The best place to install an octopus?

[Edward3c]

Left side donate works better when the person you donated to swims next to you, right side donate works better when he swims above you, holding on to your valve or with you being above him, holding his.
I hate the awkward way we teach donating in rec diving, with the divers facing each other, we have evolved well past the double hoses regs where this was the easiest way.

The reason I prefer to have the casualty in front of me is so I can have a positive hold on them and can see their eyes. If someone is using my octopus there is only one place we’re going, that’s up.

 

[Dan]

Oh my God. It was unique that I imagined myself next to you. How beautiful it was. Were they Blacktip sharks?

No. I think they were Gray Reef Sharks. However I have seen Blacktip, Whitetip, Silvertip, Tiger, Nurse, Guitar Sharks in other sites in Maldives.

 

[boulderjohn]

I hate the awkward way we teach donating in rec diving, with the divers facing each other, we have evolved well past the double hoses regs where this was the easiest wa

Does your agency require you to do this? Most do not.

Teaching this skill was one of the key revelations I had when I switched from teaching students on their knees to teaching them while they are neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim, as they will be during a dive. When they are kneeling, you have no choice but to place them chest to chest, an entirely unnatural position unlike anything that will happen on a dive. The exchange is then unlike anything that will happen on a dive.

If the students are neutrally buoyant, you can have them do it as they would on a dive from the very first time you teach the skill. You start them a little apart, and the OOA diver swims toward the donor while signalling OOA, as would happen in a real dive. The donor's alternate will be as it will be on a real dive as well, instead of inches away on the donor's chest.

This has benefits as the skill requirements increase, as in when the diver's are expected to ascend to the surface while sharing air. Students on their knees must be overweighted to maintain that posture, so after making the exchange, they have to add air to the BCD in order to ascend. I saw an absurd video put out by SSI a few years ago in which after the exchange, the OOA diver had to inflate his BCD orally to ascend, meaning he had to keep taking the donated regulator out of his mouth to inflate the BCD. This is absurd because in a real situation, divers should already be neutrally buoyant and need only to start swimming up to get to the surface. We should not be teaching students to inflate their BCDs, either by pushing the button or blowing into the inflator hose, to start an ascent.

 

[Dan]

I would think an OOA diver would first find nearest diver and make OOA sign (open hand slide across neck), hence swimming vertically face-to-face with the octopus donor and asking the donor to donate his octopus to donee. My left hand is usually free and my right is usually holding on to my camera. Also being a lefty and seeing a panic diver giving OOA sign to me, my first reaction would be to grab my Octopus, purge it and give it to him. My right hand would let go the camera and tap on his shoulder a couple of times to calm him down. The yellow hose coming from the left side would be the best route for these postures. Then we both would slowly control ascend with my left hand to control both power inflators and monitoring ascent rate (30 ft/min or 10m/min) on my dive computer on my right wrist resting on his chest with my right hand holding on his left shoulder strap. I practice this OOA situation with my dive buddy during a check out dive (first dive of the trip).

 

[Miyaru]

The octopus became a standard at the end of the last century and the marketing people jumped on the wagon, smelling opportunities to sell additional 2nd stages. And octopus holders. Plastic, velcro, as long as you buy it and don't make it yourself.

The way the octopus is used now in rec diving, is an evolutionary step towards the final setup: longhose with a normal 2nd stage, and a normal 2nd stage with a bungee around your neck.
(Some people are already diving that way)

Nomore discussions on where to stow the octopus. No more plastic clips (that argument is very valid now). No more hassle on swimming positions. Tiny adjustment to the OOA exercise.

We will get there.
Until then we can enjoy the endless octopus discussions. And splitfins, don't forget the splitfins!

 

[amir4arkan]

Does your agency require you to do this? Most do not.

Teaching this skill was one of the key revelations I had when I switched from teaching students on their knees to teaching them while they are neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim, as they will be during a dive. When they are kneeling, you have no choice but to place them chest to chest, an entirely unnatural position unlike anything that will happen on a dive. The exchange is then unlike anything that will happen on a dive.

If the students are neutrally buoyant, you can have them do it as they would on a dive from the very first time you teach the skill. You start them a little apart, and the OOA diver swims toward the donor while signalling OOA, as would happen in a real dive. The donor's alternate will be as it will be on a real dive as well, instead of inches away on the donor's chest.

This has benefits as the skill requirements increase, as in when the diver's are expected to ascend to the surface while sharing air. Students on their knees must be overweighted to maintain that posture, so after making the exchange, they have to add air to the BCD in order to ascend. I saw an absurd video put out by SSI a few years ago in which after the exchange, the OOA diver had to inflate his BCD orally to ascend, meaning he had to keep taking the donated regulator out of his mouth to inflate the BCD. This is absurd because in a real situation, divers should already be neutrally buoyant and need only to start swimming up to get to the surface. We should not be teaching students to inflate their BCDs, either by pushing the button or blowing into the inflator hose, to start an ascent.

Yes you are right. I also saw this video. What do you think about the left side of the octopus?

 

[boulderjohn]

Yes you are right. I also saw this video. What do you think about the left side of the octopus?

I have never tried it, so it might be better, but I don't know. I am not going to find out, either, because I know that donating the primary and having the alternate hanging from a bungee cord around the neck is better than either of those.

