At 10:23 PM 1/18/99 -0500, Jim Cobb wrote:

>I am surprized that the boats 
>baby-sit the divers up there like that, I thought that was a Fla Keys 
Most of them don't. But some do. Actually I just re-checked their policies.
The Jeanne II says "redundant air source is strongly recommended" and the
Eagle's Nest says that it is required only for penetration dives.
Some of the boats have a high proportion of inexperienced divers (or
inexperienced in the Northeast) on them, and they feel it is necessary to
make sure that these people get into the water with a little redundancy so
that if they do something stupid (which they often do), they don't get
killed. In general, the divers I see on the Wahoo are a little more advanced.

>The solution to this is to get a scooter and when you hit the wreck, 
>crank that baby wide open and head as far as possible from the anchor 
>line as fast as you can. 

That sounds like a great idea. Do you have a spare scooter you could lend
me from April through November? 

>do. Then drop your own hang line and avoid the fist-fight at the hangbar. 
We don't have "hangbars" here. You have to hold on to the anchor line or
use a jon line. Or just keep swimming against the current...

>And if you are wondering if a using a scooter will leave your mystery 
>so-called "buddy" far behind, yes, it sure will. It suuuure will.

Are you implying that I routinely dive solo?

>create a set double 50's. If you feel that you cannot 
>possibly do the dive on a single tank then DIR and use doubles or don't 

Double 50's sound like a great idea for April. Got an extra set you can
loan me?

>Then the dive was not doable on a single tank.

Sure it was. But it wouldn't've been good for the tank. Or I could've
skipped the "safety stop" as you recommend.

>As I have said, if you have to plan for catastropic disasters on every 
>dive then you are better off with 2 ponys, right? Or three? Where do you 
>draw the line? Why did you draw it there? I have voiced where *I* draw 
>the line and the reasons for it. Nobody else has so far.

One could argue like this about all sorts of redundancy. How many backup
lights should I carry? Perhaps I shouldn't carry any backup lights at all,
since I know how long the burn time of my primary is, and my buddy has a
primary light, too.

>But there it is, hanging off your tank, unreachable, you cant remove it 
>and then put it back on, you can't see if it is leaking, how can you 
>depend on it? A: you can't.

I would like to argue that the pony should be reachable. I can reach the
valve on my pony bottle. It's just a little harder to reach than the valve
on my primary, but still reachable. As far as seeing if it is leaking, well
I can't see if the valves of my doubles are leaking either, without taking
my gear off. I know one guy who carries a mirror so he can look at the
valves on his doubles and see if they are leaking. Granted, the guy uses
bondage wings and dives solo (no buddy to tell him that his tanks are
leaking), but his doubles and sling bottle configuration are correct.

>A safety stop is a convenience item, not a requirement. If my dive got so 
>fucked up that I lost all the air in my main tank, I think I'll just go 
>ahead and skip the old safety stop and get the hell out of the water, if 
>you know what I mean.

Given that kind of choice, I would blow off a safety stop, or even my deco.
I'd like to be around to keep diving for as many years as possible. But --
for my personal preference (yikes!) a safety stop is a *requirement*. Knock
on wood, I've never been bent. Maybe I would never have been bent if I
didn't do any safety stops either, but why leave it to chance?

>>I will admit it, on two occasions I have needed to use my pony bottle. Both
>>times were in no-deco situations, and I didn't have enough gas in my tank
>>to complete my safety stop without draining my main tank below 500 psi.
>>This was due to complete and unforgivable strokery on my part. I made a
>>mistake. And I learned from it.
>
>I will bet that it would only have been ONCE if you didn't have your 
>"blanky" (as my son calls his tattered blanket he drags all over the 
>place) pony with you. Maybe not even once.

Or maybe everything would've come out okay -- I wouldn't've been bent and
my tanks would have passed inspection for another year, and I'd decide that
it was okay after all to routinely blow off safety stops.


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