Underwater Wakulla

‘Tis the season.

By RUSTY MILLER

This next weekend will be my pool sessions using my new harness and 50 cubic foot tanks on my side mount journey.
I’m really excited to get in the pool with the new configuration and finally get it set to my liking. After the short session in the springs last Saturday I have made some adjustments to my harness that should make it a lot better for me in the water.

I’ve added a couple of quick clips to the tank valve bungees, moved the lower tank connectors a little further out away from my lower back, and adjusted the harness to fit a little better. Hopefully when we get to the pool skills I won’t have to worry about my equipment and can relax to concentrate on my skills. I will report on how that session went for me.

When I was working on my equipment to get ready for the pool and ultimately the open water portion I wanted to again remind all the divers that read this article that even though you might have had your equipment serviced in the last year or two you need to get it done soon. Once our dive season really kicks in high gear it will be difficult to get your gear serviced in a timely fashion. We all know that our regulators, if serviced yearly, will work without issues. So let’s look at a piece of equipment that most divers really take for granted and rarely get serviced or even looked at by a technician on an annual basis.

I’m talking about your BCD. We use our BCs every dive and we may or may not take the time to really wash them down after we get done with our dives. I don’t mean taking a garden hose and just getting them wet thinking we are getting the salt residue off – I mean a real cleaning like filling the bladder with soap and water and then thoroughly rinsing it out until the water no longer has soap bubbles in it when you drain it. Also, you should take a cap full of mouth wash and pour it in the bladder then fill it with air and let it set over night then dump it out and fill it with air again to let the inside of the bladder completely dry. You should store your BCD with some air in it and hang it up between dive trips.

When you treat your BC like it’s an important part of your life-saving equipment it will last you for many years of diving. So the question I have been asked is the service interval for the BC and should it be done every year. Well if you have meticulously cleaned and stored it in the manner I gave you, it should be looked at by a competent technician every couple of years. If you have not taken the time to care for your BC then it should be inspected every year because there are several issues that will occur and usually they will happen during your dive. You will get a stuck inflation valve in the open position that can cause you to have a dangerous fast ascent or when you go to push the inflator button nothing happens and you have to orally inflate it.

The other issue you will have will be any of the three drain valves will start leaking the air that you are trying to put into your BC and then no matter how you try to inflate it there is no way it will work. The rarest problem you will have will be the bladder will start to split or literally fall apart on the inside because you have stored it un-inflated for several dive seasons that it basically disintegrates. The last several problems I have discussed usually happen long before the bladder goes.

If the first issues I have mentioned happen you can take it to a qualified dive shop technician and they can fix the issues relatively inexpensively. So my advice is to take it in when you get your regulators serviced and it will be detail-inspected for any leaks or inflation issues. Remember that your BCD is an almost if not as important part of your gear like your regulators are.
Until next time keep making bubbles.

Russell Miller is the manager at Wakulla Diving Center in Medart. NAUI Instructor #59999