No such thing as a Pony Bottle

[mrdre]

OK, let's just reiterate few things about pony thing.

1st. You don't NEED pony for recreational dives. If you are with a buddy, you have a problem - you share air, you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy. You look for your buddy for a minute - you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy and while looking for him your regulator flooded - you have octopus; stick it to your mouth and start ascend. Then your octopus breaks down (you have a really bad day) - you can breath from freeflowing regulator. Then the O-ring on your tank bursts - you still have about a minute to breathe (you should be half way up already). Then regulator's o-ring bursts, you are completely OOA - you are suppose to be on your way up anyway, you just do CESA. You can pull CESA even from 130 feet.

So. If you are diving with a buddy, and you are following all the rules learned in basic OW class you NEVER NEED a pony. There will be no case when you will survive with pony and die without. In the worst case scenario you will be able to swim up.

2nd. When you MAY NEED a pony. Is when you dive solo AND when you may swim into some overhead areas or through kelp or there is a high risk to get entangled. In this case if the failure happens when you can't just swim up the pony MAY SAVE you. Again, even with solo dives pony is a very minor thing to have.

Now let's go back to the class. It's a class. The student must be able to handle all the situations without pony. What if the pony fails? These things fail too. In this case having pony will make things even worse, because the diver will waste precious time dealing with the pony instead of swimming to the buddy or up. So the pony is not really a "cure for all". It's just another little piece of equipment that MAY help in SOME situations.

I can understand the instructor who is being annoyed by a student insisting on having a pony. He may or may not be an idiot - I don't know the guy personally and I'm sure nobody who calls him an "idiot" does. Maybe he is not experienced enough to calmly explain what pony is and what it is for. Maybe he is not wise enough (or cares) to say "ah, do whatever you want, sling 2 ponies if you want to, you pay me - you get your cert".

 

[redacted]

OK, let's just reiterate few things about pony thing.

1st. You don't NEED pony for recreational dives. If you are with a buddy, you have a problem - you share air, you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy. You look for your buddy for a minute - you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy and while looking for him your regulator flooded - you have octopus; stick it to your mouth and start ascend. Then your octopus breaks down (you have a really bad day) - you can breath from freeflowing regulator. Then the O-ring on your tank bursts - you still have about a minute to breathe (you should be half way up already). Then regulator's o-ring bursts, you are completely OOA - you are suppose to be on your way up anyway, you just do CESA. You can pull CESA even from 130 feet.

So. If you are diving with a buddy, and you are following all the rules learned in basic OW class you NEVER NEED a pony. There will be no case when you will survive with pony and die without. In the worst case scenario you will be able to swim up.

2nd. When you MAY NEED a pony. Is when you dive solo AND when you may swim into some overhead areas or through kelp or there is a high risk to get entangled. In this case if the failure happens when you can't just swim up the pony MAY SAVE you. Again, even with solo dives pony is a very minor thing to have.

Now let's go back to the class. It's a class. The student must be able to handle all the situations without pony. What if the pony fails? These things fail too. In this case having pony will make things even worse, because the diver will waste precious time dealing with the pony instead of swimming to the buddy or up. So the pony is not really a "cure for all". It's just another little piece of equipment that MAY help in SOME situations.

I can understand the instructor who is being annoyed by a student insisting on having a pony. He may or may not be an idiot - I don't know the guy personally and I'm sure nobody who calls him an "idiot" does. Maybe he is not experienced enough to calmly explain what pony is and what it is for. Maybe he is not wise enough (or cares) to say "ah, do whatever you want, sling 2 ponies if you want to, you pay me - you get your cert".

I have heard of a number of buddy system failures. I have not heard of many pony THING failures.

 

[kafkaland]

Are you serious? That ad is just preposterous, and instead of indicating how hard it is to get that cert, it rather tells me how worthless it is - less than 2% of all divers are willing to shell out cash for this card. I have been diving for about a year, and have taken some specialties for the skills, and once I do rescue could send in for the MSD card. But why?

And for the comparison to martial arts - I practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. To get a black belt in that sport, you have to train multiple times a week for about ten years, and practice in different environments (competition, teaching, etc.) Now, if someone does that in diving, I have no problems calling him or her a Master Scuba Diver, or a black belt of scuba diving. But a year or two of experience, maybe 50 or 100 dives, and a handful of specialty c-cards would be more akin to a blue belt. Or perhaps apprentice scuba diver.

Reminds me of a Google ad I saw today: View attachment 193943

 

[mmadiver]

OK, let's just reiterate few things about pony thing.

1st. You don't NEED pony for recreational dives. If you are with a buddy, you have a problem - you share air, you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy. You look for your buddy for a minute - you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy and while looking for him your regulator flooded - you have octopus; stick it to your mouth and start ascend. Then your octopus breaks down (you have a really bad day) - you can breath from freeflowing regulator. Then the O-ring on your tank bursts - you still have about a minute to breathe (you should be half way up already). Then regulator's o-ring bursts, you are completely OOA - you are suppose to be on your way up anyway, you just do CESA. You can pull CESA even from 130 feet.

So. If you are diving with a buddy, and you are following all the rules learned in basic OW class you NEVER NEED a pony. There will be no case when you will survive with pony and die without. In the worst case scenario you will be able to swim up.

2nd. When you MAY NEED a pony. Is when you dive solo AND when you may swim into some overhead areas or through kelp or there is a high risk to get entangled. In this case if the failure happens when you can't just swim up the pony MAY SAVE you. Again, even with solo dives pony is a very minor thing to have.

Now let's go back to the class. It's a class. The student must be able to handle all the situations without pony. What if the pony fails? These things fail too. In this case having pony will make things even worse, because the diver will waste precious time dealing with the pony instead of swimming to the buddy or up. So the pony is not really a "cure for all". It's just another little piece of equipment that MAY help in SOME situations.

