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Richard Pyle <deepreef@bi*.bi*.ha*.or*> wrote: >... A cave is linear - it has one dimention. The >ocean is much more volumetric - it has three dimentions. What does this >mean? It means stage bottles are one HELL of a lot harder to find in the >ocean than they are in a cave. That's why we clip them off on lines. >Come to think of it, don't you guys clip your stages on lines also? It >seems to me that the only difference is that your lines are horizontal >and always within your reach, while our lines are vertical and must be >found with other forms of navigational skill. I would consider it extremely reasonable to always have a continuous guideline back to anything that you _must_ find, be it the end of the cave that the light shines into, or any gas supplies you're not physically wearing. On a wreck dive, especially in low visibility and when the wreck is partially broken up, it's much much too easy to take a wrong turn and not find the mooring line, as happened to myself and another member of this list a few months ago. This isn't a huge problem if you're set up to send up a bag and do drifting deco and you're carrying your deco gas. Even if you did have a guideline back to the main line, the weather can change and the mooring can break loose. The Great Lakes can kick up really quickly, too. For openwater dives, I feel a lot better about carrying everything I need to finish the dive safely. If I was on a multi-dive expedition far from sources of supply, I might consider hanging a larger bottle in-water, or more likely long hoses from a tank in the boat, but still carry a contingency bottle. If the boat is where I'm looking for it and I deco on its gas and save my bottle for next dive, all the better. If there is a problem and I do have to use it, then I can safely deco but I have to refill it (possibly meaning hopping into the truck for a trip back to civilization if O2 pressure is getting down), but as long as I'm unbent it's not a huge problem. Out in the Pacific, with visibility from here to next week and probably a weather system with more inertia to change, your situation may of course be quite different. -- Anthony DeBoer http://www.onramp.ca/~adb/ adb@he*.re*.or* (here) adb@ge*.co* (work) #include "std.disclaimer"
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