When you have the alternate stowed in the traditional way, whether right or left, it hangs from some sort of system designed to release it easily when it is needed. That's the problem--it does release easily, even when you don't want it to. I can't estimate how many times while I was teaching that system that I had to pause and get a student to put the octopus back in place before we could do the exercise. I was already using the bungee system on my alternate for tech diving, but I had not made the switch on my recreational diving setup when I read about a horrific story of a woman who died diving near the Netherlands. She went out of air and went to her buddy for his alternate. Unfortunately, it had come loose and was caught behind him. As they struggled to find it, she inhaled water and drowned. That's when I went to the bungeed system for recreational diving, too.

In contrast, the alternate around the neck is designed to stay there, so it does not come loose. You donate the one in your mouth, which takes a fraction of the amount of time it takes to donate a separate alternate. Then you calmly slip the alternate on your neck up into your mouth--simple and foolproof.

When teaching the use of a separate alternate--whether right or left--you have the question of whether to teach students to reach for the alternate when they are out of air, or wait for the donor to give it to you after you signal. Some instructors teach one way, and some teach the other. In real life, the method used depends upon the OOA diver, who will either reach for the alternate or signal and wait. When I have done the OW checkout dives for students I did not teach in the pool and had buddy teams that were taught differently, each one usually did what they were taught. In most of those cases the OOA student reached for the alternate at the same time the intended donor reached for it, and in 100% of those cases, they knocked the regulator out of each other's hands and then essentially fought each other to get it back.

 

[tursiops]

I have never tried it, so it might be better, but I don't know. I am not going to find out, either, because I know that donating the primary and having the alternate hanging from a bungee cord around the neck is better than either of those.

When you have the alternate stowed in the traditional way, whether right or left, it hangs from some sort of system designed to release it easily when it is needed. That's the problem--it does release easily, even when you don't want it to. I can't estimate how many times while I was teaching that system that I had to pause and get a student to put the octopus back in place before we could do the exercise. I was already using the bungee system on my alternate for tech diving, but I had not made the switch on my recreational diving setup when I read about a horrific story of a woman who died diving near the Netherlands. She went out of air and went to her buddy for his alternate. Unfortunately, it had come loose and was caught behind him. As they struggled to find it, she inhaled water and drowned. That's when I went to the bungeed system for recreational diving, too.

In contrast, the alternate around the neck is designed to stay there, so it does not come loose. You donate the one in your mouth, which takes a fraction of the amount of time it takes to donate a separate alternate. Then you calmly slip the alternate on your neck up into your mouth--simple and foolproof.

When teaching the use of a separate alternate--whether right or left--you have the question of whether to teach students to reach for the alternate when they are out of air, or wait for the donor to give it to you after you signal. Some instructors teach one way, and some teach the other. In real life, the method used depends upon the OOA diver, who will either reach for the alternate or signal and wait. When I have done the OW checkout dives for students I did not teach in the pool and had buddy teams that were taught differently, each one usually did what they were taught. In most of those cases the OOA student reached for the alternate at the same time the intended donor reached for it, and in 100% of those cases, they knocked the regulator out of each other's hands and then essentially fought each other to get it back.

The concept that an OOA diver is going to politely wait for someone to hand them an air source is a fantasy. I only know one person who did that when OOA, and he needed help walking and chewing gum at the same time, too. Any sensible diver with look for the yellow and grab it, or grab the nearest air they see, whether in someone's mouth or not. May as well configure, train, and practice for that.

 

[Dan]

From my experience, the regulator will let you know that you’re closed to OOA. It’ll get harder & harder to inhale from the regulator (I tested mine at safety stop, ~15 Ft / 5m, while watching my SPG and AI transmitter going down to zero, the breathing starts to get harder around 100psig, even at zero I still had a few breath left. I carried Spare Air too to avoid doing CESA). So the nearly OOA diver would start looking for his buddy & signaling his buddy that he’s running out of air, not in full blown panick mode. I haven’t seen or experienced an OOA diver reaching another diver octopus or ripping another diver 2nd stage out of his mouth. It would be more like the case shown by The Florida Diver’s video, below:

 

[boulderjohn]

The concept that an OOA diver is going to politely wait for someone to hand them an air source is a fantasy. I only know one person who did that when OOA, and he needed help walking and chewing gum at the same time, too. Any sensible diver with look for the yellow and grab it, or grab the nearest air they see, whether in someone's mouth or not. May as well configure, train, and practice for that.

I have only been in the vicinity of one OOA incident in my entire diving career, and in that case the OOA diver did indeed simply reach for and take the donor's alternate. No problem. Not long after that, I polled the other instructors working in the shop with me, and the only ones who knew of OOA incidents reported exactly the same thing. No one waited for a donation. No one seized the primary. I decided that is the most likely probability, and that is what I had my students do.

I also told them, though, that in the real world, the person who really made the decision was the OOA diver, and as donors they needed to react appropriately by either letting the OOA diver take the alternate regulator, donating the alternate, or opening their mouth so their teeth aren't damaged if the OOA diver goes for the primary.

The absolute worst instruction I ever heard of was teaching students to fight off any attempt to take the primary by blocking it with the hand while simultaneously reaching for, securing, and donating the alternate. I don't know who came up with the idea of getting in a hand fight with a panicked, desperate, OOA diver before getting that diver an air source, but that person was not thinking clearly.