Video: SCUBA Failure at 80 Feet, Yesterday

[rhwestfall]

I would strongly suspect that people have been feeding that eel which endangers the eel (and other divers).

yep....

 

[Hatul]

Can someone send me the video link? For some reason I can't see it in the original post or anywhere else on the thread.

You're not missing anything.

 

[doctormike]

Nice work, DD...! I'm referring, of course, to raising a teenage boy so well. THAT'S a project that makes an Andrea Doria dive look easy!

I'm sending this to my teenage son (and occasional dive buddy).

Mike

 

[openmindOW]

The 13-year-old son earned his college tuition - Rick Santorum notwithstanding.

 

[danvolker]

We headed out for an afternoon dive on Saturday. My son (13 yrs old) and I are planning on doing a typical dive, drift along in 80 feet or so in a slight to moderate current and hope to shoot a little video, test out some video lights and maybe my son will shoot a fish and I brought a pole spear.

This is a drift dive, we are towing a surface float using a reel and a small reef hook, to allow us to hook off here and there. We both use pony bottles for pretty much all out dives. I’m using yoke valves/regs.. because well… that is what I have always done.

As you can see in this video, all of a sudden a loud noise is heard. I immediately knew it was a serious scuba failure. I look over to my son and he looks ok and I realize I am the one who has a problem. I wave him over and he flies over super fast and I signal to shut off….I assume that a LP hose must have exploded. I mean what else is likely to happen while just swimming around, 12 minutes into the dive?

I trust him well enough to allow him to look at my tanks, figure out which one has a problem and shut it down. For some reason, I assume it is my primary tank. I had no basis for this, but it was just my first instinct to fear that the more serious problem had occurred. At the same time, I figure, what the hell, I might as well film this, it might be cool to see…

He shuts the valve down very fast, and I am breathing tentatively expecting that my reg will stop delivering air any moment now. I ask what happened and he kinda throws his arms up, but then says pony bottle. I could not hear him and then I am beginning to think that it must have been a problem with the pony, because .. hey I’m still breathing… but he signals to me that it is the pony bottle. (I mis the across the throat sign that he gives) and he seems to be indicating he wants me to go to the pony bottle… so I switch over to it. Well that didn’t go too well; it was dead. And I switch back to the primary and the incident is over.

So I decide to continue the dive without the redundancy, I kinda feel guilty doing it, but hey most people dive 80 feet with no redundancy…What more can happen?

He goes on to make a nice shot on a snapper and that goes in my bag. Maybe 5 minutes later I am filming a 5-6 ft nurse shark under a ledge and this 5 ft green moray comes out of nowhere and tries to eat my camera (or me?). Scared the crap out of me. I scream like a little girl for my son to protect me and the thing actually bites my fin tip!

I pull the float and move on, figuring the eel has had enough with a few pokes.. Well he keeps following us, my son reports that at one time the eel came totally out of the hole and was shooting up at my calf with his mouth open and he pokes him off. I never saw or filmed any of that. The darn thing follows us for a few hundred yards and then comes off the bottom and up at me into the water column, although I only filmed part of that.. I found it pretty humorous and was beginning to think that maybe “SOMEBODY” doesn’t want us diving here, but we continue on and get a few more fish.. an exciting dive. Had those fish for lunch today. Very good!

None of this was staged. I pieced together video from a hand held camera and the head camera. Upon inspection, the white (plastic O-ring) in the pony bottle valve was damaged and just partially extruded. I guess those are nylon O-rings?.



[video=youtube_share;Bap2PxetarQ]http://youtu.be/Bap2PxetarQ[/video]

I enjoyed this video, including the part with the Green Squirrel Morray that was looking for nuts

The kid is well trained....DD, you should be proud of him.... I also think all the freediving you do with him has heped make him extremely at home in the water, and not subject to the task loading issues of most new divers....He is so comfortable, that he thinks optimally through the high task loading events.

 

[rhwestfall]

You're not missing anything.

read the post above..... think you missed the big picture...... I wonder if my buddy could sort this all out...sorry it wasn't up to your standards..

 

[swander]

Great Post! That was some fine shooting along with some lessons learned!! Those Triggers will be mighty fine tablefare!! You gotta love it when people whine about shooting fish too!! Keep it up you have a mighty fine hunter on your hands. Be proud of him!​

 

[yarik83]

Cudos on having a well trained son. Man he swam really really fast. Great buddy to have. Also I am jealous of you having multiple cameras. Certainly adds more than one perspective to the dive.

 

[Heath Sapp]

Marked to watch won't play right now.

 

[Splitlip]

What a great vid. (is that an old 109?) ya know you can exhale into glove to speak. Works pretty well.