0:00
pretty much the first thing you learn on any rebreather course is that getting water in the breathing Loop is a bad
0:06
thing so if you get to the end of a dive and the inside of your scrubber container looks like mine here then you
0:14
know things haven't gone very well so today's video is my story of what
0:20
happened how it happened and how I managed to get to the surface okay what you can inspect in today's video is a
0:28
bit about how rebreathers work some stuff about underwater communication some of the kit that I
0:35
used what I did to get to the surface okay and even there's a little bit of
0:40
glimpse of dolphins if you hang on long enough so plenty to see today this dive
0:46
started off uh like an awful lot of other ones didn't seem any different in any way so uh here I am on the boat
0:53
waterl my way behind my buddy there James who's uh who's diving in a red bear don't see too many of these around
1:00
and these days in fact he's he's recently got rid of his but you can see it's a bit lumpy so because it's a bit
1:05
lumpy we haven't gone too far out we're diving a wreck called the East Point that's 67 68 m to the seabed uh as usual
1:14
we've got Liz on the surface supporting us she's absolutely awesome the most
1:19
elegant entry you'll ever see doesn't matter James's in the water I'm in the water after him we're all good and uh
1:27
it's time to uh to go down the shot line we're not the first in we're not the second in we're probably third or the
1:33
fourth pair in uh and we're going to be uh heading down now as I do on some of
1:38
my other videos I'm going to use the opportunity presented by The Descent to uh to do a bit of an
1:45
explanation in order to understand what's happening on this dive it's useful to have a basic knowledge of how
1:50
rebreathers work this is the one that I use an AP inspiration but they're all
1:55
pretty much the same the key thing with the re breather is they use the fact that the air that
2:03
we breathe in is very similar to the gas that we breathe out as you can see the
2:09
majority is unchanged except for a small amount of the oxygen has been converted
2:14
to carbon dioxide so what a rebreather does is it
2:20
has a closed loop when you breathe in gas comes in from the counter lungs
2:26
which are essentially plastic bags and when you breathe out the gas goes from your lungs into the counter lungs the
2:33
rebreather has a one-way system so gas can only travel in One Direction which
2:39
means that every time you breathe out and breathe in gas travels through the
2:45
scrubber and the purpose of the scrubber is to remove the carbon dioxide carbon
2:50
dioxide is a bad gas if you breathe enough of it or you have a high enough percentage of it in your breathing Loop
2:57
it will eventually kill you the other thing that the rebreather does is it replaces the oxygen that has been
3:05
consumed in modern electronic rebreathers this is all done automatically there's a system of
3:11
sensors and some electronics that calculate how much oxygen is needed and they put that into the uh back into the
3:17
rebreather Loop there's also always the option to manually add oxygen should it
3:23
be required now as you go deeper the pressure increases and the the pressure
3:30
increase causes the loop to be squashed what that means is when you go to depth and you breathe
3:38
in there isn't enough gas in the counter lungs to fill your lungs so what we need
3:43
to do is add additional gas which is provided by something called the diluent
3:49
that can be either added manually through another button on the front of the unit or through an automatic system
3:56
which senses that you need more gas than is currently in the Loop and therefore
4:01
automatically adds diluent conversely when it come when you come to ascend the gas in the loop will
4:09
expand and therefore needs to be gotten rid of if it expands too much there's a
4:14
potential for it to rupture the plastic bags of the counter lungs therefore the rebreather will have an over pressure
4:20
valve that will dump gas in reality most rebreather divers get rid of the gas
4:27
before it gets near to that point nor normally this is done either through a manual dump or dumping it through the
4:33
corner of your mouth which I think is what most rebreather divers do and it's uh certainly what I do so there's a
4:41
basic introduction to how rebreathers work which I hope was useful returning to the dive you'll see
4:48
I've been in The Descent while we've been talking about the uh the rebreather I've just put on my tag on the uh the
4:55
lazy shot and I'm now heading down as I'm going down my ADV my auto ad is
5:02
continuing to put diluent in and maintaining the uh the breathing loop at a level that's comfortable for me to
5:07
breathe you can also this is incredible I mean we're only 47 m down and you can start to see the top of the wreck there
5:14
it's the uh the steering quadrant which does stand up about 15 or 16 M high but even so it's it's a great sign that the
5:21
visibility is going to be good you can also see strobes belonging to divers in front of me uh they've put them on the
5:27
line already and I'm going to be putting mine on on shortly as I say I'm in The
5:33
Descent here my Loop is being filled full of gas using that auto ad function
5:40
at this moment in time I don't know that there's anything wrong with my rebreather everything just seems fine
5:46
I'm really excited about the dive visibility is great I mean you can see a diver there off the back of the stern on
5:52
the seabed you know that's got to be 10 maybe 15 M visibility there which is
5:57
incredible uh there's also loads of ambient light down here as well which is which is quite unusual on this wreck it
6:04
can be quite dark I've probably done it six or seven times and these are definitely some of the best conditions
6:09
I've dived in so I'm I'm on the wreck now what I'm thinking at this point is
6:17
uh the last time I dived it which is actually only a month or two before this dive I found a a plate quite a nice
6:24
plate it had the uh logo on for the furnace withy line uh and that's who
6:31
owned the ship the East Point it was sunk in March
6:36
1917 and about 5,000 tons so quite a big ship and uh you know really nice so uh
6:44
if I'm honest I quite fancy I quite fancy get myself another plate I think I know where they are so I'm going to be
6:50
uh heading there just uh just beforehand though I spot something else and you can see it just in the left of the picture
6:56
there not 100% certain what it is so I'm going to uh going to turn it over and have a look at it
7:02
so all this time um I'm thinking there's nothing wrong with my uh rebreather the
7:09
dive is all going great I'm I'm enjoying myself I'm looking around and I'm finding stuff so that is all good what
7:16
is actually happening though is unbeknownst to me is there is a very small leak in the top of my uh canister
7:24
for my scrubber and what's happening is a small trickle of water is is getting
7:29
into the rebreather um or rather a little bit of air is leaking out of the rebreather and
7:36
water is going in so what's happening is that the the uh Auto ad on the
7:44
diluent is detecting every time the loop volume drops below what I can breathe it
7:50
detects that and it puts a little bit more diluent in now at this point in the dive um I don't notice it and I don't
7:58
notice it because I've just come down The Descent I'm quite excited but also
8:04
I'm still changing depth continuously you see I'm going down and I'm coming up
