Originally posted by Lost Yooper
I'd say Dave summed it pretty well on Quest. What do you think, Pat?
Mike
I sort of agree (yeah, I'm being stubborn). I defintely see his point, but wonder how much of it is coming from the endless 'what ifs' questions that will always be out there. You know, what if my drysuit fails on a cold water dive, what if my buddy and I both lose all of our deco gas and we don't have support divers, what if (fill in the blank).
I'm the first to admit that I'm a 'new' tech and cave diver. I was 'lucky' enough to start out with a GUE education for both of these endeavours, and admittedly I rely on my instructor's recommendations and teachings.
That being said, I learned that the proper way to shoot a bag wearing a wetsuit was to use the Halcyon CC bag, and disconnect the LP inflator. I later sent an email down the same instructor and asked him about the issue. His response was the same as it was during class. The DIR way is to shoot the bag with the BC inflator used to inflate. Throughout the class, none of the students had issues with the bag hanging up on the stage bottle(s), harness, dring, or anything else, and we still made the less than a minute (or was it 30 seconds) requirement of shooting the bag.
I'm not saying the what is and isn't DIR changes when better things/techniques are found. I remember when zippered pockets were OK, now they are a No no.
One of the things I find difficult is to accept a change to DIR from a quest list member that I have no gauge of who they are, what their training is, and where they are coming from. I find it much more reliable to get direction from a GUE instructor (and I find I'm lucky enough to have 2 very good instructors that let me bounce ideas off of them and provide me with quality, well thought out answers.....David Rhea and Fraser Purdon).
Dave has certainly got me rethinking the issue, and will very likely bring the question up with Fraser when I see him and dive with him on Grand Cayman next month.
Does that make sense?
