What is your personal depth that CESA is option #1

Even on dives less than 6m I still carry my pony. Something would have to have gone very wrong as I dive 300bar 12Lt giving me around 2 1/2 hours of gas @ 6m.

 

I did a CESA once from 10 feet depth for 1st time in 15 years (> 900 dives). I went deep for too long following schooling of hammerheads in Banda Sea (Indonesia) and got a 6 minutes of DECO that I needed to clear my SUUNTO D4 at 10 feet depth to prevent it from locking out. I cleared the DECO obligation and stayed down to clear my 3 minute safety stop, but I ran out of gas with 1 minute remaining on the Safety Stop and had to CESA. Since then I carry 3cf Spare Air if this thing ever happens again then I don’t have to CESA.

On my last dive trip (couple weeks ago to Belize) I started using Shearwater Teric and used D4 as backup. I noticed that D4 is just way too conservative for my dive style. Even setting my Teric to GF Conservative Medium 40/85, I cleared my Safety Stop with Teric a minute or two sooner than D4.

 

whatever it took to live...

back in the old days, I intentionally (skills development) did one from 50', but would never consider practicing it ever again.. I dive a whole different way now....

Pony or redundant air source like doubles, and also another diver - some say it is an equipment solution to a skills problem, but so be it....

 

20' seems fairly close with low on-gassing, but I dive in kelp. I'd still turn to my buddy first as the last few feet are the worst pressure-wise. I'm confident I'd get to the surface from much deeper, I'd just rather not have to risk the DCS involved. But I'm spoiled by sidemount.

As a tiny sidemount or isolated doubles diver, I love the irony of going over donation procedures with my single tank buddies. Yes, something has to go really wrong for their donation procedure to matter.

 

At 20 feet, with no ceiling I would likely go to surface rather than stress someone out. If I'm at 20 feet, I've taken my time to get there and with no ceiling I'm willing to blow off a safety stop.

 

The only time I might dive without redundancy or close to my buddy is on shallow, warm water vacation dives. 30 feet or less. For deeper than that, I do bring an extra reg, bands for slinging an AL80.

 

With no redundancy, I would probably go to the OOA share with a buddy at any depth. Reason being the only time I buddy dive is when I am well below 30', otherwise it's local very shallow solo shore dives, so the CESA there. That is why I always am "pro" practicing CESA on those threads. When with a buddy I'm probably down like 80 feet, so I would go for the buddy's air. I have no experience practicing CESA from deep as it would seem there are some risks.

 

Any water deeper than I can stand up in. I think CESA shouldn't be taught at any level. I'm sure many will disagree.

 

If I'm diving solo from a charter than yes I would bring my pony on a 25' reef dive in Key Largo. The primary reason is to have the redundancy so that the dive boat would let me dive solo. I've been denied solo diving on a 25' max dive (SS Copenhagen in LBTS) by a charter boat captain because I didn't bring my pony bottle.

 

Depends on how much I trust my buddy or student not to screw it up. I’ve seen a panicked buddy do it from 94’. I’m sure I could easily do it from 30’.

I’d do a long swim to my wife for air, with a clueless stranger I’d more likely just go for surface.

Normally I’m diving rigged for solo at any depth; accidental entanglement would be 100 times more likely than suddenly having no air.

Sam