8:09
and every time you change depth on a rebreather it's normal for you to uh
8:15
lose a bit of gas when you go up and then put a bit of gas in when you go down um and and these kind of things
8:21
because I've done so much diving these kind of things have almost become uh
8:26
subconscious so I'm not really um thinking too much about it so but the
8:32
rebreather is very slowly starting to fill up with water and I'm also using uh
8:38
gas from my diluent cylinder at a far greater rate um than I would do normally
8:44
because normally once you got on a wreck and the uh the loop volume had been brought up to the uh the right um level
8:53
for for for the depth so enough gas had been in to give you the right volume then almost certainly the Dil wouldn't
8:59
be used again which is why you you actually only use a tiny amount of gas on um on on even quite deep Dives with a
9:08
rebreather now um what that does mean is that diluent cylinders are quite small
9:14
so mine on this rebreather is is a 3 l cylinder and typically on a dive like
9:20
this I would expect to use maybe 40 bar um of uh of that so you maybe I don't
9:27
know 40 out of 200 what's that probably uh a fifth I guess um and certainly a
9:33
single cylinder would do me for three or four Dives normally but um on this dive
9:40
I'm going to be chewing through it a lot quicker because it's been used um where
9:45
effectively it's been vented to uh to the water so uh but I don't know this at
9:51
this moment in time at this moment in time I'm I'm pretty much at where I think the plates are this is just to the
9:57
after of the engine so I'm looking around for for where the plates are and you can see there's various pipes and other bits and pieces uh on there so so
10:04
the plates were around here um as I looked up there I think you know you see again just how great the conditions are
10:11
on this dive now now as you can see on this video I haven't gone straight into
10:16
explaining what happened with the uh with this whole dive and you know what I did about it and and all those kind of
10:23
things and the reason for that is that what I'm trying to do is is kind of show
10:29
how slow and almost Insidious the fault that I had uh was how it it took a long
10:36
time to manifest I mean I've done I don't know a thousand or 1500 re
10:41
breather Dives or something like that and it took me a long time to realize that there was something wrong and what
10:48
I'm trying to do with this video is explain why it took me so long to to realize there was something wrong and
10:54
even when as you'll see in a bit when I when I did realize there was something wrong it took me quite a while to uh to
11:01
figure out what it was and to uh I guess more importantly to do anything about it
11:06
so I guess what I'm trying to do is with this video is is talking through my thought process I mean as you can see
11:12
here I've I've I've just found a load of plates and they're all broken but I'm just wafting off the uh the dirt there
11:19
so I can have a better look at them there's I think there's a big stack of them there they're kind of um almost
11:24
concreted together but they've been broken off um probably by people um you know trying to get them out and using a
11:31
bit much force I guess and then and then snapping them off the uh the East Point is uh is very well dived so uh you know
11:40
by by the standards of of technical Dives it's quite close to Plymouth it's 60 odd meters it's a big you know
11:47
picturesque wreck um so that's why it's uh it's been dived a lot although you
11:53
know interestingly the the Bell has never been found so uh if you want to get yourself s a
11:59
bell uh there there's got to be one somewhere on the East Point you've just got to figure out where it was and try
12:04
and find it so um yeah so I'm I'm down here on the wreck my uh rebreather Loop
12:12
is slowly filling up with water uh and when it fills up with water it's it's dumping gas my automatic diluent valve
12:21
is slowly putting that gas into my rebreather um but because I'm busy but
12:26
because I'm changing depth um I I'm not noticing that my ADV is firing uh often
12:33
now you can uh you can criticize that and you say well you should have noticed
12:39
and you're probably right um and I think it's round about now or maybe a bit
12:46
later on that I do start to realize that something is wrong with my uh with my ad
12:51
with with my Loop and um I'm going to take some actions uh in in a minute but
12:56
and I'll talk you through those but before I do that um somebody out there already anybody
13:03
who's a rebreather diver is going surely you realize that there was a problem with your rebreather when you did your
13:09
positive and negative checks um and you're you know you're
13:14
absolutely right that is exactly the moment I should have identified that there's something wrong with my
13:19
rebreather on the positive and negative checks so I actually believe that I
13:25
carried out positive and negative checks um but um it's entirely possible that I
13:33
didn't I also hear people out there going oh you should have used the checklist uh you should have built your
13:38
rebreather with a checklist and then you'd have known for certain that you'd have done positive and negative checks and once again you are probably uh
13:44
you're probably right you know if I'd done it using a checklist I would have um definitely known whether I'd done
13:52
positive or negative checks um so yeah M A Cula I am I'm guilty for not using a
13:58
checklist um having said that I think I did do my positive and negative checks
14:04
if you're not a rebreather diver and have no idea whatever what I'm talking about with positive and negative checks
14:10
then uh positive and negative checks are a way for checking that you rebreather
14:15
Loop isn't compromised so essentially what you do is you over pressure your
14:21
rebreather Loop by breathing into it um a lot and then sealing it shut and
14:27
waiting to see if the uh so you put to the count alongs their maximum inflation
14:33
all the loops are completely full and then you sit there for 5 minutes and you wait to see if it um if it starts uh
14:42
sagging down and starting emptying and if it starts emptying then you know obviously there's a problem there's a
14:48
leak somewhere so that's a positive check a negative check is exactly the opposite I.E you suck everything out of
14:55
the rebreather Loop uh ideally slightly below low ambient pressure once again
15:01
close it up leave it for 5 minutes and wait to see if it starts filling up again and if it starts filling up again
15:07
once again you know that you have got a a leak somewhere and therefore that's the opportunity to do something about it
15:13
so positive and negative checks a great thing and you and should have picked up on this issue now I um I'm just going to
15:22
throw one thing in there which is that the the thing that caused this and you will see later on is a a little hose
15:30
that was trapped outside um in a place it shouldn't have been and I actually
15:37
don't think it Disturbed the uh the seal on the uh the top of the the canister
15:44
enough um on the surface I think um as I was going down the depth put a different
15:52
pressure on it you know it was mismatched pressure or something and that was enough to open it up and and to
15:57
uh to to to compromise it I I have no way of proving that other than I think I did my positive and negative checks but
16:04
