Spare Air - Sorry!

[RalphPorter]

It's a matter of comfort and need. Doing the dives you're talking about, a spare air should be fine. Are you thinking about two of them? One for each buddy?

Oh yes for sure - if I only bought one then I know who'd end up with it and it wouldn't be me

As I say the thought process is to give either my buddy or me a little self reliance until we locate our buddies spare octo - I'd hope in reality of course that this would be the immediate solution and all went according to the drills, just aware that in the real world things don't always go according to plan and having a second option is perhaps not a bad thing.

 

[Chris12day]

I had a very similar question about a year ago. I purchased a 19cft pony. I have had to use it one time because I had help from the crew turning "on" my air. I do practice with it at the end of my last dive.

I do not notice it while diving.

I travel all over the world with it. [Remove the valve and clear tape over opening.]

It beats an instanta buddy who you have no experinece with...

Safe Diving

 

[TSandM]

Try the experiment of holding your breath . . . almost ANYBODY can do it for 30 seconds, and with a little practice, a minute isn't difficult. I would submit that, if you cannot reach your buddy and get her attention, and get a regulator in your mouth in under 60 seconds, then either you need to take a look at your diving procedures, or you need to practice air-sharing more.

If you want to carry redundancy, a small pony bottle and regulator are no more expensive, more versatile, and have far better resale value than a Spare Air.

 

[Blackwood]

If you two truly are vigilant about monitoring your gas, with a little planning and some buddy skills you can be eachother's backups against equipment failure.

Really, if it makes you more comfortable, great. Just don't allow that comfort to lull you into complacency.

 

[robertarak]

All other arguments aside...

The idea of a back-up system is not a bad one in theory. Remember, this is the piece of equipment you are going to reach for when all else fails...you are OOG, and your buddy is too far or out of sight. When you are in that situation do you want to reach for somthing that SHOULD work, or something that you KNOW works because you tested it and breathed it several times before your dive? Spare Air is just too small, if you test it as part of your pre-dive, as you should, there is nothing left to use if you need it. Consider all the recommendations above, You will be far happier.

 

[irishsquid]

...(in fact, it's in my avatar photo in the bottom right hand corner)

All other arguments aside...

Nice hats y'all.

 

[DevonDiver]

Every piece of equipment has an engineering goal it is superbly suited for.

..yep...and the Spare Air wasn't designed for scuba diving. It was an 'escape bottle' for helicopter crew that ditched in the sea.

Let's get back to basics. Every diver gets taught a series of emergency procedures/skills in the event of OOA emergency.

If you run OOA, the first resort is AAS share with your buddy. If that isn't possible, then you complete CESA. Easy.

However, if you are too deep to safely complete CESA, then you need a suitable redundant air source. Note the word suitable. Spare Air is unlikely to supply enough gas, under emergency conditions (elevated SAC) at any depth where you couldn't otherwise complete a CESA (deep dives).

Adding a Spare Air..for the purposes of reaching your buddy for AAS... is just fuddling your emergency reaction chain. It slows down your reaction and distracts you from your life-preserving goal - that being to get to the surface ASAP.

What if you failed to reach your buddy and your SA expired? No air + deep = dead.

What if you reached your buddy, but they had insufficient air to support both of you for the ascent? (You are OOA... they might well be low on air also!). No air + deep = two dead divers.

Basically, you can either CESA or you cannot. If you are going to dive beneath a depth where you are confident of performing a CESA, then you should have a suitable redundant air source for that ascent.

At no point are divers taught to go wandering around the seabed attempting to catch their buddy when they are OOA... especially when they only have a Barbie Doll sized cylinder on which their life depends...

 

[irishsquid]

...Barbie Doll ... cylinder ...

I can actually visualze a commercial on Saturday morning showing a "Scuba Barbie & Ken" w/ accesories (Spare Air bottle).
Not meant to minimize the seriousness of that description. I thought it was good!

 

[BoltSnap]

DevonDiver pretty much summarizes the opinion of the more experienced divers. In an OOA situation, you don't have too much time to fiddle around with too many choices and/or gadgets otherwise you are a "goner."

For the recreational open water diver, pony bottle is the preferred and more realistic choice (there are limitation in certain scenarios however).

Please don't waste your time with SpareAir to give yourself a false sense of security. One further advice, plan your dives as if you were diving alone but still dive with a buddy. Don't plan your dive and thinking that your buddy will save you or to depend on your buddy to bail you out. Dive independent and take care of yourself but still dive with a buddy.

 

[openmindOW]

Spare Airs don't carry much gas.

It seems to me that a 19 cubic foot Pony is a better self-rescue tool. Heck, even a 6 foot Pony carreis twice as much gas as a 3 cubic foot Spare Air.