Out of air!!!

[drdaddy]

This is also contrary to what I have learned. Use your fins and not the elevator button to go up...

You are correct - thank you for pointing this out. I did not give enough detail. I had let all my air out of my BCD as I dropped onto a large dungeness crab (which I'm thankful that I did live in order to later cook and eat him). Due to my foolishness (I should have been going up instead of dropping on "one more crab") I ran out of air. When I got to the surface, by calmly using my pony, the waves were pretty choppy and I had powered my way up to the top instead of orally putting a little air into my BCD and I was out of breath with no bouyancy! My point is not to use one's BCD as an elevator, but in normal situations you have some air in your BCD while at depth, and as your rise to the surface you are letting air out and still arriving at the surface with some BCD flotation. Also, in my situation, I was overweighted as I had not readjusted my buoyancy with the added equipment of a tank mounted pony, plus a heavy bag full of crabs who would have loved to have gone back down to the bottom and eaten me !!!

Anyway, my recommendation (even/especially with a pony) is to practice OOA situations and when doing this, remember that the pony is not hooked up to your BCD - so practice orally inflating your BCD and practice dropping your weights.

drdaddy

 

[wahlaoeh]

I encountered similar almost OOA situation just two weeks ago when I was diving in Ambon. It was the starting of the dive and I was descending to about 15 meters depth (muck diving) when I heard large gurgling sound from my tank. I was diving together with only my dive guide and he was swimming away from me, ~ 3 meters ahead. I immediately checked my gauge and found that within seconds, the tank was almost half emptied. I could have ascended on my own but decided to get his attention but banging my tank with a pointer. He noticed and came to my rescue immediately, passed me his octo, turned off my tank and together we ascended. It was only 2 minutes into the dive and I was required to perform 1 minute Deco stop. That was the 3rd dive of that day so I'm not sure if this is common.

I admit that being a photographer, in many times I was diving on my own and was lucky that I wasn't in a situation when I was at a deeper depth and alone when this happened. I was also glad that I carried a pointer.

Questions:
1. Has anyone encounter o-ring bursting in the middle or towards the end of a dive when the air has depleted? I was assuming that within a minute or two, the tank will be empty. If so, how did you react?
2. If an o-ring burst when I was alone and I was deeper, say at 30 meters depth at wall dive, what should I do? Assuming buddy is within sight but 10 meters away and getting his attention might not be fast enough. Emergency swimming ascent without safety stops?

Many thanks.

Happy bubbles,
Jovin-

 

[openmindOW]

Thank you for your very helpful posting, Jovin. I am glad everything turned-out okay for you.


To provide my personal answer to your question, I would say that I would only idve to 30 metres with either a buddy or a fully-redundant air system, such as a pony bottle.
(That does not mean "SpareAir", which advertises on ScubaBoard; there is not enough air in a "SpareAir" to get you to the surface safely from 30 metres.)

Thanks again for your posting.

 

[TheMadDane]

I agree with openmindOW, minimum 19 cu ft backup at 30 meters.

 

[Graeme Tolton]

My son (14) and I just got back from some dives in the Dominican Republic. The last dive was going to be an 'easy' dive, 7m (20') reef dive with another diver and his step son who had a 20 min pool session before the reef dive. After a nice 40 min dive at 700psi we started topside when at about 10-12 feet my son (Adv OW, +25 dives) popped up in front of me with the out of air sign, grabbed my octo and my harness so we could safely surface. His gauges read 0 psi.

Once we got back in the boat 500 psi reappeared on his gauges. You just never know when its going to happen.

BTW, us cold water quarry divers from the U.S.A. were nicely buttoned up, and the DM was dragging his gauge set across the bottom and the reef. And they give us tourists grief!!

If he came up and 500 psi was suddenly on the gauge, it sounds to me like a problem with the valve or 1st stage. 0 PSI at 10 ft, would only expand to about 5PSI upon surfacing. I would be demanding to see inside the tank. 500 psi doesn't just appear!

 

[peret]

Awareness of surrounding comes with experience means after several dives when you start to have all your diving issues ( buoyancy, depth, navigation and so on) sorted out automatically without a need to focus on them....then you start to see the surroundings including other peoples reactions or behavior.