New experience.. blown reg hose

Ginger

Hi folks

Just back from a couple of weeks touring in Thailand and scuba diving in Koh Tao.. Great fun, picked up my nitrox and deep specs while I was there. Did about 25 dives in the 15 days we were there.. Just gonna recount one of the dives mainly because its a handy thing to maybe check before you dive. But i guess most of you do!

We decided late in the morning to do a 2 dive excusion to Mango Bay.. which is a great site for doing confined and OW1&2 but for anyone else it can be way too shallow. But there are some amazing coral formations and an abundance of fish life. So myself, my girlfriend (both AOW) and an instructor doing a fun dive, did the drop off which allows you to swim back to the boat once its moored. All the other divers onboard were doing confined dives. We were both using shop regs, bcds, weights and tanks. Did the usual pre dive checks and popped in the water with the instructor who was DM for that dive. Had a 190 bar in the tank and because it was a shallow enough dive that was going to be fine.

After 20 mins at a depth of 15m, i heard a massive gushing of air and thought, buggery something has hit my alternate and its gone into freeflow.. but couldnt see any bubbles. My girlfriend saw all the bubbles and the instructor swam like a bullet to me, i checked my guages and I was on 150bar 1 second ago and was done to under a 100 and decreasing rapidly. Had no idea what was the problem. Immediately signalled for ascent and the 3 of us did a safe ascent, with me keeping an eye on my guages and grabbing the first alternate I could see as I has just hit 20 bar (time at this stage is about 10 seconds after the initial)

Get the surface and the instructor says you ok, i say fine, i am breathing thats all i care about and he says your reg hose blew. Bummer. 30 min surface swim to the boat during which time, i took off the bcd and put it under my chest so i could swim easier.

Once on the boat looked at the damage and it was at the first stage under the hose cover. Really strange but it happens. So always check your hoses for bubbles! Luckily it happened to me rather than one of the guys doing confined because at least we had some experience rather than 1st ever dive. Oh well at least I know to check now...

The rest of the diving was amazing tho... saw some great fish life and the water temp was 30C with 10-15m viz on most dives some exceeding 20m.. Still doesnt beat the GBR but its a great island to dive. Only critism is that the dive sites can get very crowded at one point 2 boats turned up and it was raining divers for 5 mins.

Einstein

good story!

well done on keeping calm!
Sounds like it was an O-Ring? or was it the actual hose itself?!

D

Ginger

The actual hose burst just at the end where the metal bit attaches to first stage. Not the metal but the rubber or whatever material it is... So it was under the hose cover hidden from view.

Einstein

i hear ya!

common enough spot for those hoses to pop alright!

Scuba.ie

Yea, I had one of my HP hoses leaking, but I saw it before I went for a dive. Luckily I had a spare reg set with me and dived with that. :rolleyes:
At least you are both ok.

Ginger

Ah well its an interesting story..