sea water entered the first stage

[cool79]

Hi all,
recently i had a dive and realized there was some water at my first stage after using the tank to blow dry my dust cap.
I then proceeded to attach my 1st stage to the tank and purge dry. later on, the dive master told me, that was the wrong chioce, i should had used a towel to dry my 1st stage.

is there any correct way that i should do?

 

[Fishpie]

Don't use the tank to dry a cap, as you found out it is very easy to blow water into your open 1st stage and it's also bloody annoying having a dozen people do this on the boat ride home.
The DM is right, if it is salt water in the reg. Fresh water and it doesn't really matter.

 

[Scared Silly]

When there is water inside the reg your best course of action is to remove all of the hoses, open up all of ports and blasting some air through the reg. Then let the reg sit in the hot sun to evaporate any condensation. I am not sure what towel drying would do unless the water was right at and only on the inlet. If that was the case the DM would be correct as hooking up the reg to a cylinder and purging would just send the water into the reg.

 

[cool79]

Don't use the tank to dry a cap, as you found out it is very easy to blow water into your open 1st stage and it's also bloody annoying having a dozen people do this on the boat ride home.
The DM is right, if it is salt water in the reg. Fresh water and it doesn't really matter.

how do i dry the dust cap then? use a towel and dry it? is there any other way to dry the dust cap?

 

[idive2]

how do i dry the dust cap then? use a towel and dry it? is there any other way to dry the dust cap?

A tee shirt works good, the lighter tee shirt seems to get into the cap a bit better being a bit less bulky
than a towel.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Agreed. Towel, t shirt, your buddy's t shirt when they aren't looking, etc. I can't stand the dry the cap with the tank BS. As others have said it risks blowing water into the first stage and it's annoying as hell.

 

[knfmn]

I'm with the others on this. Drying it with your tank is one of the most irritating habits out there. Use any form of cloth available, but don't dry with the tank.

Kristopher

 

[herman]

A couple of finer points come to mind here. First off, while it is possible to get a drop, 2 at the most into a reg by blowing off the dust cap, you will not get large amounts that you would see in a second stage. Don't get me wrong, one drop of seawater in the wrong place is bad news for a reg but you are not going to get larges amounts of water in a reg this way. I agree with the rest about just drying it off but I do suggest one more step, before drying it, rinse it off with fresh water, a little out of a drinking water bottle is fine, then dry. This rinses off the traces of salt water remaining on the dust cap and helps stop any remaining salt from doing damage to the reg.

 

[Fishpie]

....and if you're diving DIN don't take the cap for a ride and it'll be nice and dry when you need it.

 

[halocline]

I just huff and I puff and I blow the dust cap dry. Good ole' lung power does the trick.

If it's just a drop of sea water from the cap, it's likely to have been caught up in the sintered filter. So, you could remove that and replace it if it's green.