who knows who um you know it's I've got no no way of proving any
16:10
of any of that but anyway on the dive so um round about this point or maybe
16:16
slightly later on I I'm aware that I'm using more diluent than I should be
16:22
because he probably seen now I haven't gone up or down very much recently and therefore I am starting to hear my
16:29
automatic diluent valve that auto add thing firing more often than it should
16:34
so um what I do at that point is I close down the um uh the auto ad function
16:43
there's there's a way of isolating it on the rebreather which which I do so it's no longer automatically adding and
16:50
therefore what happen what what then starts happening is as the gas um leaks
16:55
out of the unit um it becomes more difficult for me to breathe and as it
17:00
becomes more difficult for me to breathe I have to inflate uh or I have to put
17:06
gas in manually and I I do that several times and once I've done it several
17:12
times it becomes uh reasonably clear to me that there's some sort of problem and
17:19
the only uh you know the only logical uh explanation for if you need to put gas
17:25
in your Loop is that gas is leaving the loop somehow and the question is therefore how is it
17:31
leaving the loop well there's there's a couple of main options one is that you are breathing it out of your mouth now
17:38
obviously I can tell when I'm doing that the other option is that you uh have a
17:44
leak in your unit um and there's quite a few different places where you could have a leak in a unit um one of the
17:54
um uh things I've had had happen on other Dives is that there is a um a
18:01
manual dump for the counter lungs um and and I mentioned this I think during the
18:06
what is a rebreather bit of the the video so the the manual dump for the
18:12
counter lungs is on a bit of string and sometimes it gets caught underneath
18:18
other parts of the rebreather and therefore the the manual dump is held open um and therefore you can lose gas
18:24
that way I've um had that happen several times s and I've changed the length of
18:30
the bit of string on my on my counter lung dump so um it shouldn't happen
18:36
having said that at some point in this dive I I make an active point of
18:42
checking my uh my counter lung dumps to make sure that they haven't got stuck I
18:47
can remember doing it really clearly um I then carried on for a bit longer and was still having to manually put gas in
18:55
so I was still losing gas so at that point I uh I grabb hold of uh my buddy
19:01
uh because I want them to have a look at my unit and uh see where where the leak
19:06
is coming from now I'm going to do something I don't do very often on my videos which is I'm going to chop out a
19:14
load of the dive now what you get what you're missing is is a whole load of this sort of stuff which is me turning
19:19
stuff over having a look at things not find anything very useful but the reason I've skipped is because I want to kind
19:26
of cut to the chase I want to get to the the the uh the next interesting bit um about my rebreather which is uh the bit
19:33
when I ask my buddy to have a look at me um at this point I'm pretty convinced that there's something going on I've uh
19:41
closed my uh automatic ad I have been adding gas and I've realized there's gas
19:47
coming out of my Loop so basically what I need is I need the help of my buddy to try and figure out where the gas is is
19:54
uh is going from so because I can't see it so this is me uh as you can see
20:00
they're gesturing to my buddy I'm saying look you know there's gas coming at my loop I need you to have a look for it I
20:05
need you to find where it is so uh so this is James he's uh he's he's going to
20:11
have a look while I'm just looking down and um you know I'm giving him plenty of opportunity to have a good look over my
20:18
unit you know my thought at this point is it should be really easy there's gas coming out of the loop um so I look back
20:24
at him and he goes no you're absolutely fine um there's nothing coming out of
20:29
you you know I can't see anything wrong and that just strikes me as really bizarre I know that there's gas coming
20:35
out I know that it's got to be going from somewhere so so it should be really easy to see uh what why can't he see um
20:43
but clearly uh clearly he can't so that's that's kind of that's a real
20:49
mystery um so I think H okay and and you start to question yourself in these kind
20:54
of situations you know maybe it's something I'm doing wrong maybe you know
21:01
I'm I'm imagining it but but I know I'm not imagining it cuz I'm sticking gas in my Loop so um I kind of it gives me an
21:08
interesting challenge now one of the things about rebreathers diving is is by and large stuff doesn't happen quickly
21:15
so you um you've got plenty of time to mle things over and and in this case
21:21
it's I'm still you know although I know that I'm losing gas you know I don't
21:26
feel that I'm using vast amounts I don't feel that it's it's a real emergency at this point in time I'm just kind of
21:33
getting an increasing sense of unease I guess that would be the uh the best way
21:39
of of describing what's happening and and I think when you are feeling uneasy and you're not happy underwater and
21:45
you're at 60 odd meters then there's there's there's really one solution to the problem the solution to the problem
21:52
is to uh is to get out the water so uh that's what I'm going to do now I am uh
21:58
starting to head back from from pretty much the engine area to the stern because the Stern's where the shot is
22:04
and the shot is my best way of getting out of the water of course you might say well why didn't you just ascend from
22:10
where you are uh you know that's that's a reasonable suggestion you may also say well if if you're not happy with the
22:17
Integrity of your rebreather Loop uh why haven't you bailed out and gone on to open circuit you know those are those
22:23
are um you know good questions um I would say when you're diving on a
22:28
rebreather and you have something wrong with you you always have options available and what you have to do is
22:34
kind of weigh up the advantages or the disadvantages of those options so for me
22:39
uh particularly on a technical dive like this there's some real attractions to the shotline one of the attractions to
22:45
the shotline is that you have loads of other divers around there um and with
22:51
loads of other divers is going to come loads of gas so that's that's a really useful thing you also um are going to be
22:58
on the shotline which is you know where the skipper expecting you if you uh bail
23:03
out if I bailed out you know from the engine area I would have had to put up a delayed SMB and then when I was doing my
23:10
decompression I would be separated from the other divers so I wouldn't have their gas the skipper would have the
23:15
additional challenge of trying to follow me and the other divers on the shotline and um you know at this point in time I
23:22
didn't feel that the emergency was significant enough it wasn't uh important enough for me to to to uh to
23:30
to do that um ditto you know why didn't I uh I bail out to my um my deep bailout
23:37
um you know I could have done that it would have obviously removed the risk of of the loop flooding and anything but
23:43
once again you know I could still breathe adequately even though I was losing gas um uh and I was having to
23:49
refill it I didn't feel that I was in danger of of running out of gas and I did actually you can't see it on the
