Should I buy a pony bottle?

[divad]

After reading about scuba accidents, I conclude that the most likely way to die doing this is due to a problem with one's air supply.

We typically dive with a buddy, but one's buddy is not necessarily going to be nearby. Since I'll be diving with stranger buddies from time to time, I'd like to eliminate this risk of not having air at depth.

Then I'll have the confidence that, if I'm careful to follow accepted procedures, I'm unlikely to have a fatal problem while scuba diving.

Because if I'm at 90 feet and my first stage conks out, and I have no buddy nearby, I'm going to be up a creek without a paddle.

So this gave me the idea of buying a pony bottle.

On reading about them, I find that, in order to have enough air to reach the surface safely, you have to buy one that's got a fairly large capacity. That is, unless you're only going to be diving shallowly, you need a significantly sized bottle.

Which makes me wonder, is it going to be cumbersome and awkward?

If so, what's the best position to wear it?

Finally, if I have a pony bottle, and I get on an airplane to fly to the Caribbean, will I be able to even take it on the plane, and if I do, will I get it filled at the destination dive shop?

Thanks in advance.

19 cf - Luxifer AL Pony Tank w/ xs valve, X-Bracket, Sling, and Pony SPG - $100

 

[Colliam7]

Matt, I will offer a view somewhat similar to, but not entirely the same as, much of the feedback you have received.

After reading about scuba accidents, I conclude that the most likely way to die doing this is due to a problem with one's air supply.

Yes, I think your logic is reasonable. Putting aside 'health' issues - and I agree that more than a few scuba deaths attributed to 'heart attack' may well reflect drowning (associated with panic / running out of air / ???) - AND putting aside stupid diver tricks (e.g. an OW diver going into a cave at Ginnie Springs, and getting lost, and running out of air / drowning), the biggest risk you - as a recreational diver - face at 100 feet is either running out of air, or an uncontrolled bouyant ascent. (I am not ignoring entanglement, etc., merely putting it in its proper place in terms of probablity). And, I am not ignoring exceeding NDLs, either. That is a stupid diver trick. Admittedly, the risk of either (OOA, uncontrolled ascent) is quite low. But, OOA at 100ft can easily be fatal, so why not take a simple precaution (aka pony bottle).

Yes, I fully agree that staying close to your buddy - developing good buddy skills - is an optimal practice. But, I frankly don't like to worry about how close my buddy is, even though my regular dive buddy and I are so very much in tune to each other and always have a good sense of where the other is, even if it is 50 feet away. My dive buddy also doesn't want to worry about where I am, either. So, both of us carry redundant air supplies - pony bottles, or independent double tanks (sidemount), or manifolded backmount double tanks. It works for us. Plus, we both are comfortable with solo dives - even if we are in the same quarry).

Effective use of a pony bottle is a specific skill. Learn it, develop it, refine it and use it! If it is a question of which to develop first - good buddy skills or redundant air source skills, I would actually recommend the latter, although that is really not an either-or situation. (This is the part of my reply that is probably at odds with some other posters.) Develop BOTH skill sets.

We typically dive with a buddy, but one's buddy is not necessarily going to be nearby. Since I'll be diving with stranger buddies from time to time, I'd like to eliminate this risk of not having air at depth.

Good idea. And, yes, yes, yes, I agree with all the comments, that a pony is not a spare brain, that you shouldn't go down the slippery slope of depending on a pony to get you out of situations which you got into because of bad judgement, etc, etc.

Then I'll have the confidence that, if I'm careful to follow accepted procedures, I'm unlikely to have a fatal problem while scuba diving.

Fully agree. It is not impossible that you will have a fatal problem, just very improbable - aka 'unlikely'. If you follow accepted procedures (don't go into a cave without proper training, don't dive beyond your experience and training), and you have a redundant air supply, you are less likely to have a fatal problem. Of course, P6 (or P7) always applies - Proper Prior Planning Prevents (Piss) Poor Performance. So, to reiterate, a pony is NOT a spare brain, and it is NOT a solution to failure to plan your dive (including gas requirements), or to maintaining your gear, or to communicating with your buddy BEFORE getting in the water, or to using common sense and good judgement. But, it is a very useful piece of equipment, which requires skill and practice to be used effectively.

