How conserve air when necessary

[Patoux01]

"you might die from a fungal infection from whatever fungus grows in BCD's."
We were taught to unscrew the inflator hose and RINSE the inside of the BC after every dive, because otherwise salt crystals can and will build up, and those are abrasive enough to eventually cut through the bladder.

Dude, you know you can make some water come in using the inflator, right? Press the deflate button, let a bit of water go in, move it around a bit, empty it and be done with that. Takes 1 minute tops.

And yes, you can get **** to grow in BCDs. Some even found small mussels in their BC . Unsurprisingly, they found it after I and a few others explained to them why we were not gonna "breathe the air out of the BCD in order to descend fast". Needless to say, they don't breathe in those things anymore.

Also, since there's absolutely no need for chemicals, why not just like... not use them? Even if you use them, your bc is not gonna be "breathable air" anyway, this is completely pointless to do and simply a waste of time, money and against the environment .

 

[archer1960]

If I'm stuck at any reasonable depth, I'd be working on it, but as I got low, and well before it got hard to breathe, I'd be looking at getting out of the BC and doing a free ascent.

 

[kelemvor]

if you want to learn about the yogic breathing processes, prepare to take a trip down to hippy town and get your fill of pseudoscience and snake oil. google the various terms and there are multiple instructional videos. yoga studios sometimes will offer dedicated mediation/breathing classes or groups. there's lots of good benefits to meditation and breathing exercises, but if you listen to some people you'd think it'll cure cancer, grow back hair on a bald head, and give you superpowers. i digress...

Last month I was able to leap tall buildings in a single bound after just walking behind a yoga studio... IJS.

 

[kelemvor]

Dude, you know you can make some water come in using the inflator, right? Press the deflate button, let a bit of water go in, move it around a bit, empty it and be done with that. Takes 1 minute tops..

Some power inflator brands have a special design that allows them to be easily unscrewed and connected to a hose without an adapter. I think it's Zeagle. Since I've never seen a regular power inflator that screws on, he's probably talking about one of those.

Also, since there's absolutely no need for chemicals, why not just like... not use them? Even if you use them, your bc is not gonna be "breathable air" anyway, this is completely pointless to do and simply a waste of time, money and against the environment .

I had to replace the bladder in my diverite wing in 2015 because of salt crystal build up inside it. That said, I do clean my bladder after most dives and it didn't help with the salt crystals apparently. I don't clean it for the purpose of maybe breathing the air, I clean it so it will hopefully last longer.

 

[Patoux01]

Oh, right. Then I'd expect one would have told him "this is not the industry standard but I like it better", right? I assumed he was talking about the junction between the hose and the BC.


Edit: Just looked up what you mentionned, the zeagle Bx Bx Power Inflator. Sidenote: someone should really teach the guys at Zeagle how to rinse a BC without wasting freaking 50l of water.

 

[kelemvor]

Oh, right. Then I'd expect one would have told him "this is not the industry standard but I like it better", right? I assumed he was talking about the junction between the hose and the BC.

Oh well yeah, you're probably right. It's such an odd thing to do that I didn't even think about it.

 

[Diver0001]

Incidentally, I should probably mention that I've been involved in "net training" a number of times over the last 10 years or so.

What I can tell you about diving in/around nets is that (a) IF you have a DIN regulator (no knob) and (b) IF you have spring fins and in particular fins without "grabby-catchy" buckles that it's actually really hard to get entangled in a net.

In order to make the course interesting we usually need to put the diver in blacked-out masks and "help" them get stuck. This is even when swimming right inside a funnel-net, which isn't easy to do at all and would be literally impossible to do by accident unless it was made for capturing utterly enormous fish.

Most actual "entanglements" I've ever seen (and I've only seen a few) involved getting snagged on discarded monofilament, which is hard to see under water and can surprise you. I saw one that resulted in the diver getting in trouble and needing help to get out of it but the ball of fishline was huge and he didn't have a knife. None of the others were more than an irritation.

Point here being that people's fear of nets is often worse than the reality of them. If you haven't taken net training then I would highly recommend it. It's fun and it will put your mind at ease.

R..

 

[EricTheDood]

Alternative to dive knives, wrt entanglement:

 

[Trace Malinowski]

In a hypothetical situation because of some problem such as entanglement you find yourself getting low on air without a buddy are there any techniques one can use to make your air last longer?

Would skip breathing help?

I'm looking for fact based answers other than the obvious (stay calm, move slowly, etc.).

Captain Obvious wins.

 

[DevonDiver]

Those making comments about flushing out a BCD with water have obviously never had to maintain a CCR.

Identification of bacteria in scuba divers' rinse tanks. - PubMed - NCBI

Alert Diver | Microbial Hazards
Emergency Breathing from Your BCD: Undercurrent 06/2011
DAN | Medical Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, it's a possibility you can use to possibly save your life, but you'd want to seek medical care/treatment directly afterwards.

To preserve gas, as others have said, the key is to relax. That's hard if you're otherwise stressed in a low-gas entanglement scenario.

Focus on stress management and keep your breathing as normal as possible. Mental discipline is the key here. Individuals have varying degrees of natural stress management, but it can be improved through realistic practice and decent training.

I wouldn't focus too much on 'fancy' breathing methods. The issue isn't about stretching your gas supply, but rather, it's about not accelerating your consumption.

That assumes, of course, that you had maintained a reasonable reserve when the (entanglement) problem arose.

I teach technical decompression and wreck penetration diving... and stress management is an important (pass/fail) part of this.

"Gas is time - time is life".

The last thing you'd want to do, if access to the surface is in any way impeded, is accelerate your gas consumption.

You have gas... because you've maintained a healthy reserve. If very wise, you'd also have a redundant supply. Knowing you have gas/time to deal with a problem is the biggest element in your stress management arsenal.

Take a deep breath, keep calm... and methodically extract yourself from the entanglement.

It also helps if you have confidence in your cutting device (is it even sharpened?) and have practiced and rehearsed for the scenario previously.

Entanglement drills are included in higher level overhead environment training. If you can predict or foresee that a specific problem might occur, then it's your responsibility to plan for it.. and mitigate that risk.