So I was up at the St. Lawrence doing some wreck diving. It was the third dive of our day that had a planned depth to about 90ft. My buddy and I switched our tanks over from the last dive, checked our gauges and entered at the line. We descended to depth and after a couple minutes down, I checked my air and it had gone from 2900 at entry to about 800. This made little sense, so I did a double take and noticed the PSI shot back up to 2500 or so. Not sitting comfortably with me, I decided to maintain my depth for a minute and watch my gauge. In that time, the PSI starting going absolutely nuts...bouncing around like it was on crack. It actually shot from over 2000 to under 500 to 1500 to 50 and back and forth and back and forth. I couldn't figure out what was going on, so I figured either my computer was malfunctioning or my regulator was hosed. My breathing resistance didn't seem to be impacted by these changes, so I wasn't really panicing. I was sticking quite close to my buddy, so I thought I'd spend another minute moving around slightly while watching my air. My gauges continued to act erradically, so I was about ready to call the dive when my air went from normal ease of breathing to trying to get air from a coffee stirer. Since I really couldn't get much air from my reg, I signalled to my buddy to share air and up we went.
After our 3 minute safey stop, we surfaced and got on the boat. The captain didn't seem to care that we were back so early (he wasn't the most attentive captain). I explained to my buddy what I had experienced. In taking off our gear, I went to disconnect my reg and noticed that the tank valve was nearly turned off. At first, I thought somone was messing with me underwater, as I couldn't see how I could have made such a stupid mistake. After some inquiry around the boat, and some self reflection, I realized I must have turned it mostly off at one point when I thought I was turning it mostly on. At depth, the problem was obviously exaccerbated.
Well, I felt like an ***, but some good came out of it.
- I won't likely make that mistake again.
- If I experience symptoms like that again while under I will know to check the tank valve first.
- The air sharing exercise from depth, in current and with a safety stop was a good exercise that went flawlessly.
- My buddy and I decided we need to be more thorough with our predive safety checks.
- Finally, my regulator/computer were working fine...it was just the diver that needed servicing!!!
After our 3 minute safey stop, we surfaced and got on the boat. The captain didn't seem to care that we were back so early (he wasn't the most attentive captain). I explained to my buddy what I had experienced. In taking off our gear, I went to disconnect my reg and noticed that the tank valve was nearly turned off. At first, I thought somone was messing with me underwater, as I couldn't see how I could have made such a stupid mistake. After some inquiry around the boat, and some self reflection, I realized I must have turned it mostly off at one point when I thought I was turning it mostly on. At depth, the problem was obviously exaccerbated.
Well, I felt like an ***, but some good came out of it.
- I won't likely make that mistake again.
- If I experience symptoms like that again while under I will know to check the tank valve first.
- The air sharing exercise from depth, in current and with a safety stop was a good exercise that went flawlessly.
- My buddy and I decided we need to be more thorough with our predive safety checks.
- Finally, my regulator/computer were working fine...it was just the diver that needed servicing!!!