First real underwater repair went sideways on me this morning

I was about 30 feet down off the coast near Port Aransas doing a jacket leg inspection when my backup regulator started free flowing. Had to abort the dive and signal my topside guy by yanking the umbilical twice (our emergency pull signal). Got back up with maybe 5 minutes of bottom time wasted. Turns out the O-ring on the second stage dry rotted. Nothing dramatic in the end but it was a good reminder to check my own gear extra careful before splashing. Any other divers here found rot on O-rings that looked fine on deck?

3 comments

3 Comments

keith27421h ago

Wait, did you check that O-ring right before you splashed or just figure it was good from the last dive? A buddy of mine had almost the same thing happen last summer off Corpus, ended up having to breathe off his bailout bottle for 15 minutes while his float guy sorted the free flow out topside. His O-ring looked totally fine on the boat but turned out to have a hairline crack that only showed up under pressure.

mark_green20h ago

Yeah that "looked totally fine on the boat but turned out to have a hairline crack" part is exactly what got me too. What I started doing after a similar scare was giving all my O-rings a quick stretch test before every dive, just lightly pull them and check for any weird spots. Caught two bad ones that way that looked perfect just sitting there.

troychen13h ago

What, you don't enjoy a little surprise 15-minute bailout workout to get the blood pumping before the real dive starts? Glad you caught those O-rings before they caught you, that's a cheap lesson compared to some.