Stage Order/Placement on Body

[amascuba]

Lean to left, rich to right. Go with that rule, and stick to it.

What if you are dislexic or accidently put the bottles on the wrong side? There is no sure proof way to know that you are breathing the right mix doing that, it's just a big cluster, you limit severly limit your arm movements, and you just look like a christmas tree doing that.

 

[texdiveguy]

Regardless of which method of kitting deco/stage bottles you prefer,,,and there are several to master, as 'one' method will just not always work for all dive and or gear conditions/configurations, BUT you should always follow accepted protocol in gas switches. I take it one step further by using a piece of waterproof tape placed on the second stage exhaust facing me,,on this I mark the MOD of the gas in that cylinder. This is for my own double check as I follow good safe gas switches. As to the method of lefty-lean and righty-rich for 2 cylinders deco and no DPV,,,if it works for you no problem, I have used this method with no issues. There is no total right or wrong way...some folks like trailing cylinders from hip D ring and other prefer butt O rings.

 

[karstdvr]

. There is no total right or wrong way...some folks like trailing cylinders from hip D ring and other prefer butt O rings.

Yeah,probably in OW,but this technique **** up the cave from a conservation stand point.

 

[texdiveguy]

Yeah,probably in OW,but this technique **** up the cave from a conservation stand point.

!!! I am ALL for site conservation whether it be, reef/wreck/cave/lake/river... blablabla!!!!!

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

free floating stages that are hip clipped or placed on the crotch strap (racoon tailed) do a lot of cave damage. I cringe when I wait for a team exiting the Eye and I see stages banging around like balls on a pool table.

I agree 100% that the cave topography needs to be considered when deciding how best to manage bottles. That was the basis for my comment about taking the cave into account before deciding whether or not to do a setup dive. For a single stage dive, it's a non-issue - just clip the deco bottle as a second stage bottle and you're done. It only starts to get tricky when you have to manage three or more bottles (two stage / one deco and vice versa, or two of each).

I would personally never hip-clip an AL80 in most overhead environments - that's for OW only. For a smaller bottle I might, but it would depend on how low the ceiling was. The Eye entrance is a little low for that sort of thing IMO, and a little more care needs to be taken in situations like that to prevent damage to the cave.

I only use one deco gas (O2) when diving Ginnie, and I will typically hip-clip the O2 bottle until just before I enter the overhead. At that point, I normally unclip and carry it into the cavern zone before placing it. This helps prevent damage to the entrance due to tanks banging around. On the exit, I would normally hand carry the O2 bottle out, and then rearrange everything once I was safely in OW. With a single stage, there's no real need to move the stage bottle to the hip, but with double stages, I would probably move at least one of them (again, once I was in OW) to help reduce the clutter on the chest D-ring.

If you are faced with the prospect of carrying hip clipped bottles through small cave (such as when entering/exiting the Eye), then a short setup dive to place bottles ahead of time might be preferred.

Every situation is going to be a little bit different, so it's difficult to deal in "absolutes". The parameters of the dive plan and any constraints imposed by the environment need to be taken into consideration when choosing the best approach for a given location.

 

[karstdvr]

DIR-Atlanta you sound like the exception,unfortunately not the rule when it comes to planning stage use. All too often we see stages used in an inapproptiate manner which causes damage to the cave. Good diving

 

[Meng_Tze]

.. It only starts to get tricky when you have to manage three or more bottles (two stage / one deco and vice versa, or two of each)...

If you are faced with the prospect of carrying hip clipped bottles through small cave (such as when entering/exiting the Eye), then a short setup dive to place bottles ahead of time might be preferred.

Sounds to me you need to start thinking about sherpa's......

 

[limeyx]

If you are faced with the prospect of carrying hip clipped bottles through small cave (such as when entering/exiting the Eye), then a short setup dive to place bottles ahead of time might be preferred.

Every situation is going to be a little bit different, so it's difficult to deal in "absolutes". The parameters of the dive plan and any constraints imposed by the environment need to be taken into consideration when choosing the best approach for a given location.

So, pardon my ignorance here (I have only cave1 provisional), but say you have a dive that you need multiple bottom stages for.

Presumably on the way in, you can clip them on a leash as they will be full and not rise above your doubles, right?

So you do a setup dive and place say 4 stages in the cave.
Then on the dive, you breathe all 4 stages (say you dont need to touch back gas).

Now, when each stage is used -- you leave it in the cave to avoid putting it on the leash?

So now you would need to do 2 cleanup dives to get the 4 bottles out? (assuming you can only manage 2 Al80s under the left arm) ?

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

So you do a setup dive and place say 4 stages in the cave.
Then on the dive, you breathe all 4 stages (say you dont need to touch back gas).

Sorry no - I was referring to placing deco bottles in the cave, not stage bottles. That's quite a bit beyond my level of experience at this point!

Deco bottles would be placed at 20 feet and 70 feet, so we are not talking about a huge dive here. And yes, you would need a short cleanup dive at the end to get them out.

 

[limeyx]

Sorry no - I was referring to placing deco bottles in the cave, not stage bottles. That's quite a bit beyond my level of experience at this point!

Deco bottles would be placed at 20 feet and 70 feet, so we are not talking about a huge dive here. And yes, you would need a short cleanup dive at the end to get them out.

Ok understood. but you could clip 2 decos at nose and at the hip at the same time if one was an Al40, right? So not sure I see much of a need to do a setup dive there. Maybe I am missing something.