Upgrading to using a Pony tank.

[Coztick]

Depends on the size of the pony. If your second reg is only on the pony and the pony is an AL19, then it can be limiting in some circumstances. For example, I had an instabuddy new diver, first dive in ocean and first dive after OW, whose mouth piece came off, thought it was broken, and could not find her secondary. Captain had stuck it in her pocket and she was used to it being on a clip. Anyway she came to me quickly with out of air sign. Gave her my alternate and waited for her to calm down. Then we sorted things out and I found her regulator in her BCD pocket and put her on that. We were both on my HP 100 at 60 ft so plenty of time to sort things out. Once she was set up and relaxed we continued our dive. If I or her would have been on my pony which is an AL19 we would have had less time to deal with everything.

Valid point.
I accept that once I am the donor, the dives probably over. I rarely know my Instabuddies so it's probably for the best.

 

[oldschoolto]

A pony should be a total stand alone breathing unit... You don't dump your otoc to save a few bucks...

Jim...

 

[Steve_C]

I accept that once I am the donor, the dives probably over. I rarely know my Instabuddies so it's probably for the best.

Again it depends. Was doing a night dive with a private guide on a shore dive in Greece. After a while she kept getting close to me and I kept trying to get keep away and not interfere with her swimming. It finally got through my jet lagged head that she wanted some air. We swam for a while like that and then she went back on her own tank. Turns out she had grabbed a tank that was not quite full and also had underestimated the sac rate of an American tourist once she realized she had less than expected. Very pleasant dive. No need to abort or do a surface swim.

Similar with the situation I mentioned earlier. Once she was calmed down and on her spare we had lots of gas and no need to thumb the dive. In case of problems with her other reg I was making a point to stay close so we still had 3 functioning regs besides hers.