Scuba Sean
Registered
First off i wish to say thank-you to all the knowledgeable folks who's posts/threads have helped me in the past. After unsuccesfuly searching through the forms i decided to ask all of you for help directly.
It was a beautiful and calm day... (for some reason all horror stories start out like this) At the end of my ascent from a sucessful and safe dive i pressed my power inflator to obtain positive boyancy. When i released it, my bc continued to inflate! I thought a couple of things, and then thought swew, glad to be on the surface! Seeing all of the bubbles and hearing the ruccus of my air flowing my buddy came over to assist me. With several hits to the power inflator and purge buttons my rig went back to normal.
Prior to this dive i had been doing a lot of shore dives in NJ with iffy conditions and lots of sand, so i figured it was best to have the BC serviced. My LDS told me that it seemed there may have been something stuck in the power inflation mechanism, but nothing was there when i brought it in.
So all is good again. My bc smells like salad dressing, and the power inflation button works smoother than a sly-dog on the prowl. Just to be on the safe side, i planed a shallow saturday afternoon test dive (i barely hit 22fsw). I spent over an hour going up and down with the bottom, and everything worked fine.
The next day... On a wreck dive to about 60ft i thought i heard heard the p-shhh-p sound a couple times come from my bc. So i stopped and analyzed the situation. I am not accostomed to diving with large groups of divers in close proximity, and this dive had at least a dozen. After looking around, realizing this, and knowing how well sound travels underwater, i gave myself the 'there is no monster under the lumpy shirt' speech. Everything went fine for the rest of the dive.
The next, next day... On a similar dive, to a similiar depth, with just one other diver, i heard the same thing! So i looked at my buddy only to see him occupied with his spear gun, not even close to thinking about adjusting his buoyancy. Knowing that in the worst senairo i would be able to surface unharmed, i continued the dive. It went great.
By this point i was wondering if it was in my head. knowing that the following day was a full schedule of underwater pool repairs i decided to use the bc and play with the controlls while in a safe enviornment. I did not use my usual regulator in the pools, just the BC. It performed perfect.
Still questioning my gear and sanity i waited for the following sunday to dive. This was when i was scheduled to be at the quarry working on some new skill sets in relatively safe conditions. Sunday rolled around and i rolled into the quarry parking lot excited and happy. A short while later after swimming out to a training platform, i began a free descent. Somewhere around 10ffw i tapped the power inflator button to hear p-shhhhhhhhhhhhhh............... and so on. I addressed the situation, surfaced, completely unhooked the low pressure hose from my BC, and continued to dive using my manual inflator until i swam across my LDS owner. We hooked everything back up and it worked fine. He explained that the only other thing that can be causing this would be my first stage putting out too much pressure to the LP port. This made sense. Although the reg only has 25 dives on it, and i take excellent care of it, it is one year old (almost to the day) and has not been serviced yet. At the suggestion of the LDS owner i brought it to the shop (today) to be checked out. Everything on it tested good. ARGH!!!
At this point i can prove i did not imagine half of the malfunctions, and seriously doubt i imagined the other half either. There are too many things that went on in this two week period to be happenstance. Something is wrong, and so far no one can tell me what. The thought of buying all new gear is almost as scary as doing an emergency ascent from 100fsw. I planned thursday out so i can go to the quarry and hang on some lines at depth to see if i can recreate the problem. Until this problem is remedied i will be diving well within the NDL limit with a higher turn PSI, and wont be putting much faith in my rigs performance.
If anyone out there has experienced this problem, or knows what causes it, i would greatly appreciate the feedback. Thanks in advance, Sean
Questioned gear:
Sherwood Maximus (1 yr new)
Sherwood Shadow (1 yr new)
Dive Rite Trans-pac (5 yrs old)
It was a beautiful and calm day... (for some reason all horror stories start out like this) At the end of my ascent from a sucessful and safe dive i pressed my power inflator to obtain positive boyancy. When i released it, my bc continued to inflate! I thought a couple of things, and then thought swew, glad to be on the surface! Seeing all of the bubbles and hearing the ruccus of my air flowing my buddy came over to assist me. With several hits to the power inflator and purge buttons my rig went back to normal.
Prior to this dive i had been doing a lot of shore dives in NJ with iffy conditions and lots of sand, so i figured it was best to have the BC serviced. My LDS told me that it seemed there may have been something stuck in the power inflation mechanism, but nothing was there when i brought it in.
So all is good again. My bc smells like salad dressing, and the power inflation button works smoother than a sly-dog on the prowl. Just to be on the safe side, i planed a shallow saturday afternoon test dive (i barely hit 22fsw). I spent over an hour going up and down with the bottom, and everything worked fine.
The next day... On a wreck dive to about 60ft i thought i heard heard the p-shhh-p sound a couple times come from my bc. So i stopped and analyzed the situation. I am not accostomed to diving with large groups of divers in close proximity, and this dive had at least a dozen. After looking around, realizing this, and knowing how well sound travels underwater, i gave myself the 'there is no monster under the lumpy shirt' speech. Everything went fine for the rest of the dive.
The next, next day... On a similar dive, to a similiar depth, with just one other diver, i heard the same thing! So i looked at my buddy only to see him occupied with his spear gun, not even close to thinking about adjusting his buoyancy. Knowing that in the worst senairo i would be able to surface unharmed, i continued the dive. It went great.
By this point i was wondering if it was in my head. knowing that the following day was a full schedule of underwater pool repairs i decided to use the bc and play with the controlls while in a safe enviornment. I did not use my usual regulator in the pools, just the BC. It performed perfect.
Still questioning my gear and sanity i waited for the following sunday to dive. This was when i was scheduled to be at the quarry working on some new skill sets in relatively safe conditions. Sunday rolled around and i rolled into the quarry parking lot excited and happy. A short while later after swimming out to a training platform, i began a free descent. Somewhere around 10ffw i tapped the power inflator button to hear p-shhhhhhhhhhhhhh............... and so on. I addressed the situation, surfaced, completely unhooked the low pressure hose from my BC, and continued to dive using my manual inflator until i swam across my LDS owner. We hooked everything back up and it worked fine. He explained that the only other thing that can be causing this would be my first stage putting out too much pressure to the LP port. This made sense. Although the reg only has 25 dives on it, and i take excellent care of it, it is one year old (almost to the day) and has not been serviced yet. At the suggestion of the LDS owner i brought it to the shop (today) to be checked out. Everything on it tested good. ARGH!!!
At this point i can prove i did not imagine half of the malfunctions, and seriously doubt i imagined the other half either. There are too many things that went on in this two week period to be happenstance. Something is wrong, and so far no one can tell me what. The thought of buying all new gear is almost as scary as doing an emergency ascent from 100fsw. I planned thursday out so i can go to the quarry and hang on some lines at depth to see if i can recreate the problem. Until this problem is remedied i will be diving well within the NDL limit with a higher turn PSI, and wont be putting much faith in my rigs performance.
If anyone out there has experienced this problem, or knows what causes it, i would greatly appreciate the feedback. Thanks in advance, Sean
Questioned gear:
Sherwood Maximus (1 yr new)
Sherwood Shadow (1 yr new)
Dive Rite Trans-pac (5 yrs old)
