OCTOS and Alternate Air Sources** WATCH BEFORE YOU DIVE

[Music] alternate air source is Wow this is a subject that gets a lot of different discussions there's a lot of different points of view but some commonality there I'm Bob Collins and we're gonna be talking about alternate air source --is better known as octaves [Music] alternate air source is versus redundant air sources you hear discussion about these a lot and of course depending on where you shop or who your instructor is there's a certain line of commonality and sometimes there's not so much commonality an alternate air source is basically just something different than your primary air source and most of most folks out there and it's estimated that it's about 80 to 90 percent let's call it 85 percent of the people in the world and the different agencies are trained using what you see right here yellow hose octaves and if you're new to the channel reach down there and hit that subscribe button and look on the channel and you're going to see some other videos about regulators and things along these lines but this video is strictly going to be about I'm just going to call it octaves so octaves come in a number of different variations most octaves are like the one you see right here it's a normal second-stage that you see shape just like your primary second-stage and these come on mostly yellow hoses but most manufacturers that if you look around on the websites and stuff most manufacturers you're going to see make them like this they make them with a 36 to 40 inch hose which of course when you've got this length hose you're really able to get this out there now these come off of the right side so I'm going to put it like it was on the first stage and it's connected and I would reach down and grab it and I would put it forward to the person that needs the air so I would put it out to you like this and I would put it over my arm and I the way I teach it to the instructors dive masters and students I work with I teach it that the hose goes over the arm extend that right shoulder a little bit which gives full extension and again hold the second-stage hose don't hold the second stage itself the reason why is that if I'm holding the second stage itself and somebody's star for air they probably and I think you'll agree with me they probably won't the purge button and if my hands blocking the way then you hear this adage about oh they'll go for the one in your mouth now there's a couple of things that apply to that and what I'm talking about is if you're not fully extending that arm towards somebody that's coming towards you if you're holding it like this with your arm bent well your primary regulators right next to your okto that you're holding out there people don't build that muscle memory about it fully extending that arm out and of course holding it by the hose now many instructors teach that when somebody takes the primary hose to build muscle memory out of their mouth they teach them to grab the hose and turn it and of course this is the primary source and direction that buddy breathing comes from now air sharing with an octo is not buddy breathing buddy breathing is what we used to do when we actually didn't have octaves where we would share our primary air source back and forth with another diver that's buddy breathing there's another type of octo and it's kind of interesting and I'll show it I'll do a close-up here so you can see this this one is actually made by Aqualung and there's some other there's one called the mohrís MV and this particular unit the mouthpiece actually comes off the side and what this does is when it's connected and as a matter of fact I actually use this type of octo myself and when it's connected here or here however you happen to connect it when you reach down and put your hand on this it's a little bit like putting your hand on a pistol grip and when you tuck that elbow in tuck the elbow in and extend it it's in the perfect position and of course your hands out of the way of the purge button you extend it right out to the person coming to you it's in the perfect position there's really no up or down and of course on the normal second stage you know you need to have that mouthpiece up in those vents pointing down otherwise somebody's liable to get a big slurp of water because again underwater air goes up water goes down so hold those second stages in the proper manner and this just naturally goes into that proper position when you extend it so I'm just a huge fan of these Aqualung it's called the ABS octo they're available on the website and they're no more expensive than a good normal octo I'm going to talk briefly about octo inflates and octo flakes or octo inflates or air 2 depending on your vernacular look something like this this is kind of a generic one that I went out and pulled and basically it connects to your bladder and comes over like a normal inflator hangs right here and it's got two buttons on it right here plus it's got a purge on the end and it is one that you could turn if you gave away your primary which is what a lot of people do is when they employ this type of system they tend to do away with their yellow hose octave just remember if you do that 80% 85% of the people in the world if they're out of air and they're coming to you they're looking for that yellow hose and the person coming to you looking for an alternate air system is not necessarily coming to you from the front they may be coming to you from the back so if you've got a yellow hose hanging out there on the side then they're likely to grab that now if you're facing the person what's expected to do is you're expected to take your primary out of your mouth and pass it off to them and then you're to turn your octo inflate turn it and get it into your mouth and start breathing off of it now this is a standard first in second stage I took it right off the showroom out there this is a normal first and second stage so this if it was mounted here and this came around most these hoses are 28 inch hoses maybe 30 most all of these second stages are not mounted on any kind of a swivel it'll turn but it's not a true swivel and most of these unless you get a braided hose are on these stiffer rubber low-pressure hoses so just remember if you're going to be utilizing an octo inflate and your primaries got a 28 inch hose on it 30 which ever now my suggestion remember all these octo come with 36 or 40s so at least spend that you're spending extra money for the octo inflate so spend a few extra bucks and go ahead and get a slightly longer primary hose so that when you do give their primary away to the other diver you're able to keep them a little further away from you than just this so just be aware that when you go to an octo inflate please lengthen your primary regulator hose now let's talk briefly about octo owners I've got one around my neck it's a lot of times known as a necklace and what many divers will do is they will take their alternate air system and they will put it on the necklace so that they know exactly where it is now if you've got it attached to your BCD and one of the normal locations would be like a d-ring down here on your on your BCD some people hook them up here on one of the d-rings up here now again if it's properly attached and mark my word you're going to be out there diving and you're going to see people swimming along and their octo is flapping around behind them because they forgot an octo holder they don't pay any attention but octo holders come in many flavors the necklace this one we see out there that's kind of new it's a magnet this attaches this goes on the hose and you can actually hear how strong that is now a lot of people say I don't want to use that cause that's going to mess up my my compass well guys your compass is located over here and just remember you don't normally use a compass in this position close to it when you're swimming you're in this position and I've tried this many times if you hold it here yes it will affect your compass but if you're in a normal swimming position where you're holding that compass out in line with your body then it's far enough away that it doesn't necessarily affect the compass but if you're you know got trepidation about that or concerned don't don't use this but as dive masters and instruction instructors were constantly you know disconnecting connecting so one of the other ones that's pretty you know popular out there and cheap is the rubber band or some people use snorkel keepers this is just one of the rubber bands this stretch is over and goes over I'll show you this goes over and stretches over the mouthpiece like this and this will connect to the BCD now just remember if you're trying to get this loose I'm going to show you sideways if you grab this and you try to pull it straight forward it's not going to come off of there you need to grab it and pull the octo directly away from the holder so it comes off easily there's also one like this it's got a little clip on it and little spots here two here and one here and these are fairly popular a lot of they're cheap and they come on a lot of the B CDs and such and the only issue that we happen to see with these especially if you put them on these braided hoses is that they slide so you may have your octo in there and it doesn't take long all of a sudden that octo is dangling like this out behind you because it slides in there now these don't slide quite as much if you put them on the real rubber hose comes rubber hose the true rubber hose is so much more you know thicker and these tend to stay a little bit better and when you pull them loose they'll come loose okay so there's a couple of different types of octo holders the necklace the magnet the I call it the bungee or the rubber band and the clip style hopefully this was enlightening for you and if you have any questions or comments maybe you use one of these different types you'd like to leave some comments down below love to read them I appreciate you watching folks I'm Bob Collins as we say here at the diver supply channel dive safe thanks for

Channel: DiversSupply

Views: 2,281

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Octos, alternate air source, octo holders, secondary air source, scuba diving skills, how to use a octo, what do you do if you run out of air while scuba diving

Id: Qe9RCAgQh5s

Length: 14min 0sec (840 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2019