It makes sense to zip tie them in the pool, I was surprised to find out some places don't bother. We don't have them supply their own mouthpieces and until about 6years ago we didn't even disinfect the regs we just rinsed them in the shower to get the chlorine off. Now we have the students disinfect them with bleach solution as part of the gear rinse process. We do need to change our mouthpiece policy, some of the students are eating us out of house and home. We discussed giving them one "freebie" and if they chew through a second mouthpiece then they have to pay for a new one.Our shop requires the students to have their own mouthpieces, and we absolutely zip-tie them on in the pool. It would seem like a very bad example to say, "This is important for your safety, but we're not going to bother in the pool." (Not to mention, people seem to learn better when you have everyone check that their mouthpiece is secured versus when you pretend. We don't pretend we're clearing our masks, do we? :biggrin: Don't answer that, e.) I can understand that you could go through a lot of zip ties this way, but considering the stories I've read about people losing their mouthpieces mid-dive, I consider it a cost of proper education.
When I'm working with classes, I also use the zip-tied mouthpieces to my advantage. After class on Sunday, I gladly clip off the zip ties... but only as I load each student's BC/reg, on the correctly numbered hanger, into the van. If they don't have the right gear or hanger, or if something's wrong, I let them correct the issue before I take it and give them their mouthpiece. (It's amazing how even something as small as a mouthpiece is incentive for the less inclined students.)
By the way, having seen more than one person bite through a mouthpiece (for the record, that's biting *way* too hard
We have our gear locker on site and the students have to hand over a form of ID to check out the gear. Some of them forget to pick up their ID after returning the gear so I'm not so sure they would bother picking up a mouthpiece. Heck there is still a cheapie mask/fin/snorkel set in the dive locker a student left about 4 years ago and never bothered to pick up.
My instructor told this story to our class. They were servicing the regs one year and had hooked a reg up to a tank prior to disassembling it (for what reason I don't know). She pressed the purge valve and a big old loogie (aka hunk-o-snot) stretched out of the mouthpiece in a bubble shape then sucked back in as she screamed and let go of the purge. They threw that rig, tank and all into the pool and let it sit while they serviced the rest of the gear. The snot had dissolved by the time they pulled the tank out of the pool...gotta love the power of chlorine!
If you ever puke through a regulator you need to rinse it really well once you get out of the water to get all the little bits and pieces out. A quick dip in the rinse tank won't do the trick even if you swished it around underwater after getting sick.
Ber :lilbunny:
