Cyprian
Contributor
This is a little long, but perhaps worth a read if you have time. Its actually amusing now, but I wasnt very happy to start the day.
Subzero and I met at CSSP this Saturday (1/28/2012) for a couple dives. Actually we planned three dives, but Murphy arrived quickly on my side of the fence.
We met at the fill station and moved right across the road to dive.
We get our gear out and start the setup. I turn on my valve at the first stage starts leaking. Instead of using my brain and testing all hose connections I reach down and feel, what I believe to be, air leaking from the DIN connection. Bad DIN o-ring, or so I thought (more on this later), which baffled me because this reg set was recently serviced and taken care of with a couple of dives and limited time out of the reg back since the service.
Ok, fine, I pull out my trusty save a dive o-ring kit and borrow a multi-tool from subzero since I conveniently left mine. I get the o-ring out and start trying to match it. Guess what? Apeks DIN o-rings are 111s not 112s. There are no 112s in my kit. Subzero pulls out his o-ring kit ..same story! I shouldve read a little more about Apeks DIN o-rings on the boards, heh?
So, since I try to avoid missing a dive, luckily I brought a backup reg set (actually very lucky, but even more on this later). So I go to get it and put up my primary set (Apeks XTX 50 DST with XTX 40 secondary) .and the dry suit inflator hose turns in my hand! I immediately feel as if the word Idiot appeared on my forehead. I pull the original o-ring back in the DIN fitting and tighten my dry suit inflator hose, connect to the tank and, whatdaya know it works fine.
We finish our setup and head to the water. Subzero is first in and is waiting on me. I pop my fins on and jump in the water and BLAM the XTX 40 second starts massive free flow! Crap, Subzero comes over, we get it collected .I hit the purge, pop it a few times in my hand and nada, it wont stop. Valve off, valve on, valve off, valve on .it wont stop. So now Im getting extremely frustrated. I didnt drive 1hr 45 mins to just pack up and go home. Subzero asks me what I want to do and I tell him Ill be back in a few.
I walk up the stairs, stomp over to the covered area and take off my BC, hood, gloves, etc. Heres where Im glad I brought the other reg set. I take the AL Micron second/octo off of that set and put it on mine. No problems.
I re-kit up and jump back in the water ..all is good. I descend and, in my haste, I didnt get the mask skirt under the hood properly and my mask floods! Yipee. I clear it and it starts slowly leaking. With gloves on, I start messing with the skirt because now I am so aggravated that there is no way that Im going to miss this dive. I dont care if I have to clear this mask 50 times. Well, I got the mask problem taken care of, but in the process, Ive lost subzero!
We agreed to go to a training platform so I headed that way, I came up to 15 and hovered over the platform for a couple minutes and did not see him. So I surfaced and in a matter of 15 seconds saw his bubbles almost directly under me. Since we were just minutes into the dive and I had only reached about 22 feet in depth, I descended to meet him.
After this, thank God, everything went smooth .lol. We finished out that dive and did one more nice and peaceful dive.
Many thanks to Subzero for his patience and understanding as well as the tips and suggestions that he offered. He stayed close by while I played with buoyancy and weighting on my 4th and 5th dry suit dives. I am happy to report that I learned quite a bit.
Subzero said I did pretty well, although I think he might have been feeling a little sorry for me after that fiasco of a start. LOL.
Oh, and Ive already ordered 111 DIN o-rings!
Thanks for reading,
Cyp (Never Give Up!)
Subzero and I met at CSSP this Saturday (1/28/2012) for a couple dives. Actually we planned three dives, but Murphy arrived quickly on my side of the fence.
We met at the fill station and moved right across the road to dive.
We get our gear out and start the setup. I turn on my valve at the first stage starts leaking. Instead of using my brain and testing all hose connections I reach down and feel, what I believe to be, air leaking from the DIN connection. Bad DIN o-ring, or so I thought (more on this later), which baffled me because this reg set was recently serviced and taken care of with a couple of dives and limited time out of the reg back since the service.
Ok, fine, I pull out my trusty save a dive o-ring kit and borrow a multi-tool from subzero since I conveniently left mine. I get the o-ring out and start trying to match it. Guess what? Apeks DIN o-rings are 111s not 112s. There are no 112s in my kit. Subzero pulls out his o-ring kit ..same story! I shouldve read a little more about Apeks DIN o-rings on the boards, heh?
So, since I try to avoid missing a dive, luckily I brought a backup reg set (actually very lucky, but even more on this later). So I go to get it and put up my primary set (Apeks XTX 50 DST with XTX 40 secondary) .and the dry suit inflator hose turns in my hand! I immediately feel as if the word Idiot appeared on my forehead. I pull the original o-ring back in the DIN fitting and tighten my dry suit inflator hose, connect to the tank and, whatdaya know it works fine.
We finish our setup and head to the water. Subzero is first in and is waiting on me. I pop my fins on and jump in the water and BLAM the XTX 40 second starts massive free flow! Crap, Subzero comes over, we get it collected .I hit the purge, pop it a few times in my hand and nada, it wont stop. Valve off, valve on, valve off, valve on .it wont stop. So now Im getting extremely frustrated. I didnt drive 1hr 45 mins to just pack up and go home. Subzero asks me what I want to do and I tell him Ill be back in a few.
I walk up the stairs, stomp over to the covered area and take off my BC, hood, gloves, etc. Heres where Im glad I brought the other reg set. I take the AL Micron second/octo off of that set and put it on mine. No problems.
I re-kit up and jump back in the water ..all is good. I descend and, in my haste, I didnt get the mask skirt under the hood properly and my mask floods! Yipee. I clear it and it starts slowly leaking. With gloves on, I start messing with the skirt because now I am so aggravated that there is no way that Im going to miss this dive. I dont care if I have to clear this mask 50 times. Well, I got the mask problem taken care of, but in the process, Ive lost subzero!
We agreed to go to a training platform so I headed that way, I came up to 15 and hovered over the platform for a couple minutes and did not see him. So I surfaced and in a matter of 15 seconds saw his bubbles almost directly under me. Since we were just minutes into the dive and I had only reached about 22 feet in depth, I descended to meet him.
After this, thank God, everything went smooth .lol. We finished out that dive and did one more nice and peaceful dive.
Many thanks to Subzero for his patience and understanding as well as the tips and suggestions that he offered. He stayed close by while I played with buoyancy and weighting on my 4th and 5th dry suit dives. I am happy to report that I learned quite a bit.
Subzero said I did pretty well, although I think he might have been feeling a little sorry for me after that fiasco of a start. LOL.
Oh, and Ive already ordered 111 DIN o-rings!
Thanks for reading,
Cyp (Never Give Up!)
