I recently got my OW cert and am loving even just going to a pool and hovering around. So far, all of my dive buddies have been whatever random person I got paired with. None of my nearby friends/family dive, so random buddies is probably going to be the norm for a while...especially when I start going on solo trips to nicer places to dive. One thing I've noticed, at least so far, is that I cannot really trust a buddy to be as attentive as I'd like. Maybe it's because we're all beginners, but it seems like it'd be a while before a buddy would respond to an OOA signal. I even tested a buddy once and it took him a while to get me his alternate reg. He later said to me, "I didn't think we were testing that today" and "I knew you weren't OOA." While he was of course right on both points, it left me feeling a bit...um...less than enthused.
So, I've decided I want to carry a small pony/bail-out with minimum size of 6 cft. Using the rather conservative ascent times calculated on the DiveNerd site, that would get me to the surface from 60 ft. w/ a 0.6 RMV. Of course, if deeper, one might need to be a bit more aggressive in surfacing, but it seems pretty much in the realm of you-probably-won't-kill-yourself.
Anyway, I like the idea of a small pony I can have readily available so I went with the H2Odyssey Extra Air Source and put a little pony-bottle pressure gauge on it. I got it last week and was able to play with it in a 12 ft. pool this weekend. I found it easy to use (both to fill using yoke adaptor and to breathe from) and not annoying to have clipped to my chest D-ring. Filling it from a 3000psi AL80 yielded both tanks at 2800psi (as you'd expect). I sat on the bottom of the pool and breathed on it heavily for 5 minutes. That dropped the Extra Air from 2800psi to 1000psi. I later breathed it down to nothing and it started giving resistance 3 or 4 breaths before it was empty.
I also got the H2Odyssey quick-deploy bag thingy...it works easily and well I thought for a quick grab if someone were to need it. Since I had the bottle clipped to my chest, I was able to breathe on it without unclipping or otherwise deploying the bottle from the bag.
Anyway, for someone new, I like having this option. The price was under $300 all told and I think it beats things like SpareAir for around the same price. I haven't seen many reviews of the Extra Air Source here (or anywhere really...my LDS was intrigued to check it over since they'd never seen one in the flesh) so I figured I drop my experience here in case anyone is interested in this option.
So, I've decided I want to carry a small pony/bail-out with minimum size of 6 cft. Using the rather conservative ascent times calculated on the DiveNerd site, that would get me to the surface from 60 ft. w/ a 0.6 RMV. Of course, if deeper, one might need to be a bit more aggressive in surfacing, but it seems pretty much in the realm of you-probably-won't-kill-yourself.
Anyway, I like the idea of a small pony I can have readily available so I went with the H2Odyssey Extra Air Source and put a little pony-bottle pressure gauge on it. I got it last week and was able to play with it in a 12 ft. pool this weekend. I found it easy to use (both to fill using yoke adaptor and to breathe from) and not annoying to have clipped to my chest D-ring. Filling it from a 3000psi AL80 yielded both tanks at 2800psi (as you'd expect). I sat on the bottom of the pool and breathed on it heavily for 5 minutes. That dropped the Extra Air from 2800psi to 1000psi. I later breathed it down to nothing and it started giving resistance 3 or 4 breaths before it was empty.
I also got the H2Odyssey quick-deploy bag thingy...it works easily and well I thought for a quick grab if someone were to need it. Since I had the bottle clipped to my chest, I was able to breathe on it without unclipping or otherwise deploying the bottle from the bag.
Anyway, for someone new, I like having this option. The price was under $300 all told and I think it beats things like SpareAir for around the same price. I haven't seen many reviews of the Extra Air Source here (or anywhere really...my LDS was intrigued to check it over since they'd never seen one in the flesh) so I figured I drop my experience here in case anyone is interested in this option.
