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Michael, If you have never seen a Poseidon freeflow, then you haven't been diving them enough. Sooner or later the HP seat will wear, producing anything from a trickle freeflow to a full-blown massive free flow. Same for the second stages. I am not saying that Poseidon's are prone to develop freeflows, but that, like any mechanical device, it can and will happen with them. (I dive exclusively with Poseidon, and would hate to total up how many of them I own - my wife would probably kill me - however, since they all look alike, when a new one appears in the gear box, she cannot tell since they all look the same <grin>) However, the rationale for the long hose and short hose is that the vast majority of cave diving done in the states is done with a buddy, and with major restrictions (a major restriction is a one person restriction), in an out of air situation, the long hose makes negotiating the restriction much easier than with 2 standard length hoses. Either you are responsible for your partner, in which case a longer hose is pretty much essential, or you are diving strictly solo, in which case both hoses of standard length are acceptable. However, in Florida, the diving traffic in most of the springs is high enough that even if you were diving solo, one day you may be approached by a diver who has become separated from his buddy and has run out of air (this has happened to me once, and I have many second hand stories of similiar incidents), so I continue to have one of my hoses long when diving in Florida. The major problem with long hose vs. short hose is probably for most divers a theoretical one, in that MAXIMUM flow thru a hose is inversely related to the length. After going to the expense and effort to get what I feel are some of the highest performance regulators, why would I use the second stage connected to the longer hose, and thus, (theoretically) reduce the performance in a high demand situation???? Bottom line is that when diving deep (200ft +), I use 2 short hoses. When diving shallow, I use one long and one short, but I still breathe off the short hose. My buddy is more than welcome to take the regulator out of my mouth, and I will go to the long hose second stage. Once things have calmed down (again, I definitely would prefer my out of air partner to get the regulator that delivers the maximum air to allow him to meet his ventilatory requirements during a period of high stress), we would then switch to the standard configuration (me on the short hose and him on the long hose) and exit the cave. I hope that I have not been too long-winded here. Take care and safe diving - John Submariner Research, Ltd. (johncrea@de*.co*)
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