23:55
video but I did check my contents gauge on my Dilli cylinder and I uh although it was getting quite low I still had
24:02
plenty to get back to the shotline and I knew that once I was on The Shot line and a bit shallower I could either plum
24:08
in um into my rebreather uh I could use either my deep bailout or I could use my uh my uh
24:16
shallow bailout gas and I could stay on the loop and just basically run run the loop off that using it effectively as a
24:24
kind of uh semios rebreather so I had plenty of options there and so that's why I chose to to get back to the
24:31
shotline you may recall from The Descent that the shotline was really close to the steering
24:37
quadrant and uh I'm in the fortunate position of having some video from James
24:42
he didn't take much video of me during the dive but he did take some video as we get to this point and the question
24:48
you've probably been asking is where was all the gas going from my rebreather Loop and it's a it's a really good
24:55
question it's one that I've not answered and I think this short piece of video shows the answer to that what's
25:01
happening is that the uh the gas is coming out of the top of my canister and it's then getting stuck under the yellow
25:08
box that forms part of the g box so most of the time while I'm in horizontal trim it's just it's just there caught
25:15
underneath it's only when I sort of look up really or or change from that horizontal trim position that the gas
25:22
vents and you probably saw it there coming out in a huge in a huge bubble um
25:27
and that's why James couldn't see it when he was looking at me and that's why um as you'll see later on when another
25:34
few people look at it they can't see it either so this is another piece of james' footage slightly later on once
25:41
again you can see right by the steering quadrant and you'll see once again when I change position there's another big
25:46
burble of gas leaving my Loop so uh it's really clear where it's going but only
25:54
in that kind of circumstance when I when I change to that vertical position position so quite perplexing but but
26:02
once you know the solution easy to spot so uh but underwater obviously not
26:08
a clue um we're now back with me and as you can see uh I'm back at the shotline
26:14
I'm starting uh my Ascent conditions are absolutely wonderful I've probably been under waterer for about half an hour at
26:20
this point so uh I'm going to going to have quite a lot of Deco I by this point
26:26
not only do I know that I'm I'm losing quite a bit of gas I'm also aware that I've got quite a bit of water in my uh
26:33
in my rebreather Loop it is it's it's a bit harder to breathe than it should be
26:39
and also I can hear uh a bit of a gurgling sound that's been really getting worse now you often get water in
26:47
you rebreather Loop for various different reasons but normally it's only you know quite a small amount um at this
26:55
point I'm aware that I've got quite a lot of water in my Loop now in itself
27:00
it's not the end of the world once upon a time you would have to worry about things like uh costic cocktails if if
27:07
the water got to the to the softener lime but I've I know that you don't get that with modern uh with modern soften
27:14
lime um so the only real issue is is the fact that obviously I don't want my breathing Loop to be full of water I
27:20
want it to be full of diving gas and I want my uh my breathing to be as easy as possible I don't want it to be to be
27:27
difficult so I'm back up here at the uh the lazy shot as you can see about 40 Ms I'm
27:33
going to take my tag off um and you know I'm happy because this is clearly a good
27:38
place to be um but I'm unhappy because I know there's something fairly significantly wrong with my uh with my
27:45
rebreather there's a lot of L of uh water in there and I'm finding it difficult to to to breathe so I uh am
27:54
going to need to try and do something about it so I know there's going to be quite a lot of people on the shotline so
28:00
my plan is to get up to round about first decompression stop stops and then enlist some more Aid I've already asked
28:08
um James to have a look at it down at the bottom you saw that he couldn't see anything so I'm kind of hoping that that
28:14
it may the that these the problem may become a bit more obvious when we get we
28:19
get up Shallow so so here I am ascending up uh to my first Deco stop the good
28:26
news is because I've cut my dive a bit short and also because the dive uh isn't
28:32
really that um that deep by the standards of some of the other ones I've done um that gives me it means that my
28:39
my first Eco stop is is relatively shallow it's it's at 27 M as I as I
28:45
Ascend I'm I'm doing all the usual sort of stuff you can see me here I'm changing the uh the set point on my
28:51
handsets uh and my uh Standalone offboard dive computer so um I've gone
28:57
to 1.5 bar P2 for the uh for the decompression phase of
29:04
the dive and that obviously cuts the cuts The Deco time down a bit um
29:10
although as we're going to see in a bit that that doesn't really become relevant because I'm not going to be staying on
29:15
uh in close circuit for too much longer so uh still hard to breathe and actually
29:21
by this point starting to get you know quite hard to breathe so so not great
29:26
now one of the things that I always carry with me on my Dives is a a set of
29:32
wet notes so effectively uh P some underwater note paper and an underwater
29:38
pencil so that I can uh I can write things should I ever need to and I'm already thinking that what I need to do
29:44
is communicate with the other divers I've asked James to have a look at my Loop he couldn't see anything but
29:50
clearly there was so so what I need to do is communicate better with uh with with a diver on The Deco stops and
29:57
explain to them that I do have a real problem and that they need to uh they need to find out what it is so there's
30:03
my uh there's my wet notes uh you can see I've got them out uh don't know why I've got them that close to my face but
30:08
I've got them out and I'm going to get out and I'm going to write on them um explain that got a problem uh writing
30:16
underwater isn't the easiest thing in the world um and especially not when you've got dry gloves on like I've got
30:21
there you see I'm find it even kind of slightly challenging turning over the the the pages but eventually I get it
30:28
and uh I'm going to write a little message on there and then I'm going to give it to one of the other divers now you can see there I've I've put the
30:35
message up on the screen with the benefit of hindsight I I think I'd
30:40
probably written been probably written a bit more be a bit clearer that I'm in uh you know I've got some real issues with
30:46
my rebreather and you know I want them to concentrate on it because I give it I give it to this diver here that's James
30:52
he's going to read it um and he's going to have a he's going to have a look at the at the Loop and he's going to make
30:58
the same uh discovery that um the other James who's who's a bit below makes
31:05
which is that uh you know he can't really see anything so he's having he's having a good look over he's looking
31:10
over my back there trying to see if there's anything anything coming out and
31:15
uh he's going to very very shortly tell me that he can't see anything which is
31:21
which is really frustrating and I guess kind of confusing as well you know why
