Posted by John Walker on October 29, 2000 at 13:30:56:
In Reply to: 'an alert for those switching to a long primary hose...' posted by kelphead on October 29, 2000 at 00:30:22:
Kelpy, DIR proscribe the use of a long hose on your primary second stage. The octopus is on a short hose and a lanyard holds it in place below your chin. This way you should me able to p/u the octo 2nd stage with you mouth is your hands are unavailable. This also places the octo in one spot unlike most conventional means of stuffing it into a pocket, mounting a retainer on any number of DIFFERENT locations on you BCD. Some choose to just let it drag all over the place.
Unfortunately this will cause an out of diver to search for the octopus because they have to first visually locate it. Seconds can make the difference in drowning or not. More than likely an OOA diver will just go for the one he/she can easily find, in your mouth. DIR trains divers to do just that. Go for the one in the donaters mouth. The donater can easily bow his head and the octo will be right there at the mouth.
The use of a long hose is to deploy anough lenght to negotiate a restriction in an overhead environment or to simply allow anough so that a buddy can menuver aroud you and investigate or rectify a problem with you tanks/regulator.
JW