The best place to install an octopus?

[Nemrod]

From my experience, the regulator will let you know that you’re closed to OOA. It’ll get harder & harder to inhale from the regulator----

This just is not true if distracted and many if not most OOAs are a result of some distraction. It may be true of your regulator, your regulator may need a tune up or an upgrade. But any one of my regulators will go to near flat ZERO and it might not be until the last couple of breaths that I might notice, but if distracted, possibly not. And what is one going to do with a couple of breaths?

I have run out of air, one time, circa 1984. It was before octopus rigs were really standard and having learned to dive in 1966 and my wife in 1979 neither of us were set up on an octopus much less a long hose (for open water). And at the time (and still) I commonly used a dh regulator. We were in Fort Lauderdale, drift diving. I had been given the buoy to tow and my wife and I were asked to buddy with this lady we did not know. She hit the water swimming and mostly up current. I kept trying to herd her in and she kept turning into the current and swimming. I was so distracted by her that I was totally surprised when my Tekna T2100 simply quit. The spg read ZERO. I never noticed anything. We were somewhere over 80 feet, maybe close to 100 feet. My wife was down current of me and I signaled to her I was OOA. She made a beeline for me and we buddy breathed to about 60 feet where I let her go and did a slow CESA. The lady, she swam off to Cuba I guess, do not remember. The DM and captain threatned to ban me (what is new, I have been banned from Florida near a dozen times) when I politely explained to them that their diver that they stuck us with was HORRIBLE and should never have been certified and they are the ones who certified her. And I pointed out to them I was not an instructor at the time, was not a professional so why the HXXX did they stick us with her to begin with. That shut them up. But, a good, well tuned regulator, will go to zero or so nearly so and do it such that if distracted, a diver may not realize it until it is too late.

The fellow in the video linked to, maybe if he would quit arm swimming and dog paddling his air consumption would improve.

James

 

[amir4arkan]

I have never tried it, so it might be better, but I don't know. I am not going to find out, either, because I know that donating the primary and having the alternate hanging from a bungee cord around the neck is better than either of those.

When you have the alternate stowed in the traditional way, whether right or left, it hangs from some sort of system designed to release it easily when it is needed. That's the problem--it does release easily, even when you don't want it to. I can't estimate how many times while I was teaching that system that I had to pause and get a student to put the octopus back in place before we could do the exercise. I was already using the bungee system on my alternate for tech diving, but I had not made the switch on my recreational diving setup when I read about a horrific story of a woman who died diving near the Netherlands. She went out of air and went to her buddy for his alternate. Unfortunately, it had come loose and was caught behind him. As they struggled to find it, she inhaled water and drowned. That's when I went to the bungeed system for recreational diving, too.

In contrast, the alternate around the neck is designed to stay there, so it does not come loose. You donate the one in your mouth, which takes a fraction of the amount of time it takes to donate a separate alternate. Then you calmly slip the alternate on your neck up into your mouth--simple and foolproof.

When teaching the use of a separate alternate--whether right or left--you have the question of whether to teach students to reach for the alternate when they are out of air, or wait for the donor to give it to you after you signal. Some instructors teach one way, and some teach the other. In real life, the method used depends upon the OOA diver, who will either reach for the alternate or signal and wait. When I have done the OW checkout dives for students I did not teach in the pool and had buddy teams that were taught differently, each one usually did what they were taught. In most of those cases the OOA student reached for the alternate at the same time the intended donor reached for it, and in 100% of those cases, they knocked the regulator out of each other's hands and then essentially fought each other to get it back.

Thank you for leaving me and preparing a complete answer for me. I would like to use more of your experiences

 

[Miyaru]

What do you think about the left side of the octopus?

The first time I saw that left octopus configuration was in 2016. I was invited to join a dive with a group of NOB divers (the Dutch subsection of CMAS). One of the OW students looked at my rig and she told me that my configuration was wrong.

I asked her why and she recited the OW theory, explaining why the left configuration was better. Fair arguments.

I asked her what she would do if she went diving in the tropics, where all octopuses were attached on the other side. Or what to do with the drysuit inflator hose.