31:26
can't why can't anybody see anything coming out of my loop I know gas is going I know that I'm getting water in
31:31
there so so there's got to be something going on here now what I'm going to do is is Fast Forward another probably
31:37
minute or two and uh and James hasn't said anything to me so I look back down
31:43
at him and he's he's clearly not paying any attention to me um and there you go he just told me there's nothing wrong
31:49
with my gear which is uh which really irritating and frustrating so I kind of
31:55
I I gesticulated him you know quite significant say look there's definitely something wrong you need to you need to
32:00
figure out what it is you need to have a you need to have a good look so he's he's having another good he's having
32:05
another good look I'm uh I I'm kind of moving around I'm letting him have a good look uh because you know obviously
32:12
I want I want some I want some answers basically I don't want him to be kind of going into his own personal Deco space
32:18
he wants to be looking at my unit and you know my gear and finding out where the problem is so that's what I think
32:24
he's doing but then when I look back at him you can see he's he's not looking at me and uh so so this is you know
32:31
communicating again with him telling him look he needs to he needs to figure out what's going on so um you know I guess I
32:38
I persisted a bit I got there in the I got there in the end because he is he's definitely having a good look at me this
32:44
time and I'm uh I'm obviously not going to sort of leave him be until he until
32:49
he gives me a solution to the problem so James is James is looking over my gear
32:54
uh you can see the other James uh so we got two James is xccr James guy with a blue helmet and JJ sorry red bear James
33:03
who's the guy with the the red bear they're both in and around at the moment they're both having a look at me and uh
33:09
I'm getting something back from James now he's trying to communicate with me which is which is kind of good so what I
33:15
think I'm going to do in a minute is give him the uh give him the wet notes and James can uh can write what the
33:20
problem is on the wet notes there we go there there's the wet notes going and uh once again you're not going to be able
33:25
to see what he uh what he writes on them but I'm going to uh I'm going to stick it up on the screen so you can see the
33:31
the bottom bit there is what James has written he's written inside pot now uh I
33:37
take that to mean inside the back of my rebreather which is uh which is clearly uh not good news at all I guess one of
33:44
the things it's probably worth highlighting at this point is uh how slow this all is and I think it's a
33:51
point I made earlier on which is that it's very rare that something happens quickly on a rebreather so in fact you
33:57
can just see there checking my uh diluent there content Gage on my diluent and you can see um I haven't got very
34:03
much left at this time I'm probably into about 20 or 30 bar so uh not great
34:08
there's there's a message coming back to me inside inside the pot so uh what what
34:13
I'm going to do now is say to him right you need to I need to know a bit more than that so what I need you to do is is
34:20
go inside so he's going to come behind me and he's actually going to take off
34:25
the uh the yellow cover on the outside of my rebreather and uh I'm going to have a look inside
34:30
and then he's going to uh to to write me uh another wet notes but yeah go going
34:35
back to that point nothing happens quickly so you can see here we we've got plenty of time I I am finding it really
34:42
quite uncomfortable to breathe uh roundabout now I'm having to put a lot of diluent in it seems pretty much as
34:50
soon as I put it in that it's uh it's coming straight back out so I know there's a lot of Loop in my sorry a lot
34:56
of water in my Loop I can also I can hear it every time I breathe and for those of you who have have had a a wet
35:04
rebreather or a wet breathe you know just how horrible that is I mean in this case I could actually hear the the gas
35:10
bubbling inside it so I could hear when I breathed out that it it was actually passing through water so that noise such
35:17
as when you blow bubbles through water that was that was kind of what I was getting so at this point I know I've got
35:25
an hour and a half or something of decco to do so you know I'm pretty confident I'm going to be bailing out uh pretty
35:32
soon but what I want to do is is get this phase of the investigation over with um and then you know confirm it's
35:39
as bad as I think it is and then I'll be able to breathe out and uh and get on to uh my uh a shallow shallow bailout mix
35:47
and you can see here that I'm about 18 M so I'm carrying two bailout cylinders
35:52
one bailout cylinder is the um uh uh is my deep bailout so that's
35:59
got a gas that I can breathe at the bottom of the dive but won't be particularly good for breathing um at
36:05
this depth because it won't have enough oxygen in it really it'd probably be fine at this depth but certainly it's
36:12
not going to help me with my decompression and it's not and if I get a bit shallow then there's a potential
36:17
for it to become hypoxic so the second gas I've got my shallow bailout on this dive is uh 50% oxygen and and I think 10
36:25
or 20% helium so it's a a good a good gas for this depth that will help me um
36:34
me decompress and therefore you know help me get close to the surface but the closer I get to the surface I'm going to
36:40
need a rer oxygen mix than 50% really I want an 80 or 100% now I'm not carrying
36:46
that it's unlikely that any other of the other divers with me are carrying that either so the uh our um process for that
36:53
is is we get it off the boat so you're going to see that later on so um you can see here I'm communicating with James
37:00
you can see that the uh you probably saw there that the um the back of the rebreathers come off and uh James is
37:07
having a look inside and uh what he's going to do is confirm that I am in a
37:13
really poor place and he does this by writing on the on the wet notes and handing it back to me and as you can see
37:19
what he's written there is it's from scrubber lots of gas uh that doesn't
37:24
sound like a good message so um and to be honest I kind of was expecting to get
37:30
something like that so I know um that things are I'm not I'm not in a good
37:35
place I think I already knew that but it just confirms that what I'm going to need to do is I'm going to need to bail
37:41
out to open circuit so for those of you who don't know that means I'm going to need to uh stop breathing off my
37:47
rebreather and I'm going to start breathing off one of the the bailout cylinders and I've already highlighted
37:53
the bailout cylinder I'm going to be using is my shallow bailout it's the one that's got the 50% nitrox mix in first
38:00
things first though um I've obviously got my uh got my wet notebook out I've done a lot of diving with that notebook
38:06
so uh I'm going to going to put it away and I'm going to put it back in my pocket so I don't lose it and uh is that
38:12
the most important thing that I should be doing right now um no it's not clearly um but I think once again this
38:18
just shows um the probably the lack of pressure the the time pressure is what I
38:25
meant that that I'm under you know I know that I'm going to have to bail out but I can still breathe uh it's not the
