Posted by Kendall Raine on October 16, 2001 at 11:50:57:
In Reply to: Re: Bad advice - don't agree posted by Jason on October 15, 2001 at 22:02:42:
Hi Jason;
I'm glad it works for you. I used to use that loop method as well until I got tired of loosing the second. In those days I needed a loop since I breathed the short hose. Ugh. To me it was like driving on a worn tire. Sooner or later... The problem is that in a real emergency, the last thing you need is to be looking all around for your second.
With the thin shock cord, I can wear the necklace under my chin tight enough to get it in my mouth hands free. It's also more comfortable once in the mouth than having the surgical loop around the base of the mouthpiece. Lastly, if I need to, I can use the shock cord as a strap to hold the reg in my mouth as a precaution against a tox hit-not something most people need worry about.
Will using surgical tubing kill you? Probably not. It will last for a long time before rotting (it will rot eventually) and can be tightened enough so that it's unlikely to slip out-that of course puts greater stress on the tubing-but it will still last a while.
The bottom line is why use a solution which is suboptimal? You suggest that you don't want to be bothered with changing it. Fine. Don't. For me, and the people I dive with, that logic doesn't cut it. But it's a free country. To us, suboptimal is wrong and optimal is right. Is it static? No. It evolves and when we find a better way, we integrate it and the old method is discarded. The idea of either right or wrong, versus personal preference, makes lots of people here uncomfortable. I can't help that.