No Octo?? Here goes...Blast away!!

[Divmstr223]

Sounds like alot of people have no confidence in their buddy. Why bother diving together?

I don't suscribe to the "If my buddy is there...great!" concept. There is never a question in my mind they will be there if I need them. This is why I generally dive with others of the same mindset.

And yeah, I seem to be hearing this very same thing in every forum it seems like...:huh:

 

[MarcG]

And yeah, I seem to be hearing this very same thing in every forum it seems like...:huh:

Probably just a coincidence.

But yes, I do understand your position.

 

[Divmstr223]

Probably just a coincidence.

But yes, I do understand your position.

I have no position...I just make stuff up as I go....


kidding...

 

[miler10498]

Well, my first post replying to this was apparently lost in the ether.

This doesn't make sense to me. First off, whatever happened to buddy breathing? Even if the donor is using a double hose, you should be able to buddy breathe. Is this skill not even taught anymore? The lack of an octo didn't kill people for the decades when they weren't common. Why would it now? And what would you do if you did grab that octo, and it didn't work?

Secondly, I don't understand this willingness to rely on others. When I plan a dive, I assume that in an emergency, I will be alone. A buddy can swim off, and usually right when you need them. I learned this lesson the (almost) hard way. We were diving in 45ft of water, I got too close to a submerged tree, and got tangled in monofilament line. Guess what? I didn't have a knife. Yeah, a stupid mistake, but that's why you have a buddy, right? I watched that buddy swim away. Now, my goose was about 45% cooked at that moment. I tried to free myself, and couldn't. It was time to ditch the gear, keeping my regulator in hand as I chewed my way out. Luckily, the buddy made a reappearance at that moment, and cut me out. In a later incident, we were night diving, I stopped for a moment, and my buddy AND the instructor disappeared. I looked for them per PADI training, and surfaced. They didn't notice I was gone for almost 5 more minutes. If I were having an OOA emergency and relying on them, I would have been toast.

My point is not to dictate your diving, but rather to point out what I consider to be a dangerous idea. If you are accepting someone as a buddy because you feel that you can rely on their gear, you are placing yourself in a compromised position. That gear may fail, and that buddy may not be there when you need them.

Buddy breathing is still taught and I do know how to buddy breathe. I also know how to do a cesa, doesn't mean it would be my first choice. My first choice in an OOA situation would be to share air with my buddy, followed by buddy breathing, and as a last resort cesa. I also understand that you may not be able to count on a buddy in a time of need, it doesn't mean that because of that I don't want my buddy to carry the gear I feel is necessary. I don't care if other people choose to dive without an octopus but I personally would not dive with a buddy who didn't have one. Also as others have pointed out on the board, another diver in an OOA situation may rip your reg from your mouth and not be so willing to "share". I understand divers dove for years without secondary air sources. They also dove without spgs, doesn't mean it isn't an imortant piece of equipment today I do think its important that your buddy has reliable gear. Again, as a personal preference I wouldn't dive with someone with unreliable gear as the chance for an emergency underwater would be much higher.

 

[markfm]

Edit -- deleted

 

[Web Monkey]

This doesn't make sense to me. First off, whatever happened to buddy breathing? Even if the donor is using a double hose, you should be able to buddy breathe. Is this skill not even taught anymore? The lack of an octo didn't kill people for the decades when they weren't common. Why would it now?

AFAIK, it's not taught anymore.

And what would you do if you did grab that octo, and it didn't work?

When I first started diving, I assumed that if my buddy had an octo/Air-2/whatever, that I could get air in an emergency. Then one day I watched a service tech open a reg that was so corroded that the only way to get air would have been to cut the hose and breathe off the freeflow.

Now I carry a pony (slung in front). I *know* it works and has gas (added a full-size SPG), so I don't rely on the boat-buddy's mystery reg that might or might not work.

Secondly, I don't understand this willingness to rely on others. When I plan a dive, I assume that in an emergency, I will be alone. A buddy can swim off, and usually right when you need them. I learned this lesson the (almost) hard way. We were diving in 45ft of water, I got too close to a submerged tree, and got tangled in monofilament line. Guess what? I didn't have a knife. Yeah, a stupid mistake, but that's why you have a buddy, right? I watched that buddy swim away. Now, my goose was about 45% cooked at that moment. I tried to free myself, and couldn't. It was time to ditch the gear, keeping my regulator in hand as I chewed my way out. Luckily, the buddy made a reappearance at that moment, and cut me out. In a later incident, we were night diving, I stopped for a moment, and my buddy AND the instructor disappeared. I looked for them per PADI training, and surfaced. They didn't notice I was gone for almost 5 more minutes. If I were having an OOA emergency and relying on them, I would have been toast.

I get "boat buddies" pretty much all the time when traveling, and like to be as self-sufficient as possible, since a number of them have vanished as soon as we hit the water.

My point is not to dictate your diving, but rather to point out what I consider to be a dangerous idea. If you are accepting someone as a buddy because you feel that you can rely on their gear, you are placing yourself in a compromised position. That gear may fail, and that buddy may not be there when you need them.