The answers didn't really matter, the discussion itself was more interesting, as other divers chimed in, including some instructors. I listened to all of them, and finally I summed up all of their arguments. For each argument, the longhose donation and bungeed backup was the better solution.

One of the divers tried the inevitable argument: But the longhose is technical diving.
No it isn't. Using specific equipment doesn't make you a technical diver. Mindset and knowledge do, but that is a different discussion. Donating a longhose and switching to the bungeed backup is something any novice can learn during the first confined pooldive, and accepting a longhose in an OOA situation doesn't require any additional instruction at all. But @boulderjohn has already illustrated that perfectly.

Dangling octopus regs are a result of this evolutionary in between step. Not much of a problem in a pool, but in open water they do a wonderful job of catching waterplants, collecting sand or mud, and increasing wear and tear.
I always enjoyed dragging instructors away from their students, by pulling their dangling yellow hose. The back kick is a very useful skill for this.

Another disadvantage of a bungeed reg is that it is way too easy to create it: pull a bungee from a drum, put it around your neck and determine the right length.
Cut it and create a knot at each end.
Take a zip tie and attach the bungee to the reg.
It is too easy and too cheap. So manufacturers came up with rubber loops, with a smaller loop that goes around the reg mouth piece. In different colors. And reasons why their product beats the DIY bungee. Don't DIY, but spend your money on useful scubagear.

 

[Vicko]

Unfortunately yes, my agency has a lot of stuff that I have to teach and then explain why there are different, possibly easier ways to do it.

I may be a bit biased but I don't like the long hose configuration with recreational diving, not because it's inferior but because most divers are not familiar with it, causing tangles donating, using both hands to keep the regulator in the mouth, or even worse no hands....
Swimming single file also causes problems, and removes me from direct contact with the oog diver.
Basically I gave it up since most of my rec dives I'm a guide and in tec dives I'm either solo or I can donate a whole tank if necessary.
I have the fortune (or misfortune) of diving in a place that is very popular with divers but with most dive sites being 30+ meter deep and with chances of high current. I had to donate gas more than a few times.



When donating with bad divers, or lemmings as I fondly call them, my preferred method is starting out face to face, donating whatever reg is opportune at times. After establishing contact and ensuring that the diver in distress is calm and focused I rotate myself above them, with my right hand on their tank valve and the donated hose held in place with my thumb.

This way my left hand is free to adjust buoyancy of both divers, signal and show my pressure gage from time to time. It's easy for me to keep swimming to the exit point/boat, maintain depth even if the other diver is negative or ascend at the appropriate rate and I have complete visual control of the other diver so I can adjust as needed. Another bonus is that the donated regulator is sitting comfortably in the mouth of the oog diver and has no difference in "feel" to their normal regulator, as the hose is routed next to their first stage which I have been told reassures at least some of them, as well as freeing both of their hands and yes I'm aware that it would be better if they used the right hand to ensure the reg does not escape. This last thing is highly annoying as well, as it often results in them doing an excellent bird in flight impression.

The absolute worst instruction I ever heard of was teaching students to fight off any attempt to take the primary by blocking it with the hand while simultaneously reaching for, securing, and donating the alternate. I don't know who came up with the idea of getting in a hand fight with a panicked, desperate, OOA diver before getting that diver an air source, but that person was not thinking clearly.

I had no idea there was a underwater karate speciality, what agency is that?

 

[boulderjohn]

Unfortunately yes, my agency has a lot of stuff that I have to teach and then explain why there are different, possibly easier ways to do it.

I assume this was written in reply to my asking you if your agency required you to teach the OOA skill as you described it previously. When you wrote this response, I went to your profile to see what agency you are talking about, and I just ended up getting confused. Your profile says you are new to diving,w ith fewer than 24 dives, but it also says you are with 3 agencies--CMAS, SSI, and IANTD. Your post here talks about guiding dives and doing solo technical dives.

It is my understanding that SSI has switched to require teaching donating the primary regulator, but I could be wrong about that. I do know that with SSI you do not have to teach new students while kneeling and facing each other, which was what I understood from your earlier post and which you seem to be confirming here. I don't know anything about CMAS and IANTD standards for teaching OOA skills.

