Saturday 12th April 2014

I was filming a Manta ray at Manta Ray Bommie today at about eight metres when all of a sudden I heard this shoosh shoosh shoosh sound…I thought that sounds like my BCD inflating? I felt my BCD and listened again and sure enough it was somehow self-inflating out of control.

I went to disconnect my inflator hose but it was sticking so I turned off my gas on my left tank whilst swimming over to Nick K. I had my camera and lights in my right hand. As my gas ran out of that tank I changed to my other tank’s regulator.

Now I had a problem of shooting up to the surface to deal with as my BCD was nearly fully inflated. Nick grabbed my arm and helped pull me down as I swam down and pulled my inflator hose to dump all my air. Within seconds I was back to normal bouyancy, and despite the shallow dive I decided to do the right thing and end the dive. I signalled my buddies I was ok and going back to the boat.

Funnily enough it was just this morning before the dive I was thinking I should service my BCD soon, and now I’ll be getting straight down to my dive shop to get that done, as well as get a new inflator hose that is easier to disconnect should it happen again. I’m thankful it happened at eight metres and not forth metres. All in all it was a good exercise to go through, and just a reminder that one can never be too complacent with maintaining gear.