I caught a very interesting video on YouTube that clearly demonstrates the danger of deep recreational diving by divers who are not prepared and who are unaccustomed to this type of diving.  I know nothing about the dive that is documented in the video, but I think I can put together a pretty good factual story of how it happened.

A group of divers were making a wall dive in the Bahamas.  A dive master warned all divers that they should not go below 60 feet, unless that had an Advanced Open Water rating.  The two divers in “trouble” in the video may or may not have been experienced in deeper diving.  They were both counting on the dive master to “keep them out of trouble”.  They were distracted by the beauty of the wall and were busy taking pictures.  With their depth constantly increasing, and all of their attention focused on the photography, they never bothered to check their air.  They also were likely slightly impaired by narcosis from the depth.  Obviously, the dive master was not watching and left a portion of the group to their own devices.  Lucky for these two divers, another diver spotted them and was alert enough to know that they were getting themselves in trouble.  Take a look at this video and then read my suggestions (warnings) below.

Lots of lessons can be learned from this video.  I would suggest that ANYONE planning to go deeper than traditional recreational limits remember these points.

• Deep diving should be WELL planned in advance and all divers should be well skilled in calculating expected air consumption rates and the amount of gas available should be adequately planned to GUARANTEE a successful outcome.
• At depths deeper than traditional recreational depths, gas consumption is much larger than anything you have ever experienced.  At 140-150 feet, you gas goes away MUCH faster than you expect.
• Distractions, such as a camera, will allow time to pass much faster than you realize.  This has the potential to be extremely dangerous for any dives deeper than 100 feet, where available gas time with traditional recreational cylinders is very short.
• Narcosis at depth will give you the sense that all is well, even in situations where you are facing pending disaster.
• NEVER trust a dive master or anyone else to take care of you.  If all of the “experience” leave with the care taker, you are on your own.  Simply put, DON’T DO TRUST ME DIVES!  If you don’t have the skill to do the dive, you CAN’T use the skill of someone else to keep you safe.
• When someone, like the guy doing the video of the near-accident, “saves your bacon” in a situation like this, thank them profusely and LEARN A LESSON from the event.

I would like to thank the individual that posted this video.  All should be able to learn a great lesson from this.  Glad to hear that these two divers came away from this with only a scare.

Phil Ellis

Save on Discount Scuba Gear at DiveSports.com

One of the most popular items on www.divesports.com and in our retail store is the Tilos Pocket Snorkel.  It seems that many divers want to get that  snorkel off of the mask and stowed in a pocket, out of the way, until it is needed.  One of the things that makes the Tilos Pocket Snorkel different from standard snorkels is the completely self-contained, roll-up design.  Everything you need to roll and secure this snorkel in a tight little ball is right there on the snorkel!  Unlike other pocket models, there is no holster or special holder required to keep the Tilos snorkel rolled for storage.  There is no difficulty stowing and removing this rolled snorkel from a pocket or bag.  And, when you are ready to use the Tilos Pocket snorkel, simply retrieve the snorkel, slide the end from the clip, and it  snaps immediately back to the original shape.  Ready to be snapped on your mask strap!  It could not possibly be any easier.  Self-contained, high-quality, and always ready to use.

Unfortunately, rolling the snorkel seems to be a little bit of a learning task for some users.  So, we have included a short little amateur  YouTube video explaining how simple it is to roll and stow the Tilos Pocket Snorkel.  Take a look.  If I can do it so easily, surely everyone else can.  If you have any questions about the Tilos Pocket Snorkel, please feel free to give us a call.

After viewing this video, if you find that you MUST have one or two of these cool snorkels, simply use the link below to order the Tilos Pocket Snorkel from DiveSports.com.

Tilos Pocket Snorkel - Available at DiveSports.com

Phil Ellis

Discount Scuba Gear at DiveSports.com

As we waited for almost a month for our compressor repairs, we developed quite a bit of backlog on cylinder fills and service. We manufacture enriched air nitrox though the partial-pressure blending method, so one of the services that became pretty backlogged was the cleaning of cylinders in preparation for use with enriched air nitrox. As I watched the guys go through this backlog, it started me to thinking about an issue that comes up quite often….what does it mean to have a cylinder “oxygen cleaned”?

