Continued Carbon Monoxide - Cozumel

[DandyDon]

I know that the Pocket CO is sensitive to humidity and cross contamination possibilities, in fact I spoke with the manufacturer about this last week. Since they engineer and make their own sensors, perhaps they can do something about that. I only use mine to test tank air and keep it in a Pelican box between tests.

I kinda want to keep using my Pocket CO as it is a cheaper entry kit for those not yet sold on the need to have something, and it would be nice to see 3 or 4 brands often on the same boat testing.

I was surprised to see these readings coming from that station, but then as good as they are, they are too cheap to install an Analox inline monitor last I heard.

 

[swamp diver]

Are you diving air or nitrox? If the latter the CO concentration in the compressed air used to partial pressure blend the nitrox would have been even higher.

You should see if you can get a tour of the plant. It has been a decade since I toured the place but it would be nice to hear exactly where the intakes are for those two big Norwalk compressors plus their backup Bauer pump. You could see the set up quite easily just by walking by all the open doors around the back on the SE and SW sides of the building. The compressors were along the NE wall of the building.

 

[DandyDon]

Are you diving air or nitrox? If the latter the CO concentration in the compressed air used to partial pressure blend the nitrox would have been even higher.

You should see if you can get a tour of the plant. It has been a decade since I toured the place but it would be nice to hear exactly where the intakes are for those two big Norwalk compressors plus their backup Bauer pump. You could see the set up quite easily just by walking by all the open doors around the back on the SE and SW sides of the building. The compressors were along the NE wall of the building.

We're diving air.

Well, I am not qualified to comment even if I did look around. I'm getting ridicule from one Coz local in PMs, but he won't post in public here for open examination of his arguments - and I won't copy & paste those even anonymously. My co-tester on this trip doesn't want to post for good reasons.

Maybe this Quixotic campaign has run out of gas? There is a real and dangerous problem...

that includes a complete lack of CO inline monitors on this popular dive destination island to my knowledge - along with much of the Latin America and Caribbean Area;

as well as a total lack of CO testers among the stations & operators on Coz that I know of - also possibly true with much of LACA;

and we are getting readings in excess of maximums in the US, Canada, and UK - today 11, 12, and 14!​

But maybe this is all I can do.

Recreational scuba diver deaths are uncommon, so CO deaths must be an even smaller number and maybe most are happy enough with that unsupported probability and not knowing. :sad:

If the fill stations don't care enough to spend a very few pennies a tank on inline monitors, but the tourists keep diving their tanks as long as not too many accidents become public knowledge - now what? I have to wonder if they don't want the inline monitors because they would disrupt production at busiest times, but I am a better cynic than a mind reader.

Maybe I'll just test my tanks when I can.

 

[Divingguy]

Don: that is disappointing that someone is dinging you by pm. Do not let them distract you from the cause, or more importantly from what is supposed to be your vacation. I know the setups and standards of the places where I teach most often, but have obviously been at places where this under-rated hazard has been a concern. I do intend to start doing my own testing, and I have been doing research on units. I know that I and many others appreciate what you are doing. Now go enjoy your vacation.
Tom.

 

[swamp diver]

Don we all appreciate the tireless work you have done on keeping this issue front and centre so don't let up just because of a few uninformed Cozumelenos are giving you a hard time. The beauty of science and hard data is that the facts don't lie but business interests and bruised egos often will.

We all know the facts from the accredited laboratories which routinely show that about 5 percent of dive air submitted is contaminated with carbon monoxide and that is from the fill stations who are concerned enough to send in a sample. The majority don't sample the air so one would expect the rate to be higher from those stations.

For every diver that purchases a personal CO protection device often due to your persistence here on Scubaboard one can be assured that your findings today will be replicated tomorrow. Eventually the true extent of this ubiquitous problem will become evident with more and more divers testing their breathing air.

In our circle of divers a winter has not gone buy in the last three where one of us does not report a trip with a CO contamination problem. I don't dive anymore in the tropics without checking each and every tank beforehand.

 

[cruiser]

Thanks to Don's persistence of keeping the subject of CO testing in the forefront, I've bought an Analox Portable CO tester. Got a Pelican box for it today.

It will be going with me on dive trips and plan to use it on every tank. I hope more people do this, because it will raise the expectation of gas quality, and hopefully the industry will respond accordingly if they want to keep tourist business. And while on the boat, I'll happily test other people's tanks as well, and get the word around that there is such a handy gadget to help us stay safe.

 

[jfcl01]

when will you be using it for the first time?

 

[DandyDon]

I was asked today why this issue has been so long ignored? I have theories, make of them what you choose...

For so many years in recreational diving we did not have inline monitors, much less portable testers, so Padi, DAN and others had no way to address it before - and now, they are so dependent on each other, corporate support, and other business with each other and the dive resorts and operators who advertise and otherwise do business with them - they can't get started. Oh, they could, but it would be messy and costly. We don't really want news agencies to get into this, nor government regulations, as we like our self regulating and don't trust gov regs to be enforced anyway, so how do WE handle this...?

This is the only way I know to go at it - and if you don't have a personal CO tester, you're diving on hope.​

I got permission to quote the local Op from the BS PMs sent to me since I started this thread, but I am into a very busy end of vacation. I'll go over the PMs and post them anonymously next week, with my comments.

The biggest problems in the LACArea of diving tho, as I understand them...

So many think that electric compressors cannot produce CO, but that is totally wrong. They can intake CO from city air or smoke, and they can produce their own internally - especially in warm weather, busy periods, like after the morning dive boats come back.

No compressor on this island is running an inline monitor and no professional is testing to my knowledge, and this is common across the LACArea.​

thanks

 

[cruiser]

when will you be using it for the first time?

I used it yesterday on 4 full tanks I picked up from my LDS. One tank had 1 ppm, the other 3 tanks had 0 ppm.

 

[cruiser]

cruise diver....

100 ppm exposure of CO will produce in some indiviuals flu-like symptoms (head-ache, runny nose, and sore/itchy eyes) So use this as worse case...a mild case exposure. So you wouldn't want your ppm to exceed 100 ppm while at depth.

Any idea how 100 ppm translates into percentage of CO, say at the surface?