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Quote:
| Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] ]I dive with some one who swears by a Buddy with auto air inflator, but the downside of that is if it failed there's no way to manually inflate so you need a backup, which defeats the object. |
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Eh?
Assuming you mean the Buddy dSMB with a crack-bottle on it, this is a standard dSMB with a bottle attached- if the bottle doesn't work, you inflate it via the normal method.
Buddy don't MAKE a self-inflator that can't be manually inflated.
I can highly recommend the Buddy self-inflator, BUT only if you don't use the bottle until you're competant to deploy a dSMB manually, for the exact reason stated above - the bottle doesn't always work.
Personally, I carry two dSMBs because there are too many things that could make you loose one - reel jams on deployment, line breaks, boat hits dSMB, etc etc.
Heads' advice is good, though when you get more practiced at it, you should learn how to deploy the dSMB without your buddy helping you - nothing worse than being separated from your buddy on a drift dive and being unable to deploy your own dSMB.
Whichever method you use, the shallower you try it, the better - if you have a problem, you can try it again, and if you can get the thing to fully inflate in 2m depth, you'll have NO problem getting enough air into it at 20m.