Any local scuba store works quite different from a large laboratory or industrial setting where items and components are prepared for exposure and use in an oxygen environment. There is considerable misunderstanding about what scuba stores mean when they use the term “oxygen clean” and how this same term might be used in industry, science, and medical applications. As Harry Avril stated in his April 20o0 article written for Dive Rite, the issue is one of semantics. In that article, Mr. Avril quoted on old story about three blind men and an elephant to describe the misunderstanding many people have about the issue of “oxygen cleaning” cylinders and valves….

Three blind men came upon an elephant. The first, feeling the animal’s leg, proclaimed that an elephant must be much like a tree trunk. The second, finding the animals trunk, said that a more apt comparison would be a snake. The third, holding on to the elephant’s tail, was puzzled by the first two’s misinterpretation of the facts. To him, an elephant felt exactly like a rope.

Quoted from “What Exactly is Oxygen Clean” by Harry Avril April 2000

Differences in the meaning of the terms “oxygen clean” and “oxygen ready” are as open to misunderstanding in the scuba industry as is the description of an elephant in the story above.

In industrial and medical settings, items prepared for oxygen service are properly cleaned, tested, and assembled in special clean rooms, designed to prevent any sort of contamination that might damage the results of the cleaning and assembly. Items are then tested using millipore weight tests, or other scientific test methods, to MAKE SURE that no material lingers that might make the components unsafe in the presence of pure oxygen. In the scuba store, we lack clean rooms and the sophisticated tests necessary to do it they way it is done in industry. So, we resort to more basic ways of preparation.

“Oxygen cleaning” for a scuba cylinder and valve, in a local scuba store, is more about the business of making the scuba items “as clean as possible” by following a defined and tested cleaning process. Given the inability to perform cleanliness tests after the cleaning, the importance of following a defined process, step by step, cannot be understated. Cylinders and valve components are repeatedly washed in special solutions designed for removing hydrocarbons; solutions that don’t leave drying residue that creates more damage than good. They are rinsed thoroughly with clean water and are assembled using o-rings and other components made from materials known to be less effective as fuels in the event of an oxygen fire. All lubricants used in assembly are special lubricants known to be “oxygen safe”. Of course, all of this is done in an area that is as clean as possible, so environmental contamination is limited. The result is an assembly that is as “clean as possible” and provides reduced risk when exposed to pure oxygen. However, we should clearly remember that it IS NOT the same as a clean-room assembly and we don’t have the cleanliness testing capability used in industry and medicine.

While most manufacturers ( out of fear of legal liability) will never say that their components are “oxygen ready”, we all know and accept that pure oxygen is used in diving and that we must apply our best abilities to make sure that cleanliness and attention are used in our cylinders and valves. When processes are applied in the local scuba store, they are done to get the cylinders “nitrox ready”, a step below real industrial cleaning.

If you have scuba cylinders that are used for enriched air or oxygen service, you can follow a couple of simple rules to greatly improve the safety of their use…..

1. Clean them OFTEN using a proper process DESIGNED to remove hydrocarbons.

2. ONLY use gases from sources known to be as clean as possible.

3. NEVER take the importance of cleanliness and common sense for granted.

Phil Ellis

Save on Discount Scuba Gear at Divesports.com

Steel scuba cylinders are becoming more and more popular among scuba divers in the United States.  Over the past five years, steel has taken considerable market share away from aluminum cylinders, the mainstay of the scuba cylinder industry for the past 20 years.

Worthington Cylinders of Canada entered the scuba cylinder market about two years ago, providing a ready and available supply of low-pressure (2400PSI) and high-pressure (3442 PSI) steel scuba cylinders in a variety of sizes.  Since that time, they have quickly become the dominant force in steel cylinder supply in North America.

About two weeks ago, I received a really nice video from Mike Piantoni, owner of XS Scuba, one of the two North American distributors of the Worthington cylinders.  This video details the manufacturing and testing process for Worthington steel scuba cylinders.  I thought it might be of interest to readers, so take a look and let me know what you think.

Phil Ellis

Buy Worthington Steel Scuba Cylinders at Dive Sports