Before going on a trip to scuba dive, check your gear and tanks. You may think they are fine, but it is better to be safe than sorry. I had made a 7 hour trip to Florida to do some dives with my son and daughter-in-law. Once we got there, my son decided to take us to a dive shop and buy some diving skins and other stuff we needed. My husband ask the owner of the shop to top our tanks off with air. Well, the guy lets all the air out of our tanks to do an inspection. Our tanks were due to be inspected in two months, but the guy said he always checks the tanks before he fills them. Thank goodness he did. My 2 tanks were good, but my husbands 2 steel tanks had rust inside them. That could have been dangerous for my husband. It turns out, the place I got the tanks fill at the last time had water in their air lines and it got in the tanks. The owner explained to us that he only does good work and follows the rules when it comes to peoples lives. He showed us his license and all the charts and all that goes with it. He is quite reputable. It all ended up with us leaving his tanks and a lot of money, but his tanks will be good to go when the owner gets done cleaning them.
We ended up borrowing tanks from the shop to make these dives. Finally we get on the boat and head out into the ocean. It was a beautiful day, sun shining bright and water all around us. Dolphins and manatees swimming in the water.
We get to the spot we want to dive. A plane and a ship is sunk in this spot. I can't wait to see all this. My husband hooks his regulator up to the tank and checked it, to make sure the air was flowing right. I am so glad, turns out the regulator was on free flowing and wouldn't adjust. He hooked mine up and the same thing, stuck on free flowing. Well, there went my diving. My husband used my daughter-in-laws regulator and did the dive. Her and I sat on the boat and waited for them to return.
I did have a good day, even though everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I didn't mention the boat stopped running while we were on our way out there, junk in the fuel filter, and I got sun burnt.
Once we got back home, my husband took our regulators apart. Ends up that there was sand and junk inside them from previous dives. We rinsed the equipment after every dive but I guess we didn't clean the regulators good enough. This could have been a very dangerous dive if we didn't get our tanks checked and if we would have dived and the regulators messed up while we were 40 plus feet underwater.
| So, if you are a diver, please get your equipment checked. And after every dive make sure you wash your equipment and get the sand out of your regulators. This practice could save your life...Continue Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lenore_Chapman |
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