Which makes me wonder, is it going to be cumbersome and awkward?

No, not at all. With practice, you will hardly notice you even have it attached.

If so, what's the best position to wear it?

I prefer a 'slung' bottle over a bottle mounted behind me, on my primary cylinder. It is more accessible (you can reach the valve). I also prefer a 30 or 40 cf bottle over something smaller. It is more versatile.

Finally, if I have a pony bottle, and I get on an airplane to fly to the Caribbean, will I be able to even take it on the plane, and if I do, will I get it filled at the destination dive shop?

As many have pointed out, you can take it. I also think the option of taking a stage kit and getting an additional AL80 is a good idea as an alternative. And, while nominally many shops want to do a VIP if a bottle is EMPTY, that is not in any way a regulatory requirement. If you touch base with a particular Caribbean destination in advance, and tell them you will be arriving with an empty pony bottle, I seriously doubt you will have any trouble getting it filled.

My bottom line - acquire a pony, learn how to use it.

 

[Hawkwood]

I use a pony bottle occasionally. I have a 19cf tank that I will use when doing one of our local "deep" dives. The capacity is enough for me at 95 to 100 feet.

I mount mine on my tank using a quick release system. It is on the right side. When I use it, I take out 2lbs from the the right side trim pouch to balance out my trim. I mount mine with the valve down and the knob out - I can easily reach it. The second stage is is held to the tank with a piece of inner tube - I can easily reach it and deploy it. I have an SPG on a long hose that I clip off on my right shoulder "D-ring". That way I can readily see the tank pressure.

If I am doing deep dives with students, or if I am ice diving, I sling a 40cf tank in the "conventional" manner.

Matt, just remember that regardless of what system you may decide to go with, if you are carrying it for when the "poop hits the fan", it is not included in the total air you use for planning your dive.

Bill

 

[dumpsterDiver]

First thanks to the OP for posting this question. I too, as a new diver, and as a diver who will be doing a good amount of traveling on my own, have been considering the same thing.

To contribute to the thread here is my plan. Because I'm new I want to stick to mastering my core skills. I realize that there is a good chance that a lot of the people I come across over the years will be terrible buddies. For them, I'll simply stick to them like glue so IF they or I gets in trouble at least one of us made the effort to stick together, and we both come out alive. Conversely I'm sure that for every not-so-great insta-buddy I run into there will be an excellent one who values safety as #1 followed by preserving the fragile environments and so on and so forth.

My other thought about carrying the pony as a new diver is this: I WILL feel more comfortable, and the likelihood of me not stick as close as I should to a buddy I don't especially think highly of because they are wondering off or whatever increases. Not that I would on purpose. I would never. But it's my responsibility to give my buddy THEIR redundant air.

For example. Say my not so awesome buddy for the day is hanging onto a piece of reef and poking at a fish or something while the rest of the group starts moving away in the current. Wishing I was with the group (and that my buddy would hurry the &*%$@ up...or get bit...) I slowly drift 5 then 8 then 15 feet away from my buddy... I'm still pretty close right? Everything will be fine. I have no safety concerns to be thinking about because I have all the air I need if I run into a catastrophic failure. Wouldn't you know, that's the minute Murphy raises his head and bites my buddy in the ass. Now I have to get over to THEM because I have THEIR redundant air, and if they start choking etc. because I'm not close enough to save them I see that as my fault because that makes me just as poor of a buddy as them.

So I'm choosing not to carry a spare bottle, for now, and work on my core skills until I feel that they've been mastered. Then perhaps I'll move onto doubles. I would like that, and it's definitely a goal. For all the buddies in between that are a little less safe etc., lucky for them on that particular dive they have me as a buddy whose number one goal is that both of us surface. They may not be so lucky next time. On the plus side I'll get some practice sticking close to a less than cooperative subject...lol.

Just my thoughts, and remember I'm just a noob too..

I understand your thoughts completely.... "I am a new diver".... "I recognize my skills are weak and I fully intend to develop them as I continue to dive. I will continue to dive in strange places and with strangers who might possibly be less experienced than myself and who may be a little inattentive toward my safety (and their own).

My response to this situation is to continue to dive and strive to develop some of the most basic skills.... like staying with a buddy.

