Free diving with a pony

[Scubasteve1982]

I agree with the above posts.

Take a scuba class and you will realize using a pony bottle while free diving without training would be very dangerous! SCUBA or Free dive not both! have fun

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

Stay away from the bottle! Freedive or scuba dive, don't mix the two together on the same dive, or even within a short time frame.

 

[danvolker]

Hey. I was wondering: do you think I could extend my free diving experience having a pony bottle with me? Instead of having to go up to the surface for a breath, I could take it from a pony.
Now, I know it might be dangerous if abused but if I don't intend to dive too deep or too far, do you think having a pony bottle would be a good alternative to taking the breath from the surface?

After looking at the exchanges from your question you have had with otheres on this board, my suggestion is that you buy a Brownies 3rd Lung....and use it for the entire dive. As far as the feeling in the water, it feels like freediving, but you are breathing air the whole time. You still should get some instruction, but for someone who is already good at freediving, the 3 hour Brownie course would be all you would need. As a freediver, you would already have skills superior to most dive masters in moving your body underwater--all you really need is to appreciate the importance of not holding your breathe while ascending, and understanding the nitrogen absorbtion which could give you what you know as the "bends", if you stay down too long. Both of these are simple.

As to why you should stay on the brownie the whole dive, instead of just hanging the hose and reg near where you are freediving---if you go for compressed air underwater, to extend your freedive, you are ruining the zen of freediving, and really you are scuba diving--with a big skip breathe. Freediving is an art, and adding a pony to it is just ugly--it adds lots of drag, it changes freediving for the worse, and you loose much of the beauty of the natural sport of freediving. And suddenly, you are reliant on air fills--this is not natural

The Brownie will give you and 2 friends up to 60 foot dives, and it runs for 3 hours on a tiny tank of gas. it tows with less drag than a scuba tank, and split between 3 divers, it is easy to forget about--to feel as if you were towing nothing.
If you were in West PLM/Boynton Beach, you could go out on our boat and try mine....( I freedive to 90, scuba dive and tech dive..and dive with a Brownie 3rd lung .
Try this ... Brownie's Third Lung
Dan

 

[Chad Carney]

The OP "Lord Northern" was from over 6 months ago. I doubt he's still checking this one out.

I have to agree a pony tank like my 30 cu ft can be very handy to scuba to find a lost shaft or a rocked up fish.

The unaware diver would not gain any real advantage anyway if combining breathhold and scuba on a single dive, (besides the overpressure risk), because a freediver takes at least 1 minute to 2 minutes of huge deep recovery breaths ("breathing up") prior to another dive, and if trying to do it on a little pony it would toast it in record time.

There's probably issues with taking a full breath at depth with compressed lungs anyway. I've read it can't be done at extreme depth. Wouldn't want to mess with the idea anyway.

Recreational freedive all you want first, then scuba. Not the other way around.

Chad

 

[nereas]

Hey. I was wondering: do you think I could extend my free diving experience having a pony bottle with me? Instead of having to go up to the surface for a breath, I could take it from a pony.
Now, I know it might be dangerous if abused but if I don't intend to dive too deep or too far, do you think having a pony bottle would be a good alternative to taking the breath from the surface?

The Grim Reaper is probably laughing right now, and getting another catacomb ready.

 

[Tomeck]

I don't an idea to use a pony for freediving.

 

[nereas]

Stay away from the bottle! Freedive or scuba dive, don't mix the two together on the same dive, or even within a short time frame.

Exactly!

 

[BlueReef]

ok this is a fairly old thread but for anyone else browsing like myself, DO NOT DO USE A PONY for freediving!

Forget whether your 'unit' is 'self contained' or not, if you're breathing air that is compressed, and the medium surrounding your body is greater than 1 Atmophere (that of the surface) then you have to take your precautions and listen to physics!

Getting the 'bends' is not necessarily related to how long you stay under, it's about a quick decrease in pressure and the resulting formation of gas from molecules coming out of a dissolved state within your blood.

- There is no issue taking a breath at the surface, going under and resurfacing as quick as you like as the gas expands to it's original size, and the disolved gas likewise stays the same.

- AS SOON AS you take ONE breath of compressed air, a lot more molecules begin entering your bloodstream than were there at the beggining, and also you now have a pressure differential should you decide to ascend a bit. Your body will be playing catch up to the difference in pressure! ('catch up' is misleading as it actually happens INSTANTLY whether the effects are desirable or not!)

However, while you can exale to expel excess air from your lungs, unfortunately your blood cannot get rid of the extra molecules as fast. ---- It has to wait for them diffuse across your lung's membrane into the safety of the lung's airspace before you can then exhale them. This takes time. By not allowing this time, the molecules simply come out of a dissolved state within your blood .... gas bubbles in blood = NOT GOOD!

 

[mwhities]

BlueReef,

Well stated.

I was told once you breath off gas (scuba) underwater, you are permanently attached to it until you surface. So make sure it's enough gas to make the safety stop and off gas.

Michael