Do you actually see people diving with pony bottles?

[mi000ke]

Aww, let's call it cynicism, not hostility. We're all just here to share our ideas and opinions. In the end, I don't care what anyone else does, and I'm sure they don't care what I do.

Maybe I'm having a difficult time articulating exactly what it is that I see. I think I see some kind of trend. I mean, I think I see more ponies today than 10 or 20 years ago. Yet recreational diving has only, if anything, gotten safer, statistically speaking. That seems like a paradox to me. So I ask myself why?

Added thought: Or could it be that an increasing number of people are doing more aggressive diving? Is this a spillover effect from tec diving and "extreme sports" in general? I likewise think I perceive a trend toward more recreational drysuit diving today. I would bet a walk through the archives of SB would show the word "drysuit" trend upwardly over the years. I own one myself--something that I never imagined years ago.

If there really is a trend, then why do people today, doing the same kind of relatively benign rec diving that people have long been doing, feel a need for increased safety? Is it a failure in training? There is no shortage of SB threads criticizing dive training. "Insta-buddies" and all that. Yet in those same threads there are persuasive arguments that training today is better than it has ever been.

What is it then that seemingly leads more people to believe that a pony should be their standard equipment for plain ol' OW diving? The impression I get from what the major agencies teach, and from what has been discussed elsewhere on SB, is that the buddy system, done as we're all taught to do it, is plenty to keep people safe, and people don't need to start lugging ponies all over the world. Are we seeing some sort of paradigm shift in OW diving?--away from reliance on the buddy system? Maybe we are. The idea of a Solo cert is rather new, just as a possible example.

I think I'm pretty typical of the average rec diver. I do almost all of my diving in warm, high visibility, low current Caribbean waters. I've been diving three years and have 60 dives (although since moving to Cayman part time last year, I'm diving a lot more). With the exception of a couple of shore dives with friends who are experienced divers, all of my ocean dives have been guided group (non-buddy) boat dives.

I never considered using a pony, never saw one on my boat dives, and didn't even know they existed - until I discovered SB. And the more I read, the more I got the fear of god put into me that EVERY dive should be considered a solo dive and that I was at great risk relying on others whom I did not know and had never dived with before to bail me out. So for little expense and effort I got a pony (13cf after calculating my bailout requirements from 100 ft) and now sling it on dives below 50'. (And regarding comments on the cost/effort to use it, I got it filled yesterday - took 10 minutes and cost $3. It takes me about 15 seconds to clip it to my BCD. It weighs just a few pounds and even with a bad back I hardly notice the added weight, and it does not measurably affect my trim).

But after reading the 50+ (!) pages here, I now see that there seems to be two major camps on SB: those who insist on (almost) always using a pony, as the effort and inconvenience is minimal relative to the potential benefit; and those who believe that using a pony is more dangerous than not.

I'm more in the first camp. This is scuba diving. How can more air on your back be bad? Breathing off the wrong tank and errors like that are operator errors, not equipment issues. Those people, IMHO, have issues more severe than the equipment they (mis)use (I can't imagine how I could breath off my pony reg by accident). I never include my pony in my gas plan, and I hope never to have to use it (although I do practice using it during safety stops every now and then.) I guess people who think that more air is riskier then less should stick to free diving. What could be safer than no air? (just kidding.. )

 

[ljpm]

Hi ljpm,

You are absolutely correct. I normally dive with a pst 100 tank because I don't like having to breath like an athlete every second of the dive. I am 6' tall and al80s are ridicules for me.

I have large lungs, I can Hoover down an al80 in 20 minutes. I am not a petite female with small lungs.

Apologies,
M

Not really upset my any one person. It just seems a common comment that if you are an air hog you are not a good diver. People require different amounts of air. As a related example, Honda Civic and an F250 DO NOT have the same size tank and no one would expect them to. Why do some divers think I shouldn't be able to find a way to carry extra air. At home I have 133's and my wife has 80 steal tanks. We both start and finish with pretty much the same psi. When I go on vacation our dives tend to be half as long because I am stuck with a small tank. I can sometimes get a Al100 but not alway. If I am capable of carrying and using a stage bottle for extra air why should it concern anyone else.

