curse of the quarry

[Jbell8289]

Just thought id ramble about my first experience diving in a quarry. Im a fairly new diver, i rent my gear which ive done b4 with no problem...but...this time im at home the night b4 the trip getting everything together and i go to check the regs hook one set up to the tank, works fine...second set nothing but free flow.... crap....i check the purge push it a few times ( im not reg savy ...yet) no luck dive shop is closed doesn't open till 2 hrs after our schedule departure time...fine ill rent a reg at the quarry dive shop only 12 bucks....GPS says trip will take 3hrs 15 min...4 hrs later we are getting off the exit...i hate GPS. Arrive at quarry, which by the way is Pelham Al. Blue water adventures, no one is home lol shop is locked only 3 cars in the parking lot, but sign says their open, talked to two divers who just surfaced they say owner is "out" 15 min later he shows up lets us in and we rent a set of regs and a pair of fins...nice guy...
temp outside 100+ way to hot for a full suit gloves and hood but oh well thats life. water temp according to computer is 91 on surface still too hot. set gear up rental reg #2 is now making a hissing noise and blowing out a good bit of air...decide to go with it anyways just to the training platform at least. Finish gearing up only the mask left which has been sitting in the sun while i get ready, put it on over my head, press it against my face to suction and CRACK...mask lens shatters...i liked that mask...luckily we have a spare, although it is cheap and way to small...leaks constantly and gives me a headache from squeezing my face. Run up the hill to get the spare mask ( in full gear) almost have heat stroke...get mask, get in water, water is murky 15 feet vis dive for 15 min, then surface...decide where to go next...second time down buddy's ears wont clear bc they have a cold cant go deeper than 15 feet. I stray away a little and go to 35 to cool down we goof off at 15 feet for abt half an hr....we surface....right into a thunderstorm....throw gear in car ...pay ....drive 4 hrs back home....done

 

[tstormdiver]

That does sound like a bad day diving (still better than a good day at work).

Question,.... Why didn't you & your buddy get into the water & cool off a little between putting on your exposure protection & getting into your gear? That would have made things much more tolerable heat- wise. If it is hot outside, I strongly encourage my students to set up their gear, get into their exposure protection, get in the water & cool off, put on equipment then we go on our training dive.

Unfortunately problems with rental equipment is a reality. Even personally owned equipment can malfunction, but because rental equipment gets used all the time & does not always get serviced as often as it should, malfunctions are a bit more common.
I wouldn't blame the quarry itself for such a bad day (you only reported that it only had bad vis- which is good compared to what I've been diving in lately), it appears there was a cascading effectthat caused things to go bad. Rental gear-> malfunctions, Hot day-> overheating & cracked mask,..... Sometimes thats how the cookie crumbles,......:cool2:

 

[Jbell8289]

very true..it def wasn't the quarries fault it was a nice place actually and i look forward to going back, just thought id blow off some steam....and as for gearing up in the water, we did do that eventually but the water really wasn't all that refreshing on the surface, but it did make it a little easier putting everything on.... thankfully this will probably be the last dive that i have to do in rental equipment i should be getting my own rig in a couple of weeks.

but i agree a bad day diving was def better than a good day at work.