Incident—all well

[Catito]

Overall, nicely handled! In the interest of learning, though, the part I quoted seems strange to me. How would the tank become "too heavy" as you ascended?

Steel tank on my back, no air in my BCD. Felt heavy. Even on the surface, fully inflated, the back-inflate BCD requires a little bit of finning to stay up. In a 1.5 mm wetsuit I have a total of 2lbs (or no weight)…and my tank.

 

[drrich2]

Thoughts afterwards

Funny how plenty of time, not being under pressure/stress, low anxiety and not multi-tasking (e.g.: maintaining buoyancy/monitoring self and buddy) frees up the mental bandwidth after the fact.

Now that this situation has made you think, think hard and made it relevant so you'll remember, you'll likely be better prepared for such mishaps in the future.

 

[rx7diver]

... Even on the surface, fully inflated, the back-inflate BCD requires a little bit of finning to stay up. ...

Hmmm. Seems to me that your configuration is too negatively buoyant. I recommend taking the time to do a weight/buoyancy check. (Things change if, for example, you have lost body weight or switched to a thinner wetsuit.)

rx7diver

 

[OTF]

Steel tank on my back, no air in my BCD. Felt heavy. Even on the surface, fully inflated, the back-inflate BCD requires a little bit of finning to stay up. In a 1.5 mm wetsuit I have a total of 2lbs (or no weight)…and my tank.

Do you mean finning to stay upright (the back inflate wants to faceplant pivot you, normal) or you're literally sinking (bad)? If the former, having a little bit less air than fully inflated will allow you to float at the surface in a more relaxed way.

One thing you and everyone should practice for these scenarios is valve fluttering. Having that skill down could massively increase the time you have to problem-solve and control your ascent.

 

[johndiver999]

Trying to take off the tank/BC makes no sense to me in this situation. It sounds like you are uncomfortable with your rig and when the bubbles start flying, your insecurities take hold. I know that it is extremely distracting when it sounds like you got a jet engine behind your head, but you need to be able to respond appropriately.

It sounds like you are quite "insecure" about your BC. Why would you think a regulator failure would impact your ability to control your buoyancy?

I agree that this is a strong indication that you should re-examine your weighting, gear selection, tank selection.

 

[inquis]

Steel tank on my back, no air in my BCD.

Of course, this discussion doesn't have the stress of the moment, but if you're looking for lessons learned... you were neutral (or mostly so) waiting at 25 ft, right? That requires air in the BC. Buoyancy would have increased as you ascended due to expansion of the air in your BC. Hopefully you're never in a similar scenario again, but if you're getting air, the inflator should work as well.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Diving in the Keys. My Buddy and I were in the water at 25ft swimming around the reef near the boat, waiting for the other divers to enter the water. I typically dive with steel tanks. Just as everyone was down and the guide started out, I heard a loud roar. I bumped my Buddy, and pointed to my tank. She immediately gave the thumbs up—and shoved her octo towards me, but I was still getting nitrox so I didn’t take it. She grabbed the first stage of my tank and started pulling me up—and we went up together slowly. As we were going up I started to unbuckle from my BCD in case the steel tank became too heavy—I was going to ditch my gear if necessary and swim to the surface. At the surface she turned off my tank. I swam to the boat, connected up with my second tank while everyone patiently waited at depth, and once back in we had a nice dive. Turns out my O-ring had blown.

Thoughts afterwards:
1. I was happy we were not at 100ft but only 25ft
2. Instead of ditching my gear (which I did not) I could have inflated my BCD before my tank emptied or orally inflated my BCD and ditched my weights.
3. Was proud of my Buddy for her quick action. Neither of us panicked despite all the bubbles and noise…but again, at 25ft the surface is right there.
4. I will inspect my O-rings closer prior to future dives
5. I was happy that the dive op accommodated me and allowed me to switch out quickly and take the dive.

Good for you and your buddy keeping your heads about you.

I hope that you don't ever have to experience the like again.

Thanks for sharing this with us for our learning.

 

[Catito]

Do you mean finning to stay upright (the back inflate wants to faceplant pivot you, normal) or you're literally sinking (bad)? If the former, having a little bit less air than fully inflated will allow you to float at the surface in a more relaxed way.

One thing you and everyone should practice for these scenarios is valve fluttering. Having that skill down could massively increase the time you have to problem-solve and control your ascent.

Exactly…back inflate wants to face plant me. Not about sinking straight down.

 

[johndiver999]

One thing you and everyone should practice for these scenarios is valve fluttering. Having that skill down could massively increase the time you have to problem-solve and control your ascent.

Does any recreational training program support this advice? If a person is diving with a single tank (no redundancy) I am not sure that shutting off your own air supply while underwater is necessarily the proper response.

I'm quite sure that the proper response in this scenario, shallow and with a buddy - is something like signal the buddy, hopefully get an escort and proceed directly to the surface. For an ascent of 30 feet, the problem should be trivial - although it IS very distracting and noisy.

Shutting off your air supply and then having difficulty turning it back on could cascade into a huge problem very quickly, Shutting it off on the surface seems fine to me.

So I have no problem with recommending that people be able to access their tank valve (for a variety of reasons) but implying that a novice diver should shut down their own tank during a failure (like this scenario) seems a little off base.

 

[Marie13]

One thing you and everyone should practice for these scenarios is valve fluttering. Having that skill down could massively increase the time you have to problem-solve and control your ascent.

Feathering the valve on a single backmount tank?