I feel this is a much more logical and safe approach than to buy a pony bottle (that would provide me an immediate and significant "safety buffer") toward my own inexperience and the uncontrollable and unpredicatable nature of an "insta-buddy".

Even though I would probably not trust my "new-found-friend" with the key to my hotel room, I am entirely comfortable trusting him, his equipment and his training with my life. I'm fully confident knowing that "my buddy" will always monitor his air supply and will definitely ALWAYS reserve enough to get us both to the surface in an emergency.

I mean come on, if a pony bottle REALLY made sense, PADI would have taught me that in my 2-day SCUBA class, RIGHT?

 

[elan]

I went with a 30 cu ft tank. I look at it as a backup, bailout and added gas option. I side sling it like a stage bottle and have it filled with 32% nitrox. I will take my back tank (117 cu ft) down to about 600-800 psi and then switch to my pony/backup. This leaves me about 20 cu ft in reserve. Usually by this time I am at less then 50 ft and nearing the end of the dive. I figure a little extra O2 during the safety stop can't hurt. The one thing I will recommend is put a quality first and second on your pony. I picked up a great deal on a lightly used Hog D1/CWD kit first and second and gotta say that my next regs will more than likely come from Jim Lapenta here on the board. That Hog is like "OMG" Sweet breathing.

What you are doing is not a proper way of using a pony as it is a part of your gas planning which the pony should not be a part of.

 

[boulderjohn]

What could cause an experienced diver to perish? Certainly, a failed first stage could do it. It's one thing to run out of air, switch to your alternate air source, etc. But it's another thing to find yourself sucking in sea water, start choking, and every time you choke you breathe in more sea water, etc. So it may be that a failed first stage is extremely rare. Or it may be that it's not so rare, but we don't hear about it because survival of such a malfunction is rare.

As was said earlier, when a first stage fails, it fails by giving you lots of air in a hurry, at which time it is usually a good idea to think about going to the surface.

Next, when a diver dies, the equipment is normally checked for evidence of malfunction. If you read the annual DAN report of fatalities, as I do every year when it comes out, you will get a sense of what is known about these deaths. I cannot remember a single case of a failed first stage being implicated. I can't think of many cases where it would be a possibility. Read those case studies yourself and see what you think. Every year more experienced divers than inexperienced divers die, and the reasons are usually pretty obvious. Many of them are health related, as others have mentioned. In other cases, they have been diving beyond their abilities or doing things because of overconfidence that a new diver wouldn't do. Again, take a look at those studies and see for yourself.

On the other hand, the most common preventable (non-medical) cause of death includes an air embolism triggered by a rapid sprint to the surface triggered by an OOA emergency. If you are worried about that, you can either carry a pony or remember your OW training. In your OW class, you were taught to do a CESA. A CESA can be done safely from just about any recreational depth. A few years ago a poster who is no longer active described an advanced diving program he was in, and in that program the graduation ritual was for the entire class to do a CESA together from 100 feet. Back in the days before SPGs, CESAs were fairly common events, and divers were confident in their ability to do it. Today it is done so rarely that no one seems to think about it after their OW training. If for any reason I went OOA on an NDL dive and had no redundant air source, including a buddy, I would be annoyed at myself for being such a fool and then swim to the surface, exhaling the whole way.

 

[Hatul]

What you are doing is not a proper way of using a pony as it is a part of your gas planning which the pony should not be a part of.

What bothered me about this is not how he's using the stage bottle, but using 32% gas as a backup. If for some reason you're forced to an unexpected depth and run out of back gas you increase the risk O2 seizure.

 

[elan]

You should also be aware that a pony has its downsides which can be dadly. Especially backmounted. One scenario could be if you pressurize your main tank have the valve closed mistaken the reg, do a couple of breaths check the gauge its still pressurized go down run out of air as your pony is small switch to your main no air as the valve is closed.

This is not my fantasy its one of the scenarious that lead to a person death.

My advise would be to forget about the pony improve your buddy skills and freediving skills and what you have learned in the OW class. You can CESA even from 90 ft safely.

Spend the money that you would spend on a pony on the freediving training to feel more comfortable in the water without an air supply.

