My wife and I are still novices (AOW with 40 dives) and we've always used good rental equipment in the past. On recent trip to the Philippines we convinced two of our friends to come along and get their OW cert. The wife and I did a heap of fun dives while they completed their course. So now they are certified although only with the four OW dives that come with the course. The place we were staying at was booked out and our reservation ran out so we headed to another area to do some diving together.
This dive centre was pretty shoddy. I'm no equipment specialist but alarm bells were ringing at how dodgy this place looked. Equipment obviously hadn't been cleaned after dives and there was sand and **** all through where all the equipment was kept. The instructor handed me a BCD to use and I refused as the inflator was too sticky and just generally screwed. He told we there wasn't anything else and I said fine, we'll cancel the dive then. Magically he produces a BCD that was a bit better. What I didn't know was that when I was checking everything he then handed the BCD I rejected to one of my newly certified friends.
So we're all on the boat and I'm looking at my cracked SPG and the dodgy clasp on my BCD's tank strap. Everyone else also has various minor problems with their equipment. We're diving on a wreck that's in 35m of fairly clear water (10m vis). My recently certified mates are concerned about going so deep but the instructor says that there's no current and they'll be with an instructor so it's cool. As I was worried about our ****ty equipment I told everyone (when the instructor wasn't in ear shot) to stick especially close together and be ready to support everyone else becuase the gear's so crappy. I didn't know that this bit of advice would save my friends life!
We decend down the line. I'm with my wife as one pair of buddies and our two mates are buddied up but I was keeping a close eye on them. When we get to the wreck my friend (with the dodgy BCD) suddenly goes flying uncontrolably to the surface! I happened to be looking at him at the time as he seemed to be having some kind of trouble and luckily I was able to power up to him and yank on the emergency dump valve on his BCD. His BCD was continusouly filling. With my hand on the dump valve I tried to disconnect his LPI but it was stuck solid! We get the attention of the instructor eventually and he takes over signaling to me that all is OK. I go back to my wife and we cruise around the wreck and it was great! I bumped my tank while going through a narrow passage in the wreck but it was cool going into this ship. About five mintues later I look over and my mate is on the instructors octopus being led around. By this time we had one minute left of no-deco time and needed to ascend. By the time we started to head up I could hear the instructors computer beeping away like crazy.
We go up to 10m and the instructor signals that we need to stay here for 10 minutes. The problem, he's got only 30 bar left after having my mate on his octo, my mates got 10 bar left, I've got 50 due I guess to my SPG which was pissing out bubbles the whole dive. The instructor puts my mate on my octo as he needs all his air now. At this moment, the dodgy clasp on my tank strap breaks and my nearly empty tank starts floating up. Now my mate and I have a tank hanging above our heads trying to pull the regs out of our mouths. My wife goes and tries to re-attach my tank but it's no use. By this time I've got less than 20 bar left and the isntructor signals that we now need to make a 5m 3min safety stop. I pass my mate to my wife's octo. She's pretty good with air consumption so she had enough left to spare. Our other friend isn't good with air and didn't have enough to spare. In the end we all get to the surface with basically empty tanks.
An absolute gong show that I think we were all lucky to walk away from!! A big factor in this I think was that we all stayed calm (kudos to our recently certified friends for this!) and knew each other so well.
What I've learnt:
I've now promissed myself that no matter how much I'm looking forward to a dive to always abort it if I'm not happy with the equipment that I or the other people in the group are using. This incident has also convinced me to get my own gear so I can keep it well maintained and hopefully never have to deal with this situation again!
This dive centre was pretty shoddy. I'm no equipment specialist but alarm bells were ringing at how dodgy this place looked. Equipment obviously hadn't been cleaned after dives and there was sand and **** all through where all the equipment was kept. The instructor handed me a BCD to use and I refused as the inflator was too sticky and just generally screwed. He told we there wasn't anything else and I said fine, we'll cancel the dive then. Magically he produces a BCD that was a bit better. What I didn't know was that when I was checking everything he then handed the BCD I rejected to one of my newly certified friends.
So we're all on the boat and I'm looking at my cracked SPG and the dodgy clasp on my BCD's tank strap. Everyone else also has various minor problems with their equipment. We're diving on a wreck that's in 35m of fairly clear water (10m vis). My recently certified mates are concerned about going so deep but the instructor says that there's no current and they'll be with an instructor so it's cool. As I was worried about our ****ty equipment I told everyone (when the instructor wasn't in ear shot) to stick especially close together and be ready to support everyone else becuase the gear's so crappy. I didn't know that this bit of advice would save my friends life!
We decend down the line. I'm with my wife as one pair of buddies and our two mates are buddied up but I was keeping a close eye on them. When we get to the wreck my friend (with the dodgy BCD) suddenly goes flying uncontrolably to the surface! I happened to be looking at him at the time as he seemed to be having some kind of trouble and luckily I was able to power up to him and yank on the emergency dump valve on his BCD. His BCD was continusouly filling. With my hand on the dump valve I tried to disconnect his LPI but it was stuck solid! We get the attention of the instructor eventually and he takes over signaling to me that all is OK. I go back to my wife and we cruise around the wreck and it was great! I bumped my tank while going through a narrow passage in the wreck but it was cool going into this ship. About five mintues later I look over and my mate is on the instructors octopus being led around. By this time we had one minute left of no-deco time and needed to ascend. By the time we started to head up I could hear the instructors computer beeping away like crazy.
We go up to 10m and the instructor signals that we need to stay here for 10 minutes. The problem, he's got only 30 bar left after having my mate on his octo, my mates got 10 bar left, I've got 50 due I guess to my SPG which was pissing out bubbles the whole dive. The instructor puts my mate on my octo as he needs all his air now. At this moment, the dodgy clasp on my tank strap breaks and my nearly empty tank starts floating up. Now my mate and I have a tank hanging above our heads trying to pull the regs out of our mouths. My wife goes and tries to re-attach my tank but it's no use. By this time I've got less than 20 bar left and the isntructor signals that we now need to make a 5m 3min safety stop. I pass my mate to my wife's octo. She's pretty good with air consumption so she had enough left to spare. Our other friend isn't good with air and didn't have enough to spare. In the end we all get to the surface with basically empty tanks.
An absolute gong show that I think we were all lucky to walk away from!! A big factor in this I think was that we all stayed calm (kudos to our recently certified friends for this!) and knew each other so well.
What I've learnt:
I've now promissed myself that no matter how much I'm looking forward to a dive to always abort it if I'm not happy with the equipment that I or the other people in the group are using. This incident has also convinced me to get my own gear so I can keep it well maintained and hopefully never have to deal with this situation again!