38:32
easiest breathe in the world but there's there's nothing stopping me breathing so
38:38
I I'm not panicking or anything here I am just getting myself all sorted so that I can uh bail out in a nice orderly
38:44
fashion and then uh obviously there's a whole sequence of other things I'm going to have to do uh everyone's got their
38:50
own uh technique for for bailing out um mine is uh is kind of a slight
38:58
adaptation of uh the drills that you would use for gas switching if you were doing say uh an accelerated
39:04
decompression dive um but the first thing I've got to do is uh thr it my mouthpiece I dive with a a gag strap or
39:13
mass mouthpiece retaining strap for those of you familiar with them so I need to uncp that then what I'm doing
39:18
here is I'm I'm just going through the notox stuff so I'm checking that it's my name I'm checking the maximum operating
39:24
depth on the cylinder that I'm using I'm checking that the uh cylinder is turned on I'm getting the mouthpiece in a
39:31
position that I can easily get it I'm then going to take the uh the loop out of my uh mouth and it's going to go
39:38
above my head and then I'm going to go onto the uh the open circuit regulator
39:43
and I'm going to start breathing once all those things i' I've done I'm going to make sure that I switch uh all my uh
39:51
computers into open circuit mode and when I say all my computers that's the one that's on my handset for my
39:58
rebreather and the one that's on the um my Standalone offboard sheer water that
40:03
I carry on my right hand wrist so um you can see I'm just I think I'm just about to do the the gas switch um I've
40:11
positioned myself so that I'm close to the shotline um yeah I I can do this
40:16
without holding on to a shotline but sometimes it's uh it's nice to have them sorry yeah know the exchange has actually happened now you can probably
40:23
see the uh the bubbles from the open circuit going past so I'm just making sure everything else is
40:29
sorted out with with computers and all that kind of bits and pieces really nice thing about this is that my two buddies
40:36
James and James are both uh are both clear both close by they're clearly
40:41
they're well aware something's wrong with me and they they've been super attentive which is which is absolutely
40:46
fantastic and uh you know it's reassuring to in this situation to have
40:52
those people around so I have have bailed out I'm on open circuit I've
40:58
sorted out all my bits and pieces in terms of handsets and everything so uh what's what's the next item on the
41:04
agenda well the next item on the agenda is going to be uh letting the surface
41:10
know that there's a problem uh and the reason I need to let the surface know there's a problem is because I want them
41:15
to deploy uh some gas from the surface part of our protocol is that we have uh
41:22
three cylinders on board the boat there's a cylinder that you can breathe at 40 m M there's a cylinder that you
41:28
can breathe at 20 M and there's a cylinder that you can breathe at uh six
41:34
or so M now I'm on the I'm on the 50% so I'm effectively on the 20 M gas so I'm
41:41
not interested in uh anything other than really the 6m gas so it's that's the
41:47
100% that I want but it isn't going to be there unless I tell the boat that I want it so that's going to be the next
41:54
item on the agenda now you can see once again that there's there's no uh particular Rush going on here I've got a
42:01
um ali8 so an 80 L cylinder of um 50%
42:07
that's going to last me at this depth for a very long time so uh I'm just breathing on that and while I'm while
42:13
I'm uh getting myself all all sorted out I'm going to be I think you probably see me clipping off my torch there and then
42:19
I'm going to get out my uh delayed SMB everyone's got their own um preferred
42:25
configuration for these things obviously finger spools are are very popular these days I don't use one I've got a uh a
42:32
lovely big chunky Kent tooling reel uh you know they're fantastic and
42:38
they they make this kind of thing uh really easy so that is going to be the thing that I uh get out relatively
42:46
shortly before I do that though there's something that everybody uh on the boat laughed at me about um when they got out
42:53
the water and that's this thing here so um what you've got there is there's a there's a we always have a uh a break in
43:00
the shotline and on the break in the shotline uh we restore our devices to
43:06
help uh Deco so there's two things on the on the brake one is my Kindle and
43:11
the other thing is uh an a phone in an underwater housing that is used by uh
43:17
blue helmet James now everyone said to me why did you why did you get your
43:22
Kindle off you know why didn't you concentrate on getting your today SMB up you you know why we even bothered with
43:28
it and I think it probably says something about my state of mind at this point I I was feeling really relaxed I
43:35
knew I had quite a lot of decompression to do um I knew that I was in a good place and so I thought you know what
43:41
I'll have my Kindle with me and at least I'll be able to read my Kindle while I'm doing the decompression now uh I don't
43:47
think any any agency or any instructor will will say that that's a particularly good idea but um hey you know what this
43:54
was my bailout so uh so sod a lot of them um so anyway I've got my Kindle
43:59
I've clipped it onto uh onto my gear um and um James is obviously going to get
44:05
his his thing in a minute and what I'm then going to do is start thinking about putting up my delayed SMB now I don't
44:12
want to put the delayed s SMB up too close to the shotline and the reason I don't want to put it up too close to the
44:18
shotline is because there's all those other people above me and if I if I put it up on the lazy shot then it runs a
44:23
risk of them getting entangled in it it's also um the skipper might not want to come too close to the lazy shots to
44:30
to drop stuff in so what I'm therefore going to do as you can see here is I'm I'm moving moving a bit away I've come
44:36
off the lazy shot I'm getting myself a bit of see room and you can see there I've got my um delayed SM SMB out and
44:43
and the protocol we we follow for for calling for gas is one that I think is is pretty much a standard so what I'm
44:49
going to do is deploy uh an orange uh marker first of all which is that big
44:55
one there and then once I've deployed the the orange marker I'm going to deploy a yellow marker after it and the
45:01
combination on the surface of the yellow marker and the orange marker that the skipper now knows that he needs to send
45:09
uh send the gas down so um and you'll see they do that relatively quickly so
45:15
here you go first thing is that the uh the orange uh psnb is going up I uh lots
45:20
of people use different things for filling delayed smbs some people do it um with a crack bottle I used small
45:27
bottle attached to it some people do it um with their Regulators I actually use
45:32
the autoare on my uh on my wing on on the rebreather to fill it so anyway uh
45:39
that is that has gone up now so that's up on the surface second thing I'm going to do is take off the yellow delayed SM
45:44
SMB and you can see me just doing that at the moment I have them all attached together so it's really easy to do and
45:51
I've got a little clip there that I can put on the delayed S&B line that I'm going to send up now this does have CO2
45:57
