. I will stick to the gear configurations and procedures I have been taught and am comfortable with and leave it to others to debate the various alternatives.

 

[ljpm]

I think using a larger tank is not a bad practice, but using a pony bottle as an extension of your air tank is, if you are not a certified solo diver that can dive & manage the air consumption alone.

If you have a habit of using the pony bottle to extend your dive with your buddy & then your buddy is OOA at depth and you have emptied your AL80 at that time, do you think you can share your pony bottle with single second stage?

Perhaps @ReefHound has answer to why Fling Charter does not allow divers to do such practice.

Here is another old thread that talk about it:
using a pony bottle to extend bottom times?

No, that is why I would use the pony first, or at least similar to side mount and switch back and forth.

 

[ljpm]

It was my rule when I owned half the Fling. I'm happy to see them keep up with it.
The Flower Gardens is tough diving, 110 miles from land and 2 hours by chopper if the Coast Guard will even fly. Dives are deep, 70-130 feet, currents are often strong, and 5 dives a day are offered. Many divers don't see the advantage of Nitrox, and therefore refuse to pay.

It is my philosophy that pony bottles are an emergency air supply for when SHTF, and are not an extend-a-dive kit. If you need more bottom time, get a bigger cylinder. I happen to have a couple of Beauchat 150's. That isn't how you spell Beauchat, but whatever. But emergency gear is to be used in emergencies. You don't set off your PLB when you get away from the boat and the boat crew sees you. You don't call on your lifeline when you get away from the boat, except for that one guy in Cuba, but he got way more attention than he wanted from the Cuban coast guard, but I digress. You don't get band-aids out of the first aid kit, because if you do, there won't be any there for the person who needs one. So you don't use your emergency air supply unless you are out of air.

My boat, my rules. It isn't my boat any more, but it's still my rule.

I can understand the your boat your rules, but what I don't understand is extra air in one bottle is ok but if you carry it in two bottle the second one is automatically considered 'emergency' air. On your boat I wouldn't need a pony because you carry 150's. That is not common. Usually I would need to sling an 80 because that is normally all that is available at vacation dive sites. In that situation I would breath from the slung 80 (pony) first. This would be a part of my plan and would never cause an issue with backup air for my buddy.