PfcAJ
Contributor
A dedicated bottle *only* sees one gas.I am first of all trying to understand the advantage of a preprinted, permanent sticker over one written on duct tape with a magic marker when it comes to reading the markings at depth. Is it a visibility thing? Are the permanent labels easier to read in poor visibility or something?
Next, I am trying to remember when there has been an incident caused by a failure to read a label correctly at depth. I know the details of too many incidents of oxygen toxicity, but pretty much every one was actually caused by a failure of protocols on the surface--the divers went into the water thinking they had a different gas in the tank than they actually had. The one that comes closest in my mind is the WKPP incident when the diver dropped off his stage bottle at the 70 foot depot and took his 70 foot bottle as the stage and breathed it to 200 feet. In that case, though, I never heard there was a problem with bottle marking, though.
Swapping mod markings with duct tape and magic markers introduces yet another variable - should this tank have 50% in it or did I forget to swap the marking? Did I swap the marking but not put 50% in it?
My 50% bottle only and always gets filled with 50%. There’s not even a little bit of question.
I’ll call your attention to Carlos Fonseca who was SURE that his oxygen cylinder had nitrox in it. He “analyzed it” and everything.
He’s dead now because he was wrong.
If he had the discipline to only put nitrox in nitrox tanks and only put oxygen in oxygen tanks he’d probably be alive. But instead he didn’t. He introduced a variable that didn’t need to be there.
Not sure if you guys have noticed this, but it’s never *one thing* that gets you. It’s a series of events. Every time. The more variables you can reduce the less chance you have to **** something up along the way.
Technical diving has enough variables. Don’t make it worse by being too cheap to buy a scuba tank. They’re almost free. I got an al80 for 25 bucks the other day. They nearly grow on trees.