Octo on necklace

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Panama Jones

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Sorry if this has been beat to death in other topics.

I am now diving deeper, darker, colder waters which gets a little more equipment intensive, especially with redundancies. For my own convenience only (to make room), I would like to go to a 22" octo hose and necklace. If needed, I'd donate the primary and go myself to octo.

I dive with insta -buddies often. In this case are there any cons?
 
I dive a long hose and necklaced octo. I always brief my buddies on the difference.
 
Pre-dive brief the insta-buddy on which reg you'll donate should they go 'out of gas'.
No drawbacks except that you should practice donating your 2nd stage and going to your backup on a regular basis so you're comfortable changing regulators on short notice.
 
No probs with what's been posted. My students learn with a necklaced second, so it's not hard.
 
They're called "backups" more often in this configuration. Octo entails that you're going to or be able to hand it off, which isn't the case in this configuration.
As long as you're competent in handoffs of your primary and transfers to your backup and brief your buddy as such, there's really no downsides other than one thing: The length of your primary.

Suppose you needed to swim a ways before ascending in an OOA emergency. An example would be under a boating channel or right near a wash rock with heavy surface swell. You're going to be more comfortable with a 44in hose on an angle adapter or even a long hose 5-7ft, rather than the standard 30-32in hose you often see on primaries.

You may also want to measure a distance between 22in and 24in on your bungee backup to see if there is any comfort difference for you. Some divers find 22in to be too short; they're unable to turn their head in a full range of motion (particularly up-left) without ripping the reg out of their mouth.
 
My "primary secondary," the second stage I breathe off of, is on a 44" hose under my arm. This is the one I donate. So even though it's not my octo, it's the one with the yellow purge valve cover. It's helpful in a briefing to be able to tell my buddy, "just go for the yellow, like you would for a typical octo."
 
If I use an octopus second stage then it is on a yellow necklace and usually my primary second stage is on a 7' hose.

When using doubles my secondary second stage is also on a necklace

I have found a necklace the most convenient way to hold a secondary / octopus second stage, other holders and clip things just never worked for me
 
Just recently saw a diver in a video, wearing a necklaced reg and breathing it throughout the dive. Thought to myself, doesn't that defeat the purpose or is there some other reason a tech/caver might be breathing his own necklaced reg?
 
Just recently saw a diver in a video, wearing a necklaced reg and breathing it throughout the dive. Thought to myself, doesn't that defeat the purpose or is there some other reason a tech/caver might be breathing his own necklaced reg?

If you are using twin independent cylinders (over manifolded twins) then you have no choice as you can only access half the gas on the long hose. The normal procedure in this case is to breath a portion from one cylinder (and associated reg) and then change to the other cylinder (and associated reg) and breath some from this one. If you breath from only one reg in this situation and the other reg or cylinder fails you then have no air at all which defeats the purpose of twins and backup etc.

If I am using twin manifolded cylinders, I will use the backup reg occasionally to ensure it works but don't continue to use it.
 
Thanks! Great explanation.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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