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In a message dated 1/14/99 6:27:19 PM EST, cobber@ci*.co* writes: << Janet- When I bash something like a pony it is from personal experience, I did not pull my critisizems out of my ass. And using a pony to practice for using doubles? a single and a pony is two tanks isnt it ? people can get the idea of routing their hoses on there regulators , putting the second regulator on a neck lanyard , get used to the concept that in the event of a failure to go to their alternate air supply , and make an ordely ascent instead of bolting to the surface . Man, talk about bullshit! Come on, Janet, what on earth are you talking about here? You practice for doubles by wearing doubles. How do you practice valve drills with a pony? jim do not be deliberately obtuse , of course you practice valve drills on manifolded doubles ......Its a lot less difficult to learn that when you already have the aforementioned concepts well ingrained . when you are teaching someone to drive a car you do not use a big fourty yard dump truck as driver training vehicles. Hell, most people who have ponys can't even reach the damn valve. You're going to have to do better that this... -If you can't reach the surface with the air that's in your tank after you've had a LP hose failure you should not be diving. more bullshit .....what if the dam hose blows cause you yank or bang it at an inoppurtune moment , for example 110" in the debris field of the SAN DIEGO wreck armpit deep in a hole after lobster , slightly tangled in monofiliment .....you want to do an emergency boyant ascent or a controlled ascent up an anchorline , with an inviolate supply of air of your own , with perhaps a safety stop , and somthing to breath comfortably while you climb the ladder in 5 foot waves ? with your buddy if you have one just swimming near by ready to lend a hand . -You get a DIN valve to get rid of the "oring failure phobia". yeah yeah yeah ....who ya goin to rent a din valved single from ....if you dont own your own tanks ? -How about inspecting your gear before you dive in? Oh, to hell with that, I've got a PONY. -So you're telling me that you can strap a 40lb piece of lead to the side of your BC and not feel it? JIM .....you know dam well the thing is not 40 pounds negative in the water Oh, come on, it's downright comical to see the ponyboys stagger around the deck with their silly jacket BCs half pulled off from the pony bottle. SEE ....nice guy you are .....instead of MOCKING people ....HELP them adjust their rig .....tighten up the straps ......move the pony so it is against their back pack or let them try on your doubles after the dive during the surface interval so they can see if they like them ....with your gas managment skills there ought to be enough to fool around at the surface and up the dive ladder with left in your doubles ...i let people try my stuff.... - Why can't you just manage your air supply? You can dive to 80' on a 40 if you know when it's time to turn around. What is your problem with proper air mgmt? Look .....I am not talking about Me ....i dive with duel manifoled 100+ cu ft tanks wings , and two flavors of decompression gas .....usualy i am in the water for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours ....i have no difficulty with air management BUT ....there is little to nothing i can do for someone ( customer) who embolizes the shit out of them selves in an out of air emergency( they will die before i can get them to a chamber) ......i prefer divers who arrive at the surface with a working air supply in there mouths.. -Fencing invisible dragons is a popular side-line with scuba divers. Some guys look like fucking chrismas trees what with all their whistles, clips, mirrors, lights, bags, sacks, knives hanging all over them. Ponys are the worst of the lot. JIM...you should be helping people straighten out all that shit or just shut up and stop making fun of them I have not forgotten my roots. As a matter of fact I thank the pony for quickening my switch to doubles. When I had a pony my thought after every dive was "man, the fucking pony sucks, theres got to be a better way". And there was! Of course doubles are nice ......but not for everyone on all dives .....for example one of my clients a scuba diving instructor .... a 110 pound woman on a night dive on the oregon ( 130') on a choppy night has double 107's manifolded but choses instead to wear wings and a back plate , canister light a single 100 with a pony , for a quick 30 minute lobster dive .....much more enjoyable for her to manage than the doubles she wore the next day on her 50 minute bottom time dive with nitrox decompression ....and i dive it with 20/12/68 in double tanks with nitrox and oxygen stage bottles And don't go throwing that implied "nazi cave diver" crap at me. As I have said dozens of times on this list, I really don't care how screwed up a rig people choose to dive with. It makes absolutely no difference to me what horrors folks try to put themselves through before they see the light. I am just trying to save some folks some dough and keep them from making the same mistakes I've made, nothing more. I cant imagin anything less versitile than a y-valve ....no one in there right mind would cave dive with the thing ....who the hell....what kind of a nut ..... gos caving with a single ???? you can have eleven regulators on a tank if its empty none of them will deliver air I am all for saving folks dough ........but given a choice between buying a y-valve and a 30 or 40 pony tank that can be used for many things i would say that a pony is more usefull....a 40 pony rigged as a stage bottle... is enough deco gas for a lot of decompression dives in the 100 - 130 range And I really don't like the "I've got more dives than God, therefore I know everything and am much smarter than you" crowd like you dispensing the DEMA party line all the time, fuck all that. DEMA ?????DEMA i only ever went to a DEMA show about 8-years ago on my way driving down to key west to dive ....DEMA has nothing to do with me NO jim ......its not all the dives i have got ......its the experience i have seeing what people do to get them selves into trouble ......people with a working air supply of some kind are in much better shape ...than dives who have a single tank and run out of air or have a regulator malfunction and have to get to the surface with nothing to breath on the way up ...and are in a complete screaming panic when they hit the surface .....glup down salt water while we drag their asses back on the boat and are completly freaked ....instead of calmly ( or not so ) calmly swimming back or waiting on scuba while we swim out and get them ,then deal with any possibe deco obligations or other problems There's a better way now, wake up and smell the roses, use your brain and quit dispensing the same old bullshit. >> You seem to think i have a vested intrest in selling pony bottles .....nope ......i am really only interested in less stressfull dive days for me and the crew....hysterical screaming , water gulping , then puking , sobbing , praying ..divers tend to disturb everyones peace and tranquility on the boat and make it not fun -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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