stretchthepenn
Contributor
It had been a crappy morning--Mickey D's had taken forever and then screwed up my order, a semi had kicked up a rock and chipped my windshield, a sharp stick poked my foot when I got to the dive site, and of course, the weather busted loose with the only genuinely warm day we'd seen in two weeks, so I poured sweat inside my drysuit--but this was the big day for my Tec40 checkout dives, and I was gonna get them done.
So there I was at 40', doing a valve shutdown drill. I was diving sidemount, so the procedure was pretty simple: Shut down the tank I was breathing from, use up the air in the hose, and then switch to the other tank's regulator. After that, I had to reopen the closed valve and then repeat the cycle on the other tank. Easy enough, right?
I shut down my right tank, breathed the second stage down, and swapped to the left tank. I then turned the right tank back on and redirected my attention to the left tank...which is the point that I had a massive brain fart. I suddenly didn't remember if I'd reopened the right tank, so I reached for it, spun the right tank's valve, and purged the right-side second stage. Air comes out = good. Cool, baby; I fixed the problem. I then went back to the left tank and shut it down, then reached for my right-side regulator.
Well, it turned out that, being a dumbass, I'd just turned off the air on my right tank, meaning that when I purged the hose, I blew what little residual air it contained. Thus, when it came time to breathe from the right-side regulator, I got a whole lotta nothin'. As in NO THING. Nary a puff.
Lordy... That really, really sucked. It was downright scary. I now understand the bolt-to-the-surface impulse. I kept my head, though, and signaled OOA. My instructor donated his long hose. His eyes just about bugged out of his head, but the crisis was averted. All was well...for about three seconds.
My instructor reached for my tanks and opened the valves on both sides...but when he did, the left side's first stage freeflowed.
WAT. A free-flowing first stage? That's not supposed to happen. EVAR. Oh, gawd. Consider this dive thumbed, in the most emphatic way possible.
Topside, we disassembled my gear and discovered that the regulator's central post that held the DIN wheel had come loose, and air was escaping around the post's base. Thank gawd that the thing busted at 40' instead of a serious depth...but it shouldn't have happened at all.
So, lessons learned:
* Pay the money and get new, top-quality regulators.
* Pay a-friggin'-ttention.
* Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty.
* Consider getting new tanks that can support the color-coded, 1-1/4 turn Pro valves.
* DO NOT make a dive, especially anything even remotely resembling a technical dive, while stressed.
Cripes.
So there I was at 40', doing a valve shutdown drill. I was diving sidemount, so the procedure was pretty simple: Shut down the tank I was breathing from, use up the air in the hose, and then switch to the other tank's regulator. After that, I had to reopen the closed valve and then repeat the cycle on the other tank. Easy enough, right?
I shut down my right tank, breathed the second stage down, and swapped to the left tank. I then turned the right tank back on and redirected my attention to the left tank...which is the point that I had a massive brain fart. I suddenly didn't remember if I'd reopened the right tank, so I reached for it, spun the right tank's valve, and purged the right-side second stage. Air comes out = good. Cool, baby; I fixed the problem. I then went back to the left tank and shut it down, then reached for my right-side regulator.
Well, it turned out that, being a dumbass, I'd just turned off the air on my right tank, meaning that when I purged the hose, I blew what little residual air it contained. Thus, when it came time to breathe from the right-side regulator, I got a whole lotta nothin'. As in NO THING. Nary a puff.
Lordy... That really, really sucked. It was downright scary. I now understand the bolt-to-the-surface impulse. I kept my head, though, and signaled OOA. My instructor donated his long hose. His eyes just about bugged out of his head, but the crisis was averted. All was well...for about three seconds.
My instructor reached for my tanks and opened the valves on both sides...but when he did, the left side's first stage freeflowed.
WAT. A free-flowing first stage? That's not supposed to happen. EVAR. Oh, gawd. Consider this dive thumbed, in the most emphatic way possible.
Topside, we disassembled my gear and discovered that the regulator's central post that held the DIN wheel had come loose, and air was escaping around the post's base. Thank gawd that the thing busted at 40' instead of a serious depth...but it shouldn't have happened at all.
So, lessons learned:
* Pay the money and get new, top-quality regulators.
* Pay a-friggin'-ttention.
* Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty.
* Consider getting new tanks that can support the color-coded, 1-1/4 turn Pro valves.
* DO NOT make a dive, especially anything even remotely resembling a technical dive, while stressed.
Cripes.