Steel.Phoenix
Registered
I completed my open water dive in the first two days of this month, and last Saturday I dove at Dutch Springs, PA for my first real dive outside of the certification course. I didn't have my own BCD so I rented one from a dive shop. The BCD seemed well maintained and it didn't look ripped or stretched at all. I don't remember the brand or model, but it did have an integrated weight system. I packed in 11 pounds on each side and began diving.
On my second dive of the day, I was swimming facing down at a slight angle and the weights slipped out, but didn't get detached. This continued for several minutes, they would either slip out completely and be hanging by the clip, or come partially out and I had to wrestle them back in.
On the third dive of the day, I was exploring a helicopter at 55 feet down when I was having serious problems keeping the weights in. They would slip out when I was swimming parallel. I kept wrestling with the weight system and wasted quite a bit of air doing so. Then, when I least expected it, the left weight slipped out and became detached, sinking all the way to the quarry floor. I started to ascend way too fast, and after I dumped all my air and was able to grab onto the line, my computer made me take a deco stop for 8 minutes. Luckily we had a third diver in the group who was able to descend and get the weight back. I was at 500 psi at this point and my buddy didn't want me to keep breathing out of the tank (breathing under 100 or 200 psi isn't just dangerous but it's also expensive because it's a rental tank). So I had to breathe from his alternate air source until we were able to ascend safely.
For this to happen on my very first dive was frustrating and disheartening, and I wasted so much time and effort focusing on the weights instead of enjoying the dive. I made sure the dive shop was aware of the problem, but I want to know if this is a common occurrence with rental BCDs? I'm almost terrified to dive again because of what happened with my weights, because I'm worried this will happen again unless I use an old-fashioned weight belt.
Assuming this was just a problem with a cheap rental BCD, I was thinking about buying my own, an economically priced back-inflate BCD: Mares Pegasus W/ Mrs Plus BCD @ Divers-Supply.com
Do you think this BCD will have any problems with the weight system slipping out again? Has this happened to anyone else? How did you fix it?
On my second dive of the day, I was swimming facing down at a slight angle and the weights slipped out, but didn't get detached. This continued for several minutes, they would either slip out completely and be hanging by the clip, or come partially out and I had to wrestle them back in.
On the third dive of the day, I was exploring a helicopter at 55 feet down when I was having serious problems keeping the weights in. They would slip out when I was swimming parallel. I kept wrestling with the weight system and wasted quite a bit of air doing so. Then, when I least expected it, the left weight slipped out and became detached, sinking all the way to the quarry floor. I started to ascend way too fast, and after I dumped all my air and was able to grab onto the line, my computer made me take a deco stop for 8 minutes. Luckily we had a third diver in the group who was able to descend and get the weight back. I was at 500 psi at this point and my buddy didn't want me to keep breathing out of the tank (breathing under 100 or 200 psi isn't just dangerous but it's also expensive because it's a rental tank). So I had to breathe from his alternate air source until we were able to ascend safely.
For this to happen on my very first dive was frustrating and disheartening, and I wasted so much time and effort focusing on the weights instead of enjoying the dive. I made sure the dive shop was aware of the problem, but I want to know if this is a common occurrence with rental BCDs? I'm almost terrified to dive again because of what happened with my weights, because I'm worried this will happen again unless I use an old-fashioned weight belt.
Assuming this was just a problem with a cheap rental BCD, I was thinking about buying my own, an economically priced back-inflate BCD: Mares Pegasus W/ Mrs Plus BCD @ Divers-Supply.com
Do you think this BCD will have any problems with the weight system slipping out again? Has this happened to anyone else? How did you fix it?