Routing an SPG along the shoulder webbing

[Phishie]

However, before switching to a Miflex HP hose you might want to read this thread:

Miflex HP hose issues - The Dive Matrix Forums

Yeah, I'm only going to be doing no-deco rec diving so I don't mind being a guinea pig. I really like the physical characteristics of the hose. The OP should probably take this into consideration though if he has any type of hard or soft ceiling.

[DA Aquamaster]

If you're on a stage in a cave, you're breathing it (unless there is a short period of time when you're swimming to a drop point). If you're breathing the stage, the backgas spg is irrelevant. Plus, if the cave is so tight that you can't get to your spg, dragging a stage through that section is clearly not the best course of action.

That potentially gets into the argument of how you manage a stage (thirds, half plus 200, etc) and there are divers who adhere to one or the other approach, or select one or the other approach based on individual dive conditions - but let's not go there today.

Also, since I am frequently on a team of two, one of us will often take a stage to provide the extra "third" we'd have had with a third team member. In that case, the stage may not get dropped at all, or may be carried and dropped fairly deep in the cave without ever being used.

[PfcAJ]

If you want to drag a safety bottle (in reality its just a pony) through the cave, have a blast, but you still haven't given me an example of why you would need to check your backgas spg while stage diving. And diving your stage to thirds (which isn't a good idea, take a look at Caverns Measureless to Man, I believe) still doesn't provide a situation where you need to check it. Lots of downsides here, not many positives.

[rjack321]

If you want to drag a safety bottle (in reality its just a pony) through the cave, have a blast, but you still haven't given me an example of why you would need to check your backgas spg while stage diving. And diving your stage to thirds (which isn't a good idea, take a look at Caverns Measureless to Man, I believe) still doesn't provide a situation where you need to check it. Lots of downsides here, not many positives.

Its not all that uncommon to bump the purge button of your primary while scootering on a stage. Assuming the bump was more that a clearly trivial blip, I would check my backgas SPG to see if I'd lost a substantive amount of gas. I don't think this one-off event warrants rerouting the SPG over the shoulder by any means.

[PfcAJ]

Ya, thats true, and I agree with you. I've ran into that situation a few times, yet I always catch it within a few seconds.

I still can't seem to think of one time where I was dragging a stage through a restriction and had to check my backgas though. I've done a fair bit of stage diving at a few different caves (over 20) and not one of them has presented the above described situation. If it was a common occurrence, I could play with the idea, but it just isn't.

[LiteHedded]

typically it's when I forget to turn the diaphragm away from the flow. the prop wash will hit it for a second. but like aj said, it's something you stop within a second or two. I normally wont bother checking the backgas spg in that situation. but if I needed to it's a trivial thing to reach down to my hip and fish it out. certainly no reason to add more clutter to that left d-ring.
god knows there's enough going on there as it is...lol

[Guy Alcala]

Well, finally tried out the SPG clipped off to the left shoulder D-ring this weekend. Far easier to read with just a glance, no contortions/clipping/unclipping required, but I did grab it several times by accident when I was looking for the corrugated hose to dump some gas during an ascent. Not sure if this was just unfamiliarity and would ease with practice, or a persistent problem. I'm thinking of trying the "route it along the corrugated hose, held to it with rubber bands" approach for comparison, as that would eliminate having two separate hoses (and a bolt snap) in the same area.

For the open water diving I normally do it does seem to be superior, subject to eliminating the momentary confusion when grabbing the wrong hose. Having the two separate hoses didn't feel like it would be a safety issue, just a bit of mental "oh, that's not the one I was looking for" before I grabbed the correct hose. Still took far less time than having to unclip from my hip, and put all my dive info (wrist slate on left forearm, compass on left wrist, watch on right wrist, computer on right forearm) out in front of me, with a good scan pattern.

Guy