DIVE DRY WITH DR. BILL #868: EQUIPMENT FAILURES
In my 58 years of using SCUBA, I have had only a very few incidents of equipment failure. When I was teaching at Toyon Bay in the 60s and 70s, a student of mine wanted to do a dive to 90 ft to film a “worm.” We pulled two tanks off the "filled" rack, but there was no pressure gauge to check them. This was back in the day when SPGs were not commonly used. We ran low on air shortly after reaching depth and discovered our J-valves had already been pulled. Fortunately there was enough air left in my tank to make it to the surface. One could categorize that as operator error though.
Diving at Chumphon Pinnacle off Koh Tao, Thailand, I was on a 100 ft dive when an o-ring blew in my regulator's first stage. Fortunately it was at the beginning of the dive and I could get back to the surface without harm. We got a new regulator from the boat and continued the dive. The first BCD they gave me was so shredded, I had trouble finding the arm holes and rejected it. I'd chalk that up to poor servicing by the dive operator.
Later, I was diving in Tahiti on the same trip. I asked the instructor NOT to touch my gear as I'd take care of it myself. I turned my air on prior to getting to the dive site and gearing up. When I donned my kit and jumped in off the boat, I hit 20 ft and realized I was getting no air. I started kicking up to the surface and the instructor grabbed me by my legs to prevent a rapid ascent. I kicked her and reached the surface with her right behind me. She started chewing me out and I reminded her that since I was diving with only surface air in my lungs I would not experience lung over-expansion and reminded her I said not to touch my gear. She had shut my tank valve off while I wasn't looking!
I had another incident of equipment failure right here in the Casino Point dive park. I had planned to dive to a shallow 40 ft., and didn't take my pony bottle, but a bat ray drew me down to nearly 80. As I reached that depth, the air in my tank stopped flowing! I had to do an emergency ascent from 80 ft. with no air. When I got to the surface, I initially though the fill station had failed to fill my tank, but then I remembered that I had checked my air prior to entering the water. It turned out that a tiny piece of debris inside the tank had fallen into the dip or debris tube as I made a head-first descent!
On one of my deep dives (180 ft) I was slowly returning to shallow water to off-gas when my dive computer failed! The remaining abttery life indicator said 38% so I couldn't understand why. I had gone well into deco and ended up counting off the minutes of deco obligation by the second. I wasn't sure I could count that high, but I did. Ever since then I've dived with redundant computers and only buy ones with user replaceable batteries. That earlier model required a factory service to replace the battery.
Then on a dive at Ship Rock off Catalina's Isthmus, I had a true equipment failure. Ship Rock is one of my favorite Catalina dives as I could get down to 180 or 200 feet and explore the deep. On this particular dive I was on the NE side of the Rock down at 180 ft. All of a sudden I heard a pop. NO, it wasn't part of Tony the Tiger's "snap, crackle and pop." The inner bladder of my BCD had blown a hole in it. I had little control over my buoyancy and a long way to the surface! Oh, and great white sharks are known to frequent the area. Gulp (or not to gulp, that is the question!).
I had also picked up a speargun at that depth that I wanted to bring back to the surface for the boat crew. My hunting days ended back in 1976 when I stopped taking game. Fortunately the burst bladder would still hold a little air so, holding the spear gun and my inflator hose, I kept inflating the BCD all the way to the surface. Most of my forward (er, upward) progress was due to swimming. I was thankful for my years of competitive swimming in my youth.
Having dived to that depth, well beyond the "recreational limit" of 130 ft, I needed to do deco stops to allow the gasses in my body tissues to off-gas so I didn't get decompression sickness. Fortunately the USC recompression chamber was just a mile away if I blew it, but I was able to make several deco stops, then time in the shallows before reboarding the King Neptune dive boat. I did have my 19 cu. ft. pony bottle as backup but didn't need it since I was diving an HP 120 tank with lots of air.
The ascent was a little unnerving as I wasn't 100% sure I'd make it to the surface. Fortunately I remained calm the entire way. One of the most important things I tell divers who want to go solo, is to know how they react to a stressful incident. Fortunately in all the cases I've faced a problem, I've remained calm (in denial?) and worked my way through it. I think that is incredibly important along with a backup air supply and other appropriate gear for diving solo.
