This morning was forecast to be a balmy -21 Celsius (-6 F) - obviously I decided it was a perfect day for a dive. Extreme cold alert? Bah! I set up most of my gear before I left, put it in my car, and drove off to the site. The conditions were perfect, the water looked beautiful.
Not long after I arrived, my buddy showed up. We decided to go for it, so we started gearing up.
The first thing I noticed was how my dry suit seemed stiffer than usual. Tighter. Still, I got it on with no problem. Pulled out my pre-assembled tank and BP/W setup, put it on the bench. Continued getting ready. Eventually it came time to turn things on... and this is where it got interesting.
I turned on the air... and immediately, there was a problem. My inflator was frozen, and when I got it to work it started free flowing. I warmed it up a little, it seemed to be working, no big deal. Then I went to check my air pressure.
The full tank read 0 PSI. I was getting air, things were working... I just apparently had no pressure. Then my inflator started randomly free-flowing again... and, well, everything put together I decided to call the dive. I'm sure it would have been better under the water (the gear probably would have warmed up) but if I wasn't able to even read my pressure on the surface... well, one could argue my intelligence given that I had decided to go out on a day like this but I'm not THAT foolish to dive without knowing how much air I have on my back!
On the drive home, I started to think about what went wrong... how I might fix it for next time... all those fun things. Perhaps being ready to get into the water faster from land might avoid my problems - drive there in my dry suit, everything pre-assembled and ready to put on from the car... maybe it wouldn't be an issue.
But is this frozen SPG a common issue in cold weather? I'm letting my gear warm up right now, and will see if it remains frozen... but regardless, I'm curious whether there are any tips or ideas I might glean from this forum about approaching this dive in a more intelligent way. And, for that matter, whether anyone here has feedback on what gear works or doesn't work in such environments.
... other than, you know, just not diving. Canadians aren't born with the sense to stay out of the cold.