My regular buddy is never more than 5' - 10' away. Unfortunately I don't always have my regular buddy, so now I carry a pony, a z-knife, shears, an SMB and a 100' finger spool.

I don't really like solo diving, but I prepare for a dive as if it were solo, since there's a good chance it will seem like one.

Terry

 

[captain]

How does on know that his buddy has an octo only because the dive operators require it and in order to save $$ doesn't have it serviced on a regular basis.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I'm going to add my comments to this discussion, as it is pertinent to the types of diving I am doing. When I dive with a buddy, even when I'm "vintage diving" (diving with a double hose regulator), I dive with either an octopus or a second, single-hose regulator on my other post of my double tanks (either the twin 50s or twin 42s). I have been doing this since the 1970s.

But, there have been a few times when I dove without an octopus with a buddy. These were old-time divers who knew how to buddy breath, and we were diving in 35 feet of water (Edmonds Underwater Park in Washington State).

Years ago, in the 1960s and 1970s, we always dove without an octopus in the US Air Force. Many of our dives were after parascuba jumps, and having more than one regulator was simply something else to get tangled in parachute lines. We did not have problems diving without an octopus, but realize that these were divers who had been through the US Navy School for Underwater Swimmers, and had been through what was termed "pool harrassment" training. In other words, these were people who were very comfortable with their gear and their diving skills.

Any device has it's own qualities, and potential problems. If I dive with someone with an octopus, I brief on how you would handle an out-of-air situation prior to the dive. The octopus should be checked to ensure that it is functioning (buddy check, your buddy checks your octopus, and vice versa). If I cannot do that before the dive, I figure it is a solo dive (which I'm comfortable with too).

A buddy dive is when the buddy is checking closely to see how his or her buddy is doing. Usually, that means keeping in visual contact and close enough for physical contact within about 15 seconds (5 to 20 feet away or so). If that is not happening, it then becomes a solo dive, and the diver should react as such. I read about divers swimming away from their buddy, and not realizing this until 5 minutes have passed. That simply is not acceptable as a buddy. In the US Navy School for Underwater Swimmers, we stayed at our buddy's side. If we were found to be too far away by the instructors (which did not happen to me), we were given a "buddy line" to carry around for the next 24 hours. It was a twenty foot long, six inch in diameter line that is used for tying up ships to docks. So this is my concept of the buddy system.

But in the USAF, when we made a parascuba jump, we were solo jumpers/divers until we were able to link up with our buddy. Sometimes that worked out, and sometimes our buddy landed a half mile away, and blew in the opposite direction. In fact, on one mission jump in the Pacific north a Hawaii in the 1970s, the two PJs got separated. They were jumping on a Korean ship with a victim who needed medical treatment. The weather was pretty bad, with seas higher than eight feet and strong winds. The first jumper was picked up by the Korean ship, and treated the injured seaman. The second PJ was picked up by a Japanese ship some time later, and taken to Japan. The Korean ship landed is Seattle, and the PJ presented himself to customs in Korean clothing with only his jump gear (wet suit, scuba, etc.), medical kit with morphine in it, a one-man raft, and a parachute reserve and harness. He was nearly put into jail as a spy until a call to a General in the Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service got him freed.

The point is that we were ready to react is a solo diver at any time during our missions, as that is how it could turn out.

Part of the problem with octopus regulators is that there has not been a good way to ensure that they remained ready for use until recently. Hanging them from the tank invites sand and other materials to be inside when needed. The long hose is used by DIR divers, and that solves the problem for the buddy, but sometimes can cause problems for the doner as the octopus is then his main regulatior, and it has been hanging in the water column exposed. The use of plugs helps, as do pockets for the regulator. When I designed my own BC, I put pockets for the octopus under my arms, where they could not get debries into the regulator easily. These should be considered when you use an octopus.

When we dove without octopus regulators, and simply buddy breathed, we were pretty certain of getting a good regulator when we went to breath, as it was the primary and only regulator my buddy was using.

SeaRat

 

[Creed]

If you are diving as a team your buddy won't be swimming off, usually right when you need them. If so, that's the last guy I want to rely on buddy breathing skills for so that argument doesn't sway me. I can't believe that after your buddy abandoned you on one dive, you went ahead and did another dive (a night dive no less!) with him. One of your equipment choices is the equipment your buddy carries with him, choose wisely.

We were doing our advanced open water training. I had no choice of buddies. And given that I have dove in Kansas lakes with less than a foot of vis, I can see even good buddies wandering off in a split second.

 

[Creed]

Sounds like alot of people have no confidence in their buddy. Why bother diving together?

I don't suscribe to the "If my buddy is there...great!" concept. There is never a question in my mind they will be there if I need them. This is why I generally dive with others of the same mindset.

Great. I hope, for you sake, that you never lose someone in low vis. I know I have. He was less than 10 ft away, in 15 ft of water, and for all the good he would have done me in a OOA situation, he might was well have been on the moon.