Why give primary instead of alternate regulator?

Depends on where you live.

My reality is typical North European club diving. In that reality most - if not nearly all - people dive like that. Ask any Scandinavian, British or continental North European diver who dives locally. I assume your reality is warm water resort diving. It may well be that most people in your reality don't dive like that; I wouldn't know. The number of dives I have under such conditions can easily be counted on two hands.

 

I know - and have dived with - a bunch of people who prefer a long hose config. I prefer that myself, for my own reasons. And I've never gone into deco (nor do I plan to).

Long hose primary donate isn't something that's confined to cave or staged deco diving. And I can live very well with the occasional ribbing about being "wannabe tech".

 

I would submit that there is one reality, but many different local circumstances. Are we going down the tree, fall, forest, nobody, sound road?

 

My problem here is that while I've been in one or three situations which might have been a bit sticky if I weren't properly prepared, they've only been minor or moderate annoyances to me.

So what makes for a sticky situation? I'll be arrogant enough to suggest that poor planning and poor training (or forgetting proper training because it isn't re-trained regularly) can make a lot of situations unnecessarily sticky.

 

Here on the Great Lakes, as well. A lot of people here dive drive with a tech gear setup, pony, maybe doubles. And they are only recreational divers. No tech training, probably never will do any. The warm water people make constant comments about “you tech divers.”

 

Hi OP,

I think the main point that is underlying this thread is to know the diver(s) you are diving with. If you are diving with a gaggle of newbs, expect to be mugged. Dive with that thought TOM (top of mind). Have a contingency plan.

If you are diving with experienced divers who are well trained and who have made mistakes or suffered u/w equipment failures, then consider hog looping your primary and necklacing your back-up. I do. I also dive with a Shearwater DC. I was also trained and practiced the donate procedure under the tutelage of a Tech instructor.

But I try to avoid newbs. I try to dive Solo or with experienced divers, exclusively. I try to avoid the former military diver who may be having flashbacks to BUD school and thinks he is doing a service to divers by intentionally mugging them of their primary and trapping their necklaced back-up to their chest. (See post #102)

Diving with Tech trained divers (while diving recreationally), photo divers, and other highly experienced recreational divers is my sweet spot.

I am not an instructor nor a DM. It is not my job to train or test inexperienced divers. If you think you would like training or diving with newbs, good for you. It is probably very enjoyable. Be prepared though, and you should be configured the way they were trained.

cheers,
markm

 

I actually enjoy diving with n00bs.

When I was a n00b myself, I learned immensely from diving with more experienced clubmates. Diving with - and mentoring - n00bs is a way to pay back my debt to the diving community. Their gas consumption may be twice of mine, so what? Let's just plan for a shallower dive, and I'll get my 45-60 minutes underwater anyway. They need a bit more monitoring, so what? I can live with spending a bit more of my mental bandwidth on my buddy and a little less on my photography. I just love seeing that n00b having a minor light bulb moment or two. And if that's because of me, so much the better.

For me, that's what buddy diving is about. When I'm diving I'm not a single diver, I'm a part of a team. Sure, that team has its limitations. So what?

 

Hi Storker,

I am happy for you. To each his own.

I also enjoy diving in a good buddy team. I enjoy following a dive plan and accomplishing pre-planned goals. If I were your wingman, I would be in formation like a Blue Angel or a Thunderbird.

cheers,
markm

 

Every diver is trained to signal to request the donation of air - no diver is going to fail to realize how incredibly "rude" it would be to just snatch a reg from another's mouth.

Perhaps your injection of the bravado claim is associated with the comment about a pre-dive communication that: "you will take my primary in an emergency"? Of course nobody wants a reg ripped from their mouth. If the mouth piece is weakly attached, the mouth piece could remain in the donor's mouth and the victim, would be getting a reg without one - not good. It could also quite possibly result in the flooding of the donor's mask at the worst possible time - also bad. I view it this way: if a diver is reasonably calm, he is going to signal his desire to acquire a second stage, if so then a donation is made. If the diver is panicked - he is going to TAKE what he sees.

If I were in need of an alternate air supply, and the buddy was not using an AIR 2, then I think I would initially try to secure a safe second which was attached on the triangle or something. But in the back of my mind, I know that if I were really in trouble, I would be going for the reg which has bubbles coming out of it. I don't think that is a claim of bravado, but rather an acknowledgement of the natural survival instincts of humans.

I just don't get the superstar theme which you seem to be interjecting here. As I think about it, the "superstar" attitude might be more applicable to people who claim that they would never "allow" a reg to be snatched and they would successfully fight to retain possession.

If a diver is coming at you with eyes bugging out and no reg in their mouth, you better be working on getting something ready for them to use before they arrive. If they "attack" from above and behind, nobody is going to be retaining a regulator when someone grabs that hose.

If you want to test if someone (presumably a regular dive buddy) is really prepared to do primary donate, why not approach them from the front, with your regulator out of your mouth, gently grab the hose of the primary and you should instantly get feedback about whether they are going to "spit and release" or if they are going to start flailing around? You might get a forearm to the face, but at least the both of you are going to have a better understanding of the other diver's skills.