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Shaun snee wrote:
> George,
>> Could you expand on this?
>
I was informed that pony/deco/stage bottles
> should be pressurized prior to the dive and then the valves could be
> closed on the tanks (to be opened periodically to maintain the hose
> pressure).
>
> Is this correct?
>
----reply
Shaun, see the section of that post refering to the "Flawed Concept",
which included a discussion of instruction from a lack of practical
experience. No, it is not correct. What is correct is to always turn the
bottle off and always park the reg. In cave diving, a failure to do this
could reuslt in returning to an empty bottle, and in wreck diving you
propbably notice it, but since you are generally deeper than some of the
gas on you, the real risk is in breathing the wrong gas, and the WKPP
method resolves that issue completely. Always identiy the real risk and
deal with that through a sound regimen.
Turning a reg on should not kill it, even full of water, but
remember back to how you were first taught to turn on a reg: with the
second stage purge button pushed. This prevents the high pressure slam,
and frees the water before you breath. When sharing gas, you should
purge the reg as you had it off as well, and with Poseiden second
stages, you have to as they are full of water even pressurized.
Alway check regs before turning them on to see if the first stage
has turned back and loosened: the colder water than air relieves the
strain you put on it when you attached it, and if it is now just a hair
losose, it may blow its o-ring, espescially with DIN. A good habit of
checking will prevent this. Normally they do not blow all the way with
DIN , and can be turned of and then tightened, and with yoke the o-ring
can be flipped, but just checking first as a matter of proceedure will
pay of in the long run.
Remember that you can always breath a failed first stage by
contolling it with the valve, and this is a real easy thing to do with a
stage bottle - again, the alternative risk to a sound procedure is , as
(I pointed out in the post), a bad solution to a self-inflicted problem.
I really hope we can continue these discussions to shake out some
of the bugs in dive instruction. I guess we are all getting to see how
the really twisted stuff gets going - one twist at at time. Keep the
whole picture in view at all times. - G
--
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