 

[boulderjohn]

Using an alternate hanging from a bungee around the neck does not require you to use a particularly long hose for recreational dives. The purpose of the long hose is to allow single file exits through restricted passageways, as in caves and wrecks. If you are just diving in open water, that is not needed. On such dives I have stopped using my customary 7 foot long hose and have switched to a 40 inch primary with a swivel by the regulator. It routes under my right harm for the sake of streamlining.

 

[Vicko]

The absolute worst instruction I ever heard of was teaching students to fight off any attempt to take the primary by blocking it with the hand while simultaneously reaching for, securing, and donating the alternate. I don't know who came up with the idea of getting in a hand fight with a panicked, desperate, OOA diver before getting that diver an air source, but that person was not thinking clearly.

I formated the post wrong, this is what I was wondering about, what agency teaches, or used to teach this?

I assume this was written in reply to my asking you if your agency required you to teach the OOA skill as you described it previously. When you wrote this response, I went to your profile to see what agency you are talking about, and I just ended up getting confused. Your profile says you are new to diving,w ith fewer than 24 dives, but it also says you are with 3 agencies--CMAS, SSI, and IANTD. Your post here talks about guiding dives and doing solo technical dives.

It is my understanding that SSI has switched to require teaching donating the primary regulator, but I could be wrong about that. I do know that with SSI you do not have to teach new students while kneeling and facing each other, which was what I understood from your earlier post and which you seem to be confirming here. I don't know anything about CMAS and IANTD standards for teaching OOA skills.

SDI and IANTD owd requires alternate donate with divers facing each other, and CMAS even goes a step beyond, or behind depending on your view, of actually requiring the exercise to be done while kneeling.

 

[Dan]

This just is not true if distracted and many if not most OOAs are a result of some distraction. It may be true of your regulator, your regulator may need a tune up or an upgrade.

I wasn’t distracted at the time. I was just curious about how low of pressure that I could go when the breathing started to get harder. There were nonlinear correlation between my AI transmitter (displayed on dive computer) and SPG at the lower end though. At roughly 100 psig at SPG was about 50 psig at AI transmitter. Also at the high end the SPG would show 2900 psig and the AI transmitter showed 3000 psig.

As far as my regulators, I have only Scubapro MK25 / S600 that I send for service every 2 years since 2005. Those regulators have been good to me for 16 years.

Sorry to hear about your OOA experience and glad to hear you survived that one without injury.

 

[boulderjohn]

I formated the post wrong, this is what I was wondering about, what agency teaches, or used to teach this?

I don't know of any agency that teaches this. I have, however, been on ScubaBoard a long time, and I have seen people describing being instructed to do this. It is lunacy.

 

[Nemrod]

I formated the post wrong, this is what I was wondering about, what agency teaches, or used to teach this?

SDI and IANTD owd requires alternate donate with divers facing each other, and CMAS even goes a step beyond, or behind depending on your view, of actually requiring the exercise to be done while kneeling.

Open water recreational opposed to technical (still recreational) divers exist a chasm of training and experience. Handing off to an insta-buddy or even my wife, I want them/her where I can see them and monitor them. I do not want my wife dragging along at the end of a 7 foot hose out of my sight. I think I will keep my wife right beside me thank you. And with my hand or arm on her for that matter. A skilled tech diver in penetration certainly single file air sharing is important and often required. I think the idea is not so much facing one another but to keep the OOA diver in sight for continued assessment and control. In a no overhead and no deco recreational dive, the dive is over and we are going up and I want them where I can see them.

I have never heard of blocking a regulator from donation but ambushing and yanking a reg from the mouth of an unsuspecting and inexperienced diver is a possible double fatality. I can see where somebody might have said that. It could get chaotic anyways. The better thing would be to monitor your buddies and they you. They give an OOA and you present them with the octopus by swimming to them with the octo already deployed burping the purge and then assisting them to take it. Not like in that posted video where the OOA diver signaled OOA (twice) and then gave the okay sign (twice) contradicting himself and his buddy swimming rapidly away (twice). Wow is all I can say to that!

James