Reminder: Always do an S-drill before or at the beginning of your dive

[jonnythan]

Moral of the story is to do a quick mock air share, including deploying and breathing off both regs, every time you don your gear. You don't want to wait until your buddy is actually OOA at depth under a shipping channel to realize that you can't effectively get a regulator into his mouth.

I'm quoting myself here for all the people who are so bent out of shape about the thread title.

Frankly if someone can't read the OP and figure out what the point was, then nothing I could have said would have saved them from themselves anyway.

 

[Aqua-Andy]

The 7' hose is for single file air sharing in a restricted diving environment, not for use in a diving environment where the length of the hose itself makes it the entanglement hazzard.

So are you saying it is safer to use two different gear configurations than it is to use one configuration for all diving? When I finished my cavern/adv. wreck class I made the decision to dive the bunged back up/ long hose config for all my diving so that when the crap hits the fan I will not have to remember which gear I'm diving. Maybe those GUE guys know what there talking about after all . I felt the most uncomfortable part of open water training was sharing air with a "standard length" hose. After doing one air share with a long hose I thought "why dont they teach this method in OW".

 

[TSandM]

It's certainly true that the genesis of the long hose was in overhead environments. But in a lot of ways, I think it actually makes open water diving simpler. Wrapping the hose around your body keeps it close and away from anything around you. And it simplifies sharing gas, so that one might be willing to do so BEFORE anybody is truly out, because you can do it comfortably. I cannot think of a single time in the last seven years, since I started using a canister light, that the long hose has caused me any inconvenience on a dive. (Before that, I had trouble keeping it tucked in my waistband, but there are other solutions for securing it that I didn't implement.)

 

[boulderjohn]

Before I started taking technical diving classes, I used a back inflate BCD with a traditional regulator setup for my diving. Buying all the new gear I needed for the technical diving (a little at a time) bent my budget so much that I made no effort to spend any money to change my recreational gear. I therefore had the long hose for technical and the conventional setup for recreational. Then I read the story of a woman who went OOA in Europe and went to her buddy for his alternate, only to find that it had come loose from the octo keeper. She couldn't find it. She drowned.

So I spent a couple of bucks to switch hoses and get a non-yellow face plate for the alternate. I am now much happier diving the same way in both systems, and I know that if someone goes OOA near me, I will have a working alternate at the ready.

As Lynne pointed out, the long hose is more streamlined and less of an entanglement hazard than a conventional hose. The conventional hose sticks out and up over the right shoulder, while the long hose lies next tot he body. The only times I have ever had a hose snagged while diving were with a conventional hose.

 

[Crush]

(Before that, I had trouble keeping it tucked in my waistband, but there are other solutions for securing it that I didn't implement.)

That sometimes happens to me (I don't have a canister light). Advice?

 

[leabre]

That sometimes happens to me (I don't have a canister light). Advice?

Besides tucking it beneath the waist belt, I once placed an empty knife sheath on my wife's right side and it very nicely secured her long hose. Sometimes people use 5' length hoses and then it wraps under your right arm rather than as low as the waist quite effectively, also.

 

[jonnythan]

That sometimes happens to me (I don't have a canister light). Advice?

Yes. Get one.

Besides that, you can put something over there. Some shears in a sheath, etc. I knew a guy who literally just put short piece of 2" pvc pipe of there to sort of simulate a tiny canister.

 

[elan]

The 7' hose is for single file air sharing in a restricted diving environment, not for use in a diving environment where the length of the hose itself makes it the entanglement hazzard.

Diver education is so valuable, and it never ends...

Single file is not limited to restricted environment; sharing gas on a scooter is done single file and requires a long hose even on a rec level (open water with no overhead, nothing technical or advanced)

 

[ermaclob]

i had to learn how much of a problem the long hose was the hard way. i started diving with it out of my own interest after upgrading my regs a year or so ago. the first few dive with it where pretty interesting.... primary under secondary, long hose looped under they harnesses waist strap, long hose not secured, ect... thankfully i worked it all out after the 5th or so dive. still a year later these experiences make me do triple checks on the hose routing before and in the water.

 

[jonnythan]

I use a long hose, and this was a problem with a long hose, but the intent of this thread is completely independent of a long hose.

No matter what hose or regulator configuration you use, you need to check to make sure you can effectively get a regulator to your buddy once you're all geared up. That applies whether you use a long hose, Air2, traditional setup, etc.