© 2020 Dr. Bill Bushing. For the entire archived set of over 850 "Dive Dry" columns, visit my website Star Thrower Educational Multimedia (S.T.E.M.) Home Page
Image caption: Ship Rock off Catalina's Isthmus
In my 58 years of using SCUBA, I have had only a very few incidents of equipment failure. When I was teaching at Toyon Bay in the 60s and 70s, a student of mine wanted to do a dive to 90 ft to film a “worm.” We pulled two tanks off the "filled" rack, but there was no pressure gauge to check them. This was back in the day when SPGs were not commonly used. We ran low on air shortly after reaching depth and discovered our J-valves had already been pulled. Fortunately there was enough air left in my tank to make it to the surface. One could categorize that as operator error though.
Diving at Chumphon Pinnacle off Koh Tao, Thailand, I was on a 100 ft dive when an o-ring blew in my regulator's first stage. Fortunately it was at the beginning of the dive and I could get back to the surface without harm. We got a new regulator from the boat and continued the dive. The first BCD they gave me was so shredded, I had trouble finding the arm holes and rejected it. I'd chalk that up to poor servicing by the dive operator.
Later, I was diving in Tahiti on the same trip. I asked the instructor NOT to touch my gear as I'd take care of it myself. I turned my air on prior to getting to the dive site and gearing up. When I donned my kit and jumped in off the boat, I hit 20 ft and realized I was getting no air. I started kicking up to the surface and the instructor grabbed me by my legs to prevent a rapid ascent. I kicked her and reached the surface with her right behind me. She started chewing me out and I reminded her that since I was diving with only surface air in my lungs I would not experience lung over-expansion and reminded her I said not to touch my gear. She had shut my tank valve off while I wasn't looking!
I had another incident of equipment failure right here in the Casino Point dive park. I had planned to dive to a shallow 40 ft., and didn't take my pony bottle, but a bat ray drew me down to nearly 80. As I reached that depth, the air in my tank stopped flowing! I had to do an emergency ascent from 80 ft. with no air. When I got to the surface, I initially though the fill station had failed to fill my tank, but then I remembered that I had checked my air prior to entering the water. It turned out that a tiny piece of debris inside the tank had fallen into the dip or debris tube as I made a head-first descent!
On one of my deep dives (180 ft) I was slowly returning to shallow water to off-gas when my dive computer failed! The remaining abttery life indicator said 38% so I couldn't understand why. I had gone well into deco and ended up counting off the minutes of deco obligation by the second. I wasn't sure I could count that high, but I did. Ever since then I've dived with redundant computers and only buy ones with user replaceable batteries. That earlier model required a factory service to replace the battery.
Then on a dive at Ship Rock off Catalina's Isthmus, I had a true equipment failure. Ship Rock is one of my favorite Catalina dives as I could get down to 180 or 200 feet and explore the deep. On this particular dive I was on the NE side of the Rock down at 180 ft. All of a sudden I heard a pop. NO, it wasn't part of Tony the Tiger's "snap, crackle and pop." The inner bladder of my BCD had blown a hole in it. I had little control over my buoyancy and a long way to the surface! Oh, and great white sharks are known to frequent the area. Gulp (or not to gulp, that is the question!).
I had also picked up a speargun at that depth that I wanted to bring back to the surface for the boat crew. My hunting days ended back in 1976 when I stopped taking game. Fortunately the burst bladder would still hold a little air so, holding the spear gun and my inflator hose, I kept inflating the BCD all the way to the surface. Most of my forward (er, upward) progress was due to swimming. I was thankful for my years of competitive swimming in my youth.
Having dived to that depth, well beyond the "recreational limit" of 130 ft, I needed to do deco stops to allow the gasses in my body tissues to off-gas so I didn't get decompression sickness. Fortunately the USC recompression chamber was just a mile away if I blew it, but I was able to make several deco stops, then time in the shallows before reboarding the King Neptune dive boat. I did have my 19 cu. ft. pony bottle as backup but didn't need it since I was diving an HP 120 tank with lots of air.
The ascent was a little unnerving as I wasn't 100% sure I'd make it to the surface. Fortunately I remained calm the entire way. One of the most important things I tell divers who want to go solo, is to know how they react to a stressful incident. Fortunately in all the cases I've faced a problem, I've remained calm (in denial?) and worked my way through it. I think that is incredibly important along with a backup air supply and other appropriate gear for diving solo.
© 2020 Dr. Bill Bushing. For the entire archived set of over 850 "Dive Dry" columns, visit my website Star Thrower Educational Multimedia (S.T.E.M.) Home Page
Image caption: Ship Rock off Catalina's Isthmus