 

[Freewillow]

It just seems a common comment that if you are an air hog you are not a good diver. People require different amounts of air. .

Nope, good divers are using less air than bad divers for the same dive profile. Having said this there are other factors that play a role.

 

[ljpm]

Nope, good divers are using less air than bad divers for the same dive profile. Having said this there are other factors that play a role.

I have never seen anyone ask how large a person was when they stated they were hard on air. I have seen repeated comments regarding weighting, trim and skill.

 

[Freewillow]

I said that it may differ from one person to another..

I have friends that with a bit of help and more practice have largelly decreased their SAC in a few months.

Now if one is clearly out of shape and largely overweighted, maybe he/she should not be diving in the first place

 

[MaxBottomtime]

But after reading the 50+ (!) pages here, I now see that there seems to be two major camps on SB: those who insist on (almost) always using a pony, as the effort and inconvenience is minimal relative to the potential benefit; and those who believe that using a pony is more dangerous than not.

I got a different feel from the thread. It seems to be one camp who feel it adds a security blanket in the event of a loss of air and another camp who feel it is an unnecessary added bulk.

 

[Scubagolf]

Only in California, where the boat diving is either true buddies or solo. Most of my diving has been at warm water locales diving with guided groups. I don't recall seeing a pony in this environment, and I am pretty equipment observant.

 

[markmud]

I got a different feel from the thread. It seems to be one camp who feel it adds a security blanket in the event of a loss of air and another camp who feel it is an unnecessary added bulk.

Hi Max,

I agree with your take.

markm

 

[Diving Dubai]

In your part of the world, isn't the huge majority of the divers just doing this: guided tours?.

In short, no. Sure there are commercial ops that cater to the splash and dash crowd who need hand holding. Equally the same ops let others do their own thing as buddy pairs or solo photographers. Sometime you see redundant cylinders, sometimes you dont'

My favoured local site, is the Musandam peninsular. It's so remote and challenging, that more people dive Eagles Nest each year than the sites at the tip in the strait of Hormuz. Pony/Stages and deco bottles as a just in case are the norm. Because no matter how good your buddy is, or how detailed your dive plan, things there change fast, While not as technically challenging as caves, it's still not easy warm water diving by any measure

 

[markmud]

I think I'm pretty typical of the average rec diver. I do almost all of my diving in warm, high visibility, low current Caribbean waters. I've been diving three years and have 60 dives (although since moving to Cayman part time last year, I'm diving a lot more). With the exception of a couple of shore dives with friends who are experienced divers, all of my ocean dives have been guided group (non-buddy) boat dives.

I never considered using a pony, never saw one on my boat dives, and didn't even know they existed - until I discovered SB. And the more I read, the more I got the fear of god put into me that EVERY dive should be considered a solo dive and that I was at great risk relying on others whom I did not know and had never dived with before to bail me out. So for little expense and effort I got a pony (13cf after calculating my bailout requirements from 100 ft) and now sling it on dives below 50'. (And regarding comments on the cost/effort to use it, I got it filled yesterday - took 10 minutes and cost $3. It takes me about 15 seconds to clip it to my BCD. It weighs just a few pounds and even with a bad back I hardly notice the added weight, and it does not measurably affect my trim).

But after reading the 50+ (!) pages here, I now see that there seems to be two major camps on SB: those who insist on (almost) always using a pony, as the effort and inconvenience is minimal relative to the potential benefit; and those who believe that using a pony is more dangerous than not.

I'm more in the first camp. This is scuba diving. How can more air on your back be bad? Breathing off the wrong tank and errors like that are operator errors, not equipment issues. Those people, IMHO, have issues more severe than the equipment they (mis)use (I can't imagine how I could breath off my pony reg by accident). I never include my pony in my gas plan, and I hope never to have to use it (although I do practice using it during safety stops every now and then.) I guess people who think that more air is riskier then less should stick to free diving. What could be safer than no air? (just kidding.. )

Hi mioook,

Make sure you practice inflating your BCD manually while practicing pony bottle ascents. In a true crisis, your BC won't inflate with your push-button inflator.

Just a thought,
markm