Sterling Adventures

Sunday morning proved as pleasant as the previous day and a couple of hours were spent assembling, adjusting, modifying and general fettling the re-breathers before heading off to the quarry at Cromhall to test them. We are planning a trip to the Lot later this month and this was the last time to meet up and test everything before going, everything had to work. No pressure then.

Andrew was diving without major modifications and was just making sure everything worked. I was testing a new bailout cylinder mounting system and a new dry suit neck seal. Marcus was testing a new chest mounted re-breather made form the bits of his back mount unit, strapped to a backplate and contained with a bit of yellow plastic held in place by a bit of string. We arrived at about midday to find the bottom had been well stirred by the various open water training courses going on. Undeterred we got into the water and did our bubble checks. We each had at least one leak. All from high pressure O-rings. Andrew swam off for a play around some of the things that have been sