Weird gear

[Tom Winters]

Hmm. What happens if your primary has a problem, like say the mouthpiece breaks or it gets separated from you? I find it very nice having my second reg tucked under my chin with a necklace, just in case. But having no second reg, I mean, sure, that's the way everybody used to dive but it seems like redundancy is always nice, even if you are only diving one tank and one first stage.

Now the mouthpiece breaking - I've had them come off or tear. It's a PITA, but nothing that a remotely experience diver cannot, or should be able to, handle. It's ok with the necklace - I have had some of them - the homemade ones made out of bungy cord and now a nice blue rubbery manufactured one - like a blue regulator sphincter. I like that and I used to use it until I rerigged and went back to one hose. Maybe I'll even go back to 2 hoses. Hard to tell. I guess on commercial dive boats, some of them might even require two regs. Maybe even a snorkel. I've been diving solo off my own boat for so many years now that I might have gotten a little jaded.

And now for the next question...Dr. Tracy, now how many times have you done the arm sweep for lost regulator recovery??? You're a DM, so I'm guessing a whole bunch. If you're rusty or deficient on this skill, well maybe we should have you unpack some impacted geezer butts for a few days, maybe to reinforce a basic dive skill as well as make for some really relieved old people.

All this said, my 7' hose is still in the eBay bin if I ever get around to unloading it along with a whole lot of other stuff. I just cleaned out my house in CT, and coming down to FL, I've been looking at all this STUFF down here that could go out the door. My wife said that I should do a wholesale purge down here. I probably should not have said, "Well, I'm going to miss you sweetie..."

 

[RJP]

and I probably deployed that setup real-world maybe 50 or 60 times under real world, honest-to-God oh s#!t conditions.

If you've been in 50 or 60 "real world, honest-to-God oh s#!t conditions" I would think you might want to ask yourself "What am I doing wrong?"

I'm just saying...

Unless you've done more than 50,000-60,000 dives over your lifetime... your "oh s#!t" vs "uneventful" dive ratio seems to be unacceptably high.

 

[Tom Winters]

I'm guessing that you never did a lot of tourist diving. Figure four dives per day for way too long. These are your tourist certs who dive 10 times per decade. Am I supposed to recertify them or just watch them like hawks? What was I doing wrong??? I was pulling these boneheads' arses out of the fire. Now, I have to tell you that MOST of these were ---> not <--- OOA situations. I watched everyone - babysat is a term that comes to mind, and when someone was getting low on air, I'd sling 'em on my octopus and ride herd on the rest of the group so at the end, the air hog could surface with the rest of the group. No way I was ditching the group to drag one guy to the surface.
So ah, you tell me sport what I was doing wrong? I never had a bent diver, I never had a fatality, and I never had an accident.

And how many military divers did you ever dive with? Some of them are some of the greatest, and some of them were perpetual accidents waiting to happen.

 

[RJP]

I'm guessing that you never did a lot of tourist diving. Figure four dives per day for way too long. These are your tourist certs who dive 10 times per decade. Am I supposed to recertify them or just watch them like hawks? What was I doing wrong??? I was pulling these boneheads' arses out of the fire. Now, I have to tell you that MOST of these were ---> not <--- OOA situations. I watched everyone - babysat is a term that comes to mind, and when someone was getting low on air, I'd sling 'em on my octopus and ride herd on the rest of the group so at the end, the air hog could surface with the rest of the group. No way I was ditching the group to drag one guy to the surface.
So ah, you tell me sport what I was doing wrong? I never had a bent diver, I never had a fatality, and I never had an accident.

And how many military divers did you ever dive with? Some of them are some of the greatest, and some of them were perpetual accidents waiting to happen.

Ah, that answers my question then. Sounds like you were diving with the wrong people, sport.

:d

 

[krawlings]

Ah, that answers my question then. Sounds like you were diving with the wrong people, sport.

:d

Sounds to me he was doing his JOB. I don't think he was hanging out with tourist divers w/ bad skills or un used skills just for the fun of it

 

[SC_Hoaty]

Ah, that answers my question then. Sounds like you were diving with the wrong people, sport.

:d

That tends to happen when in certain jobs.

The shop I certified with does at least 3 trips a year to West Palm Beach, where drift dives are the norm. The shop owner stated that they would make it a point to pair newly minted OWs with selected old hands. He described when to request the octo from the experienced guy, so that the whole group would stay together. The idea was to extend the dive time for the most number of folks.

The trip I was supposed to go ended up being cancelled by a hurricane (which also sank the dive boat!) so I never did participate in this.

My point is, it may be more common in certain dive destinations. From what I understand of NJ diving, it is a bit sporty for using up reserve breathing gas on simply looking at more pretty fishies.

 

[RJP]

Sounds to me he was doing his JOB. I don't think he was hanging out with tourist divers w/ bad skills or un used skills just for the fun of it

Yeah, that was my point. I didn't realize that was his job in my first post.

(The web really need a sarcasm font...)

 

[Tortuga68]

The long hose is great for people who like it

I would say for people who "know how to use it"

 

[Phil_C]

Of course - when the dive shop guy said check out his "weird" gear it MAY have been just a timely reminder to do a proper buddy check so you knew where the octopus and everything else was if you needed it as it was not in a standard configuration - rather than a suggestion that anything was wrong.

Or perhaps I was being too generous -

Incidentally the last time I saw an OOA situation was two weeks ago - I was diving with a military team who were doing a refresher - I was invited along as a guest, and at least one diver finished his safety stop air sharing with his buddy. I won't i'd the Army but it wasn't western European or US, so military does not necessarily mean any better than civilian/sports if people don't stick to their training - Phil

 

[RJP]

Of course - when the dive shop guy said check out his "weird" gear it MAY have been just a timely reminder to do a proper buddy check so you knew where the octopus and everything else was if you needed it as it was not in a standard configuration

I was doing a night dive in Curaçao and got assigned a random buddy. The DM who paired us up said to the other guy "sorry about that" as he pointed to me and said to the other guy "don't bother with a buddy check... he's wearing a nonstandard rig." (BP/W, 7ft hose, can light, etc). "If he gets in trouble you'll never be able to get him out of his gear - he's completely strapped in."

I just started laughing.

The DM and the other guy were indignant "Ok then... what SHOULD we do if you get in trouble, then?"

Me: "Just cut me out."
He: "With what?"
Me: "Knife, shears, whatever you've got will work."
He: "I don't have anything like that."
Me: "And I'm the one diving a 'non-standard' rig?"
He: "So what do I do?"
Me: "I've got three cutting tools, here, here, and here. Grab one and start cutting."
He: "How will I know if you need to be cut out?"
Me: "If there's any question... start cutting. If I tell you to get your ****ing hands off my gear, stop."