Underwater Wakulla
By RUSTY MILLER
Well, red snapper season is officially over for the recreational spearfishing season of 2022. That does not mean diving is over completely. Here in North Florida we still go diving but not in the ocean much, there is a hard core ocean diving community here but for the average diver the ocean is getting too cold to dive. I personally don’t like the diving when the water temperature is below 68 degrees and in the winter here the ocean can get as low as 62 degrees. The recreational diving does slow down a bit here but doesn’t stop like in the northern states. If you have been following my last few articles we have a number of springs that make winter diving enjoyable. There are quite a few springs I didn’t mention that I have personally dived, I just mentioned the ones that I take my classes to because they are within a 2-2 1/2 hour drive from Wakulla.
With that said, it is time for most of you divers to start thinking about getting your dive gear serviced for next season diving. I have mentioned this several times in past articles and I will mention it again. Before you hang up that BCD and regulator set you should take it to the dive shop for service. Now is the best time to get your regulators serviced and tuned because you don’t want to have issues when you hit the water next May like a free flowing regulator or one that has other issues and won’t operate like they did this last season. Most good regulators will let you get away with going a couple of seasons diving without getting serviced but all it takes is one time when you have loaded your gear on the boat that you paid for and get to the dive site and hook it up to the tank only to find it leaks or has a free flow issue that you can’t stop. If you have a spare set you might be able to dive unless that set hasn’t been serviced in a long time and it doesn’t work either. Don’t be that diver.
Diving gear such as regulators are easily overlooked after the dive season is done, so you have rolled them up and place them in a regulator bag waiting for next year. First off please do not store your regulators in a regulator bag. Regulator bags are ONLY for traveling to the dive site and not for storage. I don’t know how many regulators come into the shop for a long overdue service (like several years) only to take them out of the regulator bag and the hoses have a set curl in them that will not straighten out when you hold them by the first stage. The danger to using them in this condition is a possible leak or worse one or more might rupture while diving and cause a quick out of air emergency.
When you do store the regulators please store them hanging vertical. You can buy special hangers that you can hang the regulators and your BCD on. If you don’t have the correct hanger you can make one using a standard wire hanger to hold the first stage by so the hoses can hang vertically down.
To insure that your regulators work perfectly for the next dive season please get them serviced every year to insure a great and safe diving season.
If you are going to get your regulators serviced please get them to the dive shop as soon as you can to insure they will be serviced and ready before your first dive. If you wait too long, then you won’t have them ready before your first dive excursion.
Most dive shops get very busy servicing their equipment to have it ready for classes and rental and will not get yours done because you waited too long.
Keep the bubbles flowing.
Russell Miller is the manager at Wakulla Diving Center in Medart. NAUI Instructor #59999