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take a look at this little bit of tom foolery Despite the obvious safety, common sense and superior ergonmics of breathing the short hose and butt mounting the primary light, a vocal minority of ill mannered, myopic pea brains has a different opinion. These people are completely and totally wrong, and it's worth looking at why. Long Hose Versus Short Hose A common myth is that it is better to breath the long hose rather than the short. The most common arguments are that an out of air diver will go for the regulator in your mouth and that it makes for a more streamlined gear configuration. 1.) The out of air diver will go for the one in your mouth. This may be true at times, but it's worth asking why. "Why" is because over-zealous pin heads are telling everyone to go for the one in your mouth because they're breathing the long hose, that's why. It's a problem caused by their remedy. Half the solution to this is to stop breathing the long hose, and anyone who disagrees is a half-wit monkey brained booger eater who should be sterilized to keep from contaminating the gene pool. In addition, the idea that your buddy would be too irrational to take the proper regulator suggests that you're diving with morons. You should have a sign on your back saying, "If you dive with me, you're a panic-proned bed wetter unworthy of a kidney donation should you need one." Anyone who cave dives should be beyond such an uncontrolled response or he's just going to kill you both. If you must dive with such an emotionally unrestrained immature weenie, dive side mounts so you can hand him a bottle and get the hell away from him. 2.) Breathing the long hose provides better streamlining. Such a statement could only come from a mental midget who hasn't bothered to learn how to properly secure a long hose. Properly secure, the long hose is behind your shoulder or tucked between the back plate and the BCD, making it more Hogarthian than those simpletons who claim to be Hogarthian simply by the fact they've got the long hose clamped in their dentures. So where do you run the long hose? Around your neck and under your arm. Okay, suppose you've got the long hose in your mouth and your panicked sh_t for wit buddy grabs it and pulls. You think you can casually slip over your head? Maybe during an S drill, but not when mongo yanks up all the slack in his crazed grasp of air. And since he doesn't have any hose as he cinches it into a well-bound hangman's noose choking the imbecile who chose this arrangement (that would be you) into various cyanotic shades, he's in your face with a bear hug with guess what trapped between you. The second stage that silly you thought you were going to breathe from. Instead, you shuffle off your mortal coil strangling and drowning with a saucer eyed 200 lb adrenalin gland sucking up your gas at a rate that would collapse zeppelin in two minutes. Anyone who hasn't thought this through and disagrees with me is obviously an asinine revolting ignoramus so stupid he would be at risk of being declared brain dead in an auto accident, even if he were just a WITNESS. Butt Mounting the Light The other misdirected mendacity is that side mounting the light is superior to butt mounting (for doubles -- side mount is obviously another issue). Any dolt who believes this could mount his light on his helmet and still call it butt mounting. The fact is, butt mounting is more Hogarthian -- it is clean, out of the way, and leaves your sides unencumbered for stage bottles. Anyone who says there's more risk to the light or cord, or that the location interferes with towing a scooter has cortical lesions and too many neuroinhibitors tripping off. He should discontinue cave diving to put his limited mental resources on more pressing matters, such as breathing. What alternative do these butt butters encourage? Side mounting. Talk about a dangerous set up. Put on your stage bottles, and they smash the crap out of the light, right where the switch is, which is another point, that switches are the weakest part of the light, and the only safe light is one with a twist actuator that eliminates this obvious liability. And, it throws your center of gravity off, so when you swim you look like a wounded fish with a spear stuck up its _______, a situation that will get worse a short time later when you stage bottle unseats the main o-ring, flooding the battery housing and turning a minor trim problem into a major trim hazard, so that you auger into the bottom head and shoulder first, stirring up the bottom into a major siltout, but you won't have any problem finding the line. Why? Because a side mounted light sticks out to the side and you've managed to entangle the line in it. About then, the primary fails (it's flooded, remember?) and the two inches of visibility you had left goes to zip. Before you can grab your backup light, your buddy runs out of gas and panics. He snatches the long hose in your mouth, and the last thing you remember as you wing off to the Pearley Gates is that you're strangling and drowning while entangled in a siltout and thrashing about like a wounded fish with the aforementioned spear, and a saucer eyed 200 lb adrenalin gland is sucking up your gas at a rate that would collapse a zeppelin in two minutes. If only you had breathed short hose and butt mounted your dive light. Anyone thinks differently should wear a sign that says "I'm a nose-picking no load horse dung for brains negative-numbered IQ twerp whose only reason for taking up cave diving was to avoid playing street hockey on I-75 and who has never given a thought to cave diving, not even while actually cave diving, and who should be executed for the public good by repeated dipping in DMSO until I dissolve, and who is so uneducated as to print a run-on sentence like this on a sign and wear it." -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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