canister on it this one it's also got a a way that you can inflate it off a a
46:02
hose uh should the canister not should the CO2 not work fortunately CO2
46:08
canister does work and off it goes so all of a sudden the uh the boat on the
46:13
surface is going to see those two symbols it's going to see the orange delayed S&B and it's going to see the yellow delayed S&B and um I think
46:23
anytime a dive Bo Skipper sees that they they start to worry cuz they know
46:28
something's going wrong they don't know what's going wrong they don't know how many divers it is all they know is
46:34
they've got to get the the cylinders in the water now I guess this is another good thing about being close to the to
46:41
the lazy shot if I'd have done that if I'd have ascended direct off the wreck and then put up this symbol the skipper
46:48
would be concerned cuz he only has one set of uh cylinders if he deployed the cylinders with me then they wouldn't be
46:55
available should anyone else have a problem so by by doing it off the lazy shot the gas is in the water all the
47:02
divers are there cuz the lazy shots been released so you know in theory several of us could use that gas so it's it's
47:09
another benefit for being up on the lazy shot what you've also probably seen is that my uh my buddy um James Gregory the
47:18
um the guy with the red bear he's also come off and he's deployed his delayed SMB so he's kind of sticking with me so
47:25
the skipper knows that I've got a body which is uh which is obviously good for the good for the skipper also means that
47:31
you know should should we need some more gas we've got loads of gas between us so all is well and it's now just a case of
47:38
sitting here and waiting for the skipper to come over with the boat and to deploy the um deploy the gas it's all going to
47:45
come down on one line so it's a a 40 m long line with the with a 40 m cylinder at the bottom of it the 20 M cylinder at
47:53
20 M and then the uh the 6 M gas is is also going to be at 6 M now I'm I'm
47:59
clearly at 12 so all those cylinders two of them will be below me and one of them will be above me you can see there what
48:06
I'm uh I don't know why I've let go of my delayed SMB um but I have for a
48:12
bit um and there we go all is uh all is
48:18
well uh as you can see I've jumped forward a bit of time again I've uh I've
48:23
gone I've ascended from 12 to 9 meters and you can see there we go the uh the
48:28
gas is now in that that black rope has got the gas on it so uh that's clearly
48:33
uh that's clearly good news I it's taken a while you know maybe four or five minutes that's how come I've come up but
48:40
the important thing is is not how quickly the gas is in the importance that the gas is in and and I've got it
48:47
um so once again it comes back to this this no rush thing so I've I've got the gas and you've probably seen what I do
48:53
is I I clip my delayed SMB onto it that means that that we're all going to stay
48:58
together which is which is important cuz I am going to need that gas as I get up shallower so uh the gas is in I've got
49:05
it all is all is well just in case of uh clearing off My Deco from from 9 M and
49:12
then I'll get up to 6 M and then I'll be able to switch on to the 100% oxygen that is there so uh there's another fast
49:20
forward taking place here and you can see i' I've cleared off my 9 M stops and I'm starting to ascend up up the black
49:27
line um towards there it is there's the 100% oxygen at kind of 6ish MERS you uh
49:34
James my buddy still with me but uh unfortunately this is probably one of the big uh things that I I think I got
49:41
wrong on this dive uh one of the things I got wrong on this dive is is I've allowed us to become separated from the
49:47
other divers now you can see the viz isn't great um and that's probably why
49:53
but but really I could have I could have focused a bit more on it um rather than I probably just zoned out
50:00
but um so anyway there's just a two of us We're Alone Now uh and you can see I've got up here to 6 M there's 100%
50:07
oxygen and uh the next item in the agenda is going to be uh going through
50:14
those drills again so uh I'm going to you know check the gas on that it's 100%
50:20
I'm going to turn on the cylinder you can see there it's 100% cylinder that you've just seen me turn on I'm getting
50:25
the uh the the Reg mouth piece out and I'm then going to uh to do the switch
50:31
I'm also uh once I've done the switch I'm going to do the switch with uh my computers as well so that my computers
50:38
both my handset and my offboard both know that I'm on 100% uh I'm also going
50:43
to uh take the cylinder off um off the rope and I'm going to attach it to my body rather than leaving it on the uh on
50:51
the the line where it's been dropped in so that the the gas I need is attached to me rather than attached anywhere else
50:58
and then I'm also going to use the opportunity to get rid of one of my cylinders that I no longer need my deep bailout and attach it to the to the line
51:06
floating in the water so there's quite a bit of admin to go on there um but it'll end up in the right situation which is
51:12
I'll have two cylinders attached to me I'll have a 50% and I'll have the 100%
51:18
uh which are the two best cylinders for for this kind of depth and I will no longer have the the Deep bail out that
51:25
will be on the uh on the the line that came down with the cylinders and that's obviously uh the place that I want to be
51:32
now that's going to take a bit of a while it probably doesn't make particularly great watching so um I'm
51:37
going to uh fast forward very shortly just before I do that though I'm going to finish up letting you see me changing
51:44
the uh the settings on my two handsets you've just seen me do the the rebreather handset on my left hand side
51:51
uh you'll see me do the sheer water on on the right very shortly it's really important that you do this
51:57
um if I don't tell the uh computers what gas I'm breathing then they won't know
52:02
and they their decompression calculations Etc will be based on on whatever they think I'm breathing uh
52:08
clearly um that's uh that's not a good thing to do so so getting your computer set right is is important so that's
52:17
another little piece of the admin that goes on probably also worth mentioning um that when I did that Ascent one of
52:24
the things I needed to do was was dump the gas in my counter lungs so once I've
52:31
shut the mouthpiece of my rebreather and I've got off the rebreather and got onto the open circuit gear that the gas in my
52:38
rebreather will uh in inside the breathing loot will expand when I Ascend up through the water column pressure
52:44
reduces gas expands now the only way that that has got of getting out of the rebreather is if I happen to manually
52:52
dump it or if uh the pressure exceeds or the volume exceeds the the total volume
52:57
and therefore activates the over pressure valve so um on a bailout Ascent
53:02
it's really important for a diver to be to be thinking about what's happening with the rebreather Loop and uh and
53:08
dumping the gas I've already mentioned the the manual dumps that there are on the side of of the rebreather um and and
53:16
for a inspiration like I'm diving with back mounted counter lungs they are
53:21
actually quite awkward to get to they're quite low down on your right hand side um it's probably also not the best place
53:27
to have a dump as well because you you want the dump to be to be high so so when you do dump it you've got to kind
