Darcimus
Contributor
Well I just lived through what is now going to be my "most frightening moment". I would have posted in that thread, but I think this deserves it's own discussion. It's a sobering reminder to service your gear regularly and be familiar with how to use it. Develop muscle memory so when the poo hits the fan, what you do comes natural and you're able to live through it.
First off, let me say that my gear (dry suit, BCD, FFM and regs) is away getting serviced. Did a wet dive at a local lake (driving an hour and a half to get there is local for me) and because this was the first time since Mexico (December 2018) that I'd actually been out (other than pool time) I didn't want to miss out on another dive because my gear was away, so I rented a BC from my local guys. The BC I rented was an odd one. It was back inflate, but the front was a zip-up panel. Also, since I had been diving pretty much exclusively in my i3 BC, it's been a while since I used a "normal" inflator. I've always been used to it being on my left hip.
The profile calls for about 20 feet deep. Intro dive as only the DM has been there before, and he's only been there once. Man-made lake, goes as deep as about 170 FFW, but there's a bit of a plateau 20 feet deep until the drop off. Our plan calls for exploration around the plateau as a local club has set up lines to follow to some of the attractions the've set up over the years. All sounds like fun.
Get to the lake, and the DM gives me two BC's. I pick this one because it's a back-inflate. I'm buying BP/W soon so I wanted to "sort of" get used to it. (That part went fine, by the way. Trimmed awesome, I was a tad overweighted though.) Get geared up and practice dumping and adding air, everything seems fine. Get through the first dive and I'm all over the place because I'm overweighted. Finish that dive and pull four pounds off. We bbq some dogs and have a snack and we basically enjoy our SI time.
Second dive comes around and instead of switching out to my HP 130 I keep the HP 100 on as we only planned a short dive. We turn the dive and start heading back in and I look at my gauge and I've got tons of ar left. Easily going to finish above 500 psi, dive's going nice and easy. I'm still a bit overweighted for this dive even though I shed weight, so every now and then I've got to add or purge air. I add a short burst because I'm still not used to the BC I'm using, so I still don't have it dialed in. Add a short burst again and things go sideways. I hear the inflator stop (or at least I do in my mind) but it doesn't stop. It keeps going. Adding air to my ****** rental BC. The inflator button is stuck. The purge valves start dumping air constantly. I start rising a bit...though I expect to stop rising pretty soon....nope....keep rising. I start finning to stay down because I'm going up way too fast. Then the purge valves on the BC start dumping air. That's the second thing I notice, and because I've never heard valves dumping like that, I thought it was my tank that had sprung a leak, so I start to panic. Finning hard to stay down, still rising. I manage to stay at 20 feet for a bit, but then I develop cramps in both calves. I reach for the DM (he guesses there's something going on but he's still in the "wtf" stage and doesn't realize what's happening) but it's no use. I manage to remember to exhale on the way up and I breach the surface like the Dallas on Red October. Panic really sets in because I don't know the condition of my BC and tank. I think about ditching weights just in case but as I'm not familiar with the BC I'm using I can't find the releases. DM breaches the water and calms me down and tells me that my BC is full. Calmed down pretty quick, but my calves were still cramped and I couldn't get to shore on my own, so he towed me in. Gear comes off and I discover my tank is completely empty. Crap.
One group of our team decided to go deeper for the second dive. Glad that wasn't me. I would have swapped out for my 130 and I might have had the same problem at 80 FFW, which probably would have probably resulted in a different ending.
As soon as we got to shore the DM said I did pretty good for absolutely "losing it". Didn't say much about the BC, but he probably didn't want to admit fault as he's affiliated with the LDS that rented me the BC. No biggie. I learned an important lesson or two. Never renting gear. Ever. And I'm never going to question paying someone (who knows what they're doing) to check my stuff over to make sure it works. Obviously they'll remove the corrosion that made the inflator stick.
DM asked me later on if I still loved diving. No question about it. Gotta keep goingthere so I can redeem myself. The vis is SO MUCH BETTER than my actual local lake (only a 45 minute drive) and I can go deeper than 30 feet when I feel I'm ready to. Ocean, no problem hitting 100 FSW.......cold local lake with 5 feet of vis.....Houston....we have a problem.
