Reserve limit 500 psi always? What about doubles?

[ianr33]

if it is that important for you to surface below 500psi, why not just surface with less than 500 and apologize?

What is the captain going to do? throw you back in the water and leave?

On some boats you will not be allowed to make the next dive.

[awap]

On some boats you will not be allowed to make the next dive.

If that is the condition established before the contract is entered ($$$ presented and accepted) then all should abide. If that is a condition added after the contract is done then there could be a problem. One of the reasons I always read the info provided by the dive op and pay by CC. Dive briefings are not the appropriate place to introduce new contract conditions. They are the place to provide divers additional information and suggestions (and reiterate contract requirements) so divers can safely enjoy their contracted dives.

[aquaregia]

MY original plan was to dive the twins for the first two dives, then switch to the single 80.
Dive 2 was shortened due to a broken stobe arm, so I didn't switch to the aluminum.

Why breathe the doubles before the stage?

[GrumpyOldGuy]

On some boats you will not be allowed to make the next dive.

I like your spare air idea!

Anyway, I always pay by credit card. If the captain ask me to sit the next dive out and he cannot point to a contractual violation, I will then ask for a full refund due to his failure to deliver the agreed upon services. Its rather a simple procedure to gain a refund from the credit card company if he fails to deliver the services. Its not his place to try to teach me a lesson or punish me by asking me to sit out a dive. If he feels I am danger to myself, others or unfit he can pull the plug for sure, but he is not going to get paid for it. That said, people overly worried about the captain enforcing a 500PSI limit probably have other issues to deal with.

[Garth]

When I dove the oriskany the only stipulation by the captain was that no one runs out of air which means that you can safely inflate your nc at the surface with your tank. Period.

You would be surprised that people weren't allowed to do the second dive because they weren't able to we their tank to inflate and had to orally inflate.
The last diver on the boat ended up with 30 minutes of deco from his second dive unplanned on a rec dive. He ran out of air 20 minutes before he surfaced. Lucky the divemaster had a sling (40).

Rules are there to increase safety when someone is checking their gauges they may think of the last thing the captain said before descent. The people that don't check their gauges.... Well, you can't always save them.

[String]

I'm curious why you need doubles for recreational diving, which I assume implies non deco dives? With a single tank I can easily reach deco limits on the second repetitive dive, so my thinking is with doubles, you must be doing deco dives?

Redundancy. Having enough gas and gear to get yourself out of trouble without having to blindly rely on someone else.

That and not having to bother swapping tanks in between, having LOTS of gas to maximise dive time and the fact of "why not?" If you own a twinset its perfectly suited to multiple no-stop dives.

[Anti-Hero]

So ... many ... questions ...

[KWS]

i have not found it uncommon to be asked for return psi and max depth. it gives the boat an idea whether you may be out of air or just late coming up. the boat does not know you sac. they can figure it from that info. if you are missing they have an idea whether to look for exhaust bubbles of a boody on the bottom.

So who the hell is checking your pressure gauage when you surface? Tell them to go screw themselves. I wouldn't dive a boat that wanted to know anything more than my run time. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever gotten back on the boat with less than about 900-1000psi in doubles even on 3 tank days.