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I'm sooooo glad to be able to talk a little about diving...

Andy,

I've been using the AGA mask for about a year now - the real concern most
divers who have even more experience with them than I do express is that if
you have a second stage failure - I mean TOTAL failure - no air coming outta
it - you have to bail out of the entire mask, and take your octo in your
mouth without protection for your eyes (basic OW scuba class).

I'm told (since this has never happened to me) that should you need to do
this in very cold water, it can create a kind of shock to your system that
makes you inhale, thereby causing you mongo problems.

I developed a sort of backup system for this when I was wreck diving in the
South Pacific - It is simple, but since it is my own invention, and I'm not
"Mr. Joe Diver" or even remotely related to Mike Nelson - use it at your own
peril:  I attached a second hose to my LP line, and on the end connected one
of those "air-blower" attachments (for cleaning photo gear, etc.).  Should I
have a prob with the second stage, I practiced slipping the little rubber
tube into my mask, and blowing air periodically.  This would allow you get
the hell out of whatever situation you were in, without requiring you to bail
on your FFM.

Now there are a lot of people who would screech at this, but it was the
simplest, quickest approach I could see to a near impossible failure of the
second stage (more than likely, the second stage would fail in a free-flow
manner, which would just puff your face up with a lot of air - for those of
you who wear FFM's try it sometime - it's kinda cool to bug your eyes
out...).

Of course, the ultimate is to have some kind of switching block on your mask
to switch to a back up second stage, but so far I've only seen that on FFM's
designed for rebreathers.

As for CO2 buildup - the AGA has a "oral/nasal" isolator cup that keeps the
CO2 buildup to a minimum.  Since I was appearing on camera in my latest film,
I took mine out so the audience could see more of my beautiful mug.  I
experienced only one problem that I attribute to excess CO2 - on an 85 minute
dive to 55 feet (on a sunken airplane) - I was breathing pretty shallow, I
guess (BTW- I had stopped smoking, and it was AMAZING how much my gas
consumption improved) - anyway, I got one MONSTER headache by the end of that
dive.

Later, I took the mask down to about 150' and experienced no problems like
that one dive.  It is MUCH SAFER and RECOMMENDED that you DO NOT do what I
did - and if you don't have to appear on camera, then there is no reason for
you to do this.

Anyway - I'm glad if this info helps you.

Later.

Kevin.
HeyyDude

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