Any thoughts?
First off, let me say that my gear (dry suit, BCD, FFM and regs) is away getting serviced. Did a wet dive at a local lake (driving an hour and a half to get there is local for me) and because this was the first time since Mexico (December 2018) that I'd actually been out (other than pool time) I didn't want to miss out on another dive because my gear was away, so I rented a BC from my local guys. The BC I rented was an odd one. It was back inflate, but the front was a zip-up panel. Also, since I had been diving pretty much exclusively in my i3 BC, it's been a while since I used a "normal" inflator. I've always been used to it being on my left hip.
The profile calls for about 20 feet deep. Intro dive as only the DM has been there before, and he's only been there once. Man-made lake, goes as deep as about 170 FFW, but there's a bit of a plateau 20 feet deep until the drop off. Our plan calls for exploration around the plateau as a local club has set up lines to follow to some of the attractions the've set up over the years. All sounds like fun.
Get to the lake, and the DM gives me two BC's. I pick this one because it's a back-inflate. I'm buying BP/W soon so I wanted to "sort of" get used to it. (That part went fine, by the way. Trimmed awesome, I was a tad overweighted though.) Get geared up and practice dumping and adding air, everything seems fine. Get through the first dive and I'm all over the place because I'm overweighted. Finish that dive and pull four pounds off. We bbq some dogs and have a snack and we basically enjoy our SI time.
Second dive comes around and instead of switching out to my HP 130 I keep the HP 100 on as we only planned a short dive. We turn the dive and start heading back in and I look at my gauge and I've got tons of ar left. Easily going to finish above 500 psi, dive's going nice and easy. I'm still a bit overweighted for this dive even though I shed weight, so every now and then I've got to add or purge air. I add a short burst because I'm still not used to the BC I'm using, so I still don't have it dialed in. Add a short burst again and things go sideways. I hear the inflator stop (or at least I do in my mind) but it doesn't stop. It keeps going. Adding air to my ****** rental BC. The inflator button is stuck. The purge valves start dumping air constantly. I start rising a bit...though I expect to stop rising pretty soon....nope....keep rising. I start finning to stay down because I'm going up way too fast. Then the purge valves on the BC start dumping air. That's the second thing I notice, and because I've never heard valves dumping like that, I thought it was my tank that had sprung a leak, so I start to panic. Finning hard to stay down, still rising. I manage to stay at 20 feet for a bit, but then I develop cramps in both calves. I reach for the DM (he guesses there's something going on but he's still in the "wtf" stage and doesn't realize what's happening) but it's no use. I manage to remember to exhale on the way up and I breach the surface like the Dallas on Red October. Panic really sets in because I don't know the condition of my BC and tank. I think about ditching weights just in case but as I'm not familiar with the BC I'm using I can't find the releases. DM breaches the water and calms me down and tells me that my BC is full. Calmed down pretty quick, but my calves were still cramped and I couldn't get to shore on my own, so he towed me in. Gear comes off and I discover my tank is completely empty. Crap.
One group of our team decided to go deeper for the second dive. Glad that wasn't me. I would have swapped out for my 130 and I might have had the same problem at 80 FFW, which probably would have probably resulted in a different ending.
As soon as we got to shore the DM said I did pretty good for absolutely "losing it". Didn't say much about the BC, but he probably didn't want to admit fault as he's affiliated with the LDS that rented me the BC. No biggie. I learned an important lesson or two. Never renting gear. Ever. And I'm never going to question paying someone (who knows what they're doing) to check my stuff over to make sure it works. Obviously they'll remove the corrosion that made the inflator stick.
DM asked me later on if I still loved diving. No question about it. Gotta keep goingthere so I can redeem myself. The vis is SO MUCH BETTER than my actual local lake (only a 45 minute drive) and I can go deeper than 30 feet when I feel I'm ready to. Ocean, no problem hitting 100 FSW.......cold local lake with 5 feet of vis.....Houston....we have a problem.
Any thoughts?
