Dive Gear Repairs – when things go wrong.
About a month ago my ScubaPro regulator started making a pretty loud whistling sound on inhale ruining not only the peacefulness of my own dives but for everyone in a pretty big radius of me. So I took it to the local repair shop. Our regulators need servicing every 2 years and were coming due this February so it was only about 5 months early. He said the whistling is common with this type of regulator if not enough grease is used during the servicing, so no big deal. I picked it up a week later and took it out the following weekend…
I didn’t have access to a pool to test my reg but luckily there are plenty of shallow reefs here that fit the bill. After 8 dives with no issue (and no whistle) I was back in business!
Then 2 weeks ago we were diving with REEF Fest cleaning up the deep side of Molasses Reef and I looked at my air gauge and I was down to 1700lbs – about half of my air supply. I didn’t feel like we’d been down that long but maybe the time just went by fast since we were doing the tedious task of removing fishing line that had been partially claimed by the reef. I switched my computer to show my dive time and it had been only 22 minutes. There’s no way I would go from 3300 to 1700 in 22 minutes even swimming in a light current. I should have been able stay down and hour and still come up with 1000psi in my tank.
I asked J for his air, he had 2400. Something was definitely wrong. J started signaling that air was leaking from my 1st stage! The 1st stage is mounted on the cylinder and delivers air to the 2nd stages which includes the mouthpiece you breathe from. Without a functioning first stage – you won’t be able to breath. We signaled the dive guide and told him we were heading back to the boat. We were back on the boat in around 7 minutes and I had 900lbs left. This could have been much worse but we recognized the problem and quickly solved it.
When I got back on the boat I was SHOCKED at what I saw. My first stage was so loose it was barely holding together. The first pic is how it looked when I got out of the water, the second is how it should look.
I took it back to the repair shop, explained what happened and they fixed it for free. He said the issue was caused by some part being the wrong size. I have it back now but I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. Last weekend the vis was messed up by Matthew and there’s been a lot of wind and waves since. I COULD go dive in high surf but when you live in the Keys you get really picky about your dive days. We’re supposed to work with Project AWARE tomorrow cleaning the Duane (one of our local wrecks) and I’m debating whether to use my reg or rent till I’ve used it a few times on shallow sites. I did that last time though and it still failed – so how can I be confident in the repair now?
Normally after a servicing, I’d test it in a pool (our old shop at home had a pool on-site) or here on a shallow dive but this happened on the 9th dive after it came back to me so now I see that a quick test in a pool or shallow site can give you a false sense of confidence that all is well.
I’m not sure what the moral of the story is here – we did everything right. One takeaway is to always be near your buddy & aware of your buddy. I couldn’t see the leak behind me, I had to rely on my buddy to alert me of the issue, but I was well aware that I was losing air MUCH faster than normal. One breath away from your buddy is the rule but I know everyone gets a little slack on this now and then, I’m guilty of it too, stay close!
Having a pony bottle seems like a great idea now too 🙂
Safe diving everyone!