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#I dive in Lake Superior; water temps are just above freezing to about 50 F. #I, like Dr. Lawrie, could never reach a manifold isolator valve because of a #drysuit and thick underwear. I sympathise, it's hard enough for me to reach that far back without the encumbrance of a neoprene drysuit and undersuit: I would prefer not to rely on having to ... #Problem with 2 independent cylinders: A friend of mine nearly died of the #bends in Lake Superior some years back as a result of not opening the valve #on his second cylinder. A small but critical error! That is hardly a small error! It is why new trainees to diving are taught to take a breath while watching the guage .... I find it hard to uinderstand how anyone planning to dive to 190' could become that casual about thier basic pre-dive checks. #He ran out of air at 140 during an ascent from a 190 for 20 exposure. Lots #of permenant damage resulted. Was he narced, or did he plan to empty the first tank before starting the second? #Buddy was below by 20 feet or so and didn't realize the problem in time to #reach him. SOB? #Every equipment configuration has its problems, I guess. If in doubt, blame the equipment. Having read many of the postings on this thread, whilst I used to favour the independants approach I can see a lot of advantages to having a manifold ... providing the connecting valve is routinely kept shut. In the event of a free-flow you simply switch regs (if necessary) and attempt to turn off the offending valve. If you fail for any reason then you are no worse off than you would have been anyway with independants: if you succeed then you just might be able to open the connecting valve and get at the residual air in the first tank. The advantage over having that valve open is simply that your life should not DEPEND on closing it. Hoping this doesn't sound too old-hat Bob Talbot
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