I can understand the instructor who is being annoyed by a student insisting on having a pony. He may or may not be an idiot - I don't know the guy personally and I'm sure nobody who calls him an "idiot" does. Maybe he is not experienced enough to calmly explain what pony is and what it is for. Maybe he is not wise enough (or cares) to say "ah, do whatever you want, sling 2 ponies if you want to, you pay me - you get your cert".

This might be one of the most ill-informed posts in this thread. You have a very flawed risk assessment. CESA is exceptionally dangerous - you carry redundant gas so you NEVER have to do one.

Further, I can not think of a single circumstance where a redundant gas supply does not exponentially increase your safety and survivability in an emergency.



Sent from my Ipad.

 

[mick allein III]

Admittedly, I have not read all the posts so I apologize if this has been said. A similar situation happened to me a few years back. I thought I might be able to give some insight into the shop owners thinking. After an uncomfortable dive with a poorly trained diver, it became clear to me that not all buddy's are equal. Some buddy's simply do not provide the safety and redundancy you need underwater. I decided to dive completely redundant. I began using a 40 cf on my dives, especially those deeper than 60 feet. A very good and capable instructor looked disapprovingly upon my new set up. He suggested that pony bottles encouraged divers to dive longer and deeper and to subsequently use more air. He suggested that pony bottles were the first step to poor gas management. I respect his concern about air management. He was genuinely concerned that divers would develop bad air management. The problem lies with the diver not the pony. I carry a RAS on all dives. It's just good dive practice.

 

[OkByMe]

OK, let's just reiterate few things about pony thing.

1st. You don't NEED pony for recreational dives. If you are with a buddy, you have a problem - you share air, you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy. You look for your buddy for a minute - you end the dive. Let's say you lost your buddy and while looking for him your regulator flooded - you have octopus; stick it to your mouth and start ascend. Then your octopus breaks down (you have a really bad day) - you can breath from freeflowing regulator. Then the O-ring on your tank bursts - you still have about a minute to breathe (you should be half way up already). Then regulator's o-ring bursts, you are completely OOA - you are suppose to be on your way up anyway, you just do CESA. You can pull CESA even from 130 feet.

So. If you are diving with a buddy, and you are following all the rules learned in basic OW class you NEVER NEED a pony. There will be no case when you will survive with pony and die without. In the worst case scenario you will be able to swim up.

2nd. When you MAY NEED a pony. Is when you dive solo AND when you may swim into some overhead areas or through kelp or there is a high risk to get entangled. In this case if the failure happens when you can't just swim up the pony MAY SAVE you. Again, even with solo dives pony is a very minor thing to have.

Now let's go back to the class. It's a class. The student must be able to handle all the situations without pony. What if the pony fails? These things fail too. In this case having pony will make things even worse, because the diver will waste precious time dealing with the pony instead of swimming to the buddy or up. So the pony is not really a "cure for all". It's just another little piece of equipment that MAY help in SOME situations.

I can understand the instructor who is being annoyed by a student insisting on having a pony. He may or may not be an idiot - I don't know the guy personally and I'm sure nobody who calls him an "idiot" does. Maybe he is not experienced enough to calmly explain what pony is and what it is for. Maybe he is not wise enough (or cares) to say "ah, do whatever you want, sling 2 ponies if you want to, you pay me - you get your cert".

Uh... I don't need company on the dive, I need redundancy. The only way I would end a dive is to help someone back to the surface. My air is always within arms reach, always dependable and does not need their dive interrupted by my failure. My pony is my buddy unless I'm side mounted, and then I still have a buddy. I spend time and money to dive, my gear is top notch and I SOLO much of the time. Why would I even take a risk even under the conditions I dive, with some fine gear, for a free ascent or aborting a dive just because of one little problem? Redundancy is always best no matter if you're a paddler at 60 feet or a wreck or cave explorer. And if you can't swap the second to the pony in under 5 seconds, then bicycling ought to be the hobby.

The OP needs to tell the guy "it's my gear and my rear, Ill decide what I need".

 

[mrdre]

.... I SOLO much of the time. ...

I knew this is going to be turned into SOLO argument. I solo a lot too and I carry a pony too. But the topic was about a CLASS. The topic wasn't about whether or not carry a pony at all: it's a personal choice. But the topic was about the instructor who didn't want a student with a pony in the CLASS. It wasn't a solo class, it wasn't some tech class - it was just a deep dive with an instructor.

 

[mick allein III]

CESA at a 130 feet? I'll carry a 40 cf thank you.

 

[redacted]

I knew this is going to be turned into SOLO argument. I solo a lot too and I carry a pony too. But the topic was about a CLASS. The topic wasn't about whether or not carry a pony at all: it's a personal choice. But the topic was about the instructor who didn't want a student with a pony in the CLASS. It wasn't a solo class, it wasn't some tech class - it was just a deep dive with an instructor.

What is the difference between some unknown instructor and any other unknown diver you happen to be buddies with?

 

[Nemrod]

I knew this is going to be turned into SOLO argument. I solo a lot too and I carry a pony too. But the topic was about a CLASS. The topic wasn't about whether or not carry a pony at all: it's a personal choice. But the topic was about the instructor who didn't want a student with a pony in the CLASS. It wasn't a solo class, it wasn't some tech class - it was just a deep dive with an instructor.

A deep dive with an instructor whose abc agency has no exclusion of redundant systems and who apparently does not know his own abc agencies standards and acceptable procedures. A pony is not tech, it is not even advanced, it is simply redundant and I agree he/she might not really need a redundant air supply but then it is their choice, not some instructor who is not up to speed.

N