 

[elan]

What bothered me about this is not how he's using the stage bottle, but using 32% gas as a backup. If for some reason you're forced to an unexpected depth and run out of back gas you increase the risk O2 seizure.

Yes there are few wrong things ImHO one of which you have mentioned

 

[FPDocMatt]

As was said earlier, when a first stage fails, it fails by giving you lots of air in a hurry...

Hm, I didn't know that.

So how about that poster who said that he all of a sudden was inhaling sea water through his regulator? I wonder what that was all about. He said that someone else had over-tightened his tank valve before he dove, and that the regulator was difficult to breathe through when he first got in the water.

I think that one post scared me.

But hey, if that sort of thing is highly unlikely (and he really did have advance warning of a problem anyway), then perhaps I'm overly concerned about a very remote likelihood.

Next, when a diver dies, the equipment is normally checked for evidence of malfunction.

I didn't know that either. But I guess it makes sense! In the reports you read or hear about they often say nobody knows what happened, but if they're all investigated that's great.

If you read the annual DAN report of fatalities, as I do every year when it comes out, you will get a sense of what is known about these deaths.

Hey, I'd like to read that. I presume it's on the DAN website?

Every year more experienced divers than inexperienced divers die

Hm, this is surprising at first glance.

Does this mean I'm safer because I'm an inexperienced diver? Just kidding...

But perhaps statistically it makes sense, since more experienced divers make more dives per year. Plus, they dive deeper.

In other cases, they have been diving beyond their abilities or doing things because of overconfidence that a new diver wouldn't do.

Yeah, I'm reading a couple of books about real diving fatalities among wreck divers off the northeast coast of the U.S. I'm kind of amazed at the things these guys would do--diving to 250 feet on air without a buddy, for example. Goading each other to dive in severe seas. I would very much like to believe that, if I'm sensible, watch out for my own safety, don't dive when it doesn't feel right, etc, that I'll be okay.

On the other hand, the most common preventable (non-medical) cause of death includes an air embolism triggered by a rapid sprint to the surface triggered by an OOA emergency.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this statistic.

Yesterday I attended a lecture by Dr. Richard Clarke, who's the medical director of the DAN insurance program, on hyperbaric medicine. In describing how AGE happens to his non-diving audience, he said, "For example, the scuba diver sees a shark, and bolts to the surface, with his glottis closed."

I thought that was an interesting example to give, since I'd never heard it. I wondered how much diving he had done. Talk about misjudging a person==> After the lecture I discussed scuba diving with him. It turns out he had been a saturation diver in the Navy for many years! It felt really cool to be talking to somebody with that much experience in person.

In that regard, I asked whether he had heard of the tragedy in the middle east recently, where the ship went down with a chamber on it, and the divers couldn't be rescued. He said that he did know about it, and had given a lecture on it recently. When I expressed how horrifying it was that they were in the chamber on the bottom, and unable to leave the chamber, he said that in this situation the protocol is to actually increase the pressure in the chamber while it's sinking so that it won't be crushed by the pressure of the sea.

Interestingly, when he told me he was the medical director of the DAN insurance program, he also said that, during a lecture by one of the other speakers before him last night, he had received 2 pages from DAN. I didn't ask him what those 2 pages were, but presumably they were 2 scuba divers who needed to use their DAN insurance for a diving-related mishap.

So anyway, that was cool, to get to meet someone like him.

A CESA can be done safely from just about any recreational depth. A few years ago a poster who is no longer active described an advanced diving program he was in, and in that program the graduation ritual was for the entire class to do a CESA together from 100 feet.

Wow! I was wondering about that. I've read that, as you ascend, the air in your lungs as it expands somehow gives you the feeling that you're not as low on air as you are...? Or maybe I have that wrong. Would it make sense to practice a CESA from 100 feet (supervised by an instructor, I mean)? Wouldn't you have to keep it under 60 feet per minute (30 feet per minute per current guidelines)--then it would take you almost 2 minutes (or over 3 minutes). Because my understanding is that no-deco diving assumes you are unlikely to get the bends if you ascend at less than 30 fpm (but not unlikely to get the bends if you ascend faster). And even staying within the recommended limits some people get the bends, so perhaps this would be a dangerous exercise. Still, I like the idea of doing it once, just to know I could do it if the need arose.