OOA question. Who is teaching to give your main unit?
- Thread starter psychocabbage
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
- Status
- Messages
- 97,348
- Reaction score
- 98,336
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
- Messages
- 97,348
- Reaction score
- 98,336
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
he didn't say you're gonna, but that you have to be prepared to.
and even if *i* never do, that doesn't mean *nobody* on the boat won't come up & mug me for gas. i'm ready for it in case. and i'm sure you are, too, string!
Got that right ... I've had to donate air a few times, and in all but one case (back when I was a very new diver) it was someone other than my dive buddy ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Zeeman
Contributor
My money is on your wife if you ever get into an underwater knife fight.
That said, the average instructor does not impress me much - nor does freediving to 30-40 feet. I can still do 60' with put trying hard and in my prime hitting 100' plus was not a big deal. The point being no matter how good someone skill's may be things can go badly so it makes sense to use a technique that will work in the real world.
I learned to dive with an Air 2 in the mid 80's and the Air 2 itself has been around since the mid 70's with the long hose being a few years older. So the concept of diving and donating the primary has a lot of history behind it with lots of divers advocating it, doing it and teaching it.
In 20 plus years of diving and 1500 plus dives I have donated air 3 times. Two of those times were to people other than my buddy and both of those times by the time they got to me they were in no mood to search for my octo. They saw bubbles and wanted to make bubbles of their own right now so they took my primary. Big surpise. No. You said it yourself - you'll put no one before yourself. You are a genius when it comes to the human psyche as in a life threatening situation that is a common respone. Of course the bad news is that it means you will not have a monopoly on it when someone arrives to borrow gas from you. And they will have the advantage of a ton of adrenaline in their system so my money is on them even if you have a knife.
My advice is to stop going around with your head up and locked, keep an open mind in deference to your EXTREMELY limited experience, suck it up bow to the inevitable and learn to donate your primary.
Also:
1. Get a decent octo as you will be the one using it.
2. Consider using a long hose primary - I have met few divers who have tried them who did not end up getting one of their own - it works SO much better.
If it is any consolation I suspect within 10 years donating the octo and a long hose will be a common agency standard.
scubafool
Contributor
But you ARE pairing up with a variable.
Your wife is a variable, as are all of your daughters. Even if you solo dive, you yourself are still a variable. Until you have been there,meaning in an out-of-air situation, with each and every one of your family members, many times, in every imaginable scenario, you just can't know how they will react. People are perhaps the most variable part of diving, and that includes you.
I don't think that it matters so much what your plan for donating in an OOA situation is. More important is that it is agreed upon in advance, and then practiced a lot. Repetitive practice is what will save the day when someone is panicky.
I don't fault you or anyone else for placing themselves ahead of others when the chips are down. I can imagine a situation where I would attempt to protect my life at the expense of others, especially when they are the ones who were careless with their's. But would you use your knife if one of your daughters was the panicked OOA diver? Would you fight them off if they attempted to seize your primary reg out of your mouth, denying them air until you could give them your octo?
Personally, most of my dive training has included donating my primary which is on a 7 foot hose. This makes one very religious about testing their secondary, as they know that it is theirs if their buddy goes OOA. And, I make it a rule to do a full OOA drill on the first dive of the day with regular buddies, and at the start of every dive with new buddies. Also, the occasional unexpected OOA drill with regular buddies, when it is safe to do so. I still don't think that all of this practice makes us totally immune from panic in the event the real thing happens.
If you like your method of doing things, great. Practice with those who you dive with. But I would recommend that you look into the reasons others do things differently, to see if there might be value there.
imasinker
Contributor
IMHO
We are all taught to drive a car with two hands on the steering wheel, how many of you actually do?
Sounds stupid in all reality but there is a standard for training. One could say perhaps this donation of the primary should be taugh especialy when you have to donate your primary if your bc is equiped with an inflator octo. That's very true and is briefly discussed in the padi open water video.
It seems IMO the whole Idea stems from the thought that an ooa diver will want a working reg regardless where it comes from. Teaching people ( new divers) to take a primary reg from the donors mouth can be a problem. Think of a ooa diver in panic would you want someone swimming up to you and pulling a reg out of your mouth even though they been taugh properly in a pool? or rather them grabing at your octo instead.
I was in a very bad ooa situation, where the diver was grabbing at my octo knowing I had a primary on a 7 foot hose. If your an experienced diver you may not act this way, but what about the newer inexperienced divers. What about divers faced with a situation who forget about all the training? K.I.S.S , I think this is why they teach to wear it in plain site (the triangle). Perhaps donation of the primary should be taught in the advanced diver course.
The DIR method is just fine, but lets look at it this way for a moment. Not everyone adapts to DIR right from open water. We all progress with diving and take courses, such as advanced, rescue, nitrox and become more confident and secure within our diving limits. Going DIR ,technical is another learning advancement in skills. Hopefully by then a diver will be more confident, experienced and able to handle emergencies a lot better than a basic open water diver, which is what the course is labelled.
just an opinion on how I see it,
We are all taught to drive a car with two hands on the steering wheel, how many of you actually do?
Sounds stupid in all reality but there is a standard for training. One could say perhaps this donation of the primary should be taugh especialy when you have to donate your primary if your bc is equiped with an inflator octo. That's very true and is briefly discussed in the padi open water video.
It seems IMO the whole Idea stems from the thought that an ooa diver will want a working reg regardless where it comes from. Teaching people ( new divers) to take a primary reg from the donors mouth can be a problem. Think of a ooa diver in panic would you want someone swimming up to you and pulling a reg out of your mouth even though they been taugh properly in a pool? or rather them grabing at your octo instead.
I was in a very bad ooa situation, where the diver was grabbing at my octo knowing I had a primary on a 7 foot hose. If your an experienced diver you may not act this way, but what about the newer inexperienced divers. What about divers faced with a situation who forget about all the training? K.I.S.S , I think this is why they teach to wear it in plain site (the triangle). Perhaps donation of the primary should be taught in the advanced diver course.
The DIR method is just fine, but lets look at it this way for a moment. Not everyone adapts to DIR right from open water. We all progress with diving and take courses, such as advanced, rescue, nitrox and become more confident and secure within our diving limits. Going DIR ,technical is another learning advancement in skills. Hopefully by then a diver will be more confident, experienced and able to handle emergencies a lot better than a basic open water diver, which is what the course is labelled.
just an opinion on how I see it,
diver 85
Contributor
just proves some people do crazy things @ crazy times.....
scubafool
Contributor
The section of your post that I put in bold type is one of the base reasons FOR donating your primary. If someone needs air, and completely forgets their training, it seems reasonable to assume that they will go for the air that they see, which will be the bubbling thing in your mouth.
- Status
Similar threads