53:33
of adjust your body position to get the the the dump um at the highest point of
53:39
the breathing Loop so it is a bit of a faf but it can be done um right you can see there that I've um I've actually in
53:45
the process of taking I've put one of the cylinders um the the Deep bailout is
53:50
being put on the line the other cylinder is uh is the 100% is coming off the line
53:56
and it's coming coming on to me and then I'll be in the configuration that I mentioned earlier on and I'm all good
54:02
you can see that there's actually a bit of a swell I think you saw that before I got in which is why everything moves up
54:07
and down every now and again um that does make this a little bit more Awkward means that your buoyancy controls got to
54:14
be uh pretty good so I'm I'm at 6 M I'm not holding on to the line here uh I'm
54:19
just obviously moving cylinders backwards and forwards trying to do it while Holding On A Line would be would
54:25
be quite difficult so need to make sure you got your buoyancy sorted and there you go what I'm just doing there is checking that the um that the Deep
54:33
bailout that I've put on the line is turned off and the reason for that is because I don't want it to to leak out
54:38
deep bailout is mainly helium helium is expensive clearly uh don't want it to
54:43
leak out don't want to lose it that would be really upsetting so um the
54:49
importance of me being near that that drop Line is now much less than it was I
54:54
I don't really need that deep bailout anymore what I do need is the gas that I've got on me having said that there's
55:01
still a big boy on the top of it and uh I do need the boat to know where I am especially as I've uh I've rather
55:07
foolishly become separated from the lazy shot and the other divers so you can see there I've uncp The Reel I'm I'm reeling
55:14
up a bit and uh what I'm going going to do is reattach it onto the the line but I'm slightly above the uh the cylinder
55:21
that was below me now what's going to happen is I've got an awful lot of Deco to do now clearly that doesn't make for
55:27
great video so I'm going to fast forward again for a bit and the reason I fast forward is not so I can show you more uh
55:35
more video of his decompressing at 4 M but because of that there uh I don't know if you can see it but those are
55:40
dolphins so uh absolutely fantastic you know trying to see dolphin seeing
55:46
dolphins on on decompression stops is just awesome seeing dolphins on decompression stops while you bailed out
55:53
well that's uh that's just really special isn't it put James there who you probably saw they came up behind him he
55:59
says he absolutely almost lost it at that point but um it's great to see and
56:06
uh they did momentarily liven up the uh The Deco stops Unfortunately they then left and uh it was only that brief
56:13
Glimpse that we saw them for but still still a great experience uh fast forward again and this is uh you know right
56:20
towards the end of the dive so done all the Deco cleared all stops James is still with me you know good BL is and
56:27
we're going to uh we're going to get to surface you can probably see the uh there some red boys just as we surfaced
56:32
and then the white boy the red boys are the uh the lazy shot the white boy is the the gas that's been dropped in the
56:39
boat is over there as well yeah so there's the uh the red boys which is the trapes and the lazy shot there's the
56:45
boat they're obviously uh keeping a really good eye on us they're really pleased to see me on the surface so all
56:51
is well I showed this clip at the beginning but that's a bit of video that James took of me and you can see there
56:58
I'm I'm very pleased to be at the surface very pleased that it's all gone well and uh yeah great moment so next uh
57:06
next item on the agenda is to uh to get out the water and uh clearly the uh the boat Skipper you know wants to know
57:12
what's going on he's concerned about his divers so he's getting over here and he's going to get us out of the water as quickly as we can and while he's doing
57:19
that bit of a moment for reflection so you know what do I think went well on
57:25
this well clearly I got out of the water nobody got hurt our procedures worked
57:30
really well and that I guess is the ultimate ultimate thing in terms of
57:37
stuff that I'd have done a bit differently next time well I think I would probably have got out a bit
57:45
earlier maybe I think you know I probably left it a bit late for making the decision to get out the water um I
57:51
also think I needed to stay with the rest of the divers rather than becoming separated I mean as you saw it wasn't a
57:56
long way from them when I got out the water but I would have been I would have been you know much more pref I'd have
58:01
preferred to have been closer together you can also say maybe I should have uh you know used that checklist maybe I
58:07
should have done my uh recording my positive and negative checks well you know that's uh that's a good point as
58:14
well so a few different things there but I think far more went well than went
58:20
badly and as I said the the ultimate testimony is that that I got out okay
58:26
now what I'm going to do is just to finish off I'm just going to show you
58:31
what the problem was this is uh this is the reason I had to bail out
58:36
today got little hose there sticking just making sure that this o-ring didn't seal properly and that's the result
58:44
there clearly very good but well that ends well so uh not the
58:53
greatest uh the greatest sound quality on that little clip but you saw there that that that hose uh sticking out just
59:00
um it's in the wrong place it should have been should have been further in that's what what caused my uh canister
59:06
not to seal that's what caused the gas to go out that's what caused the water to get in and ultimately that that
59:12
caused me to uh to have to to bail out on this dive um good news and probably
59:18
Testament to the quality of uh of the AP inspiration I dive is that I I dried
59:24
that dried that all out dried out the electronics and then I I dived this unit
59:29
to a similar sort of depth on the very next day um and now that was obviously uh uh yeah that was that was great and
59:37
uh that dive went entirely fine and uh so all was well but I hope you've uh
59:44
enjoyed this video I hope you found it interesting um people who dive rebreathers I hope you found it
59:50
informative and uh you know maybe maybe learned something or youve you know it's been thought-provoking
59:57
uh for those of you who don't dive re Brothers I hope it wasn't too impenetrable I tried to to make it
1:00:02
accessible and and easy for people to understand uh here you go you can see I'm I'm coming back up the lift there's
1:00:08
the wonderful Liz uh to sort me out make sure I'm all okay poor old James a skipper had broken his foot so he's
1:00:15
hobbling out there cuz he's very keen to find out what's going on everyone else is is going to be interested as well but
1:00:21
uh clearly you guys already know the story they're they're taking the the the stuff off me and then I'm I'm going to
1:00:27
get sat down well I hope you've enjoyed uh this video uh if you have or if you
1:00:34
haven't leave something in the comments uh obviously as always feel free to like
1:00:39
uh subscribe share it with your friends all that kind of stuff and uh I look forward to seeing you uh on the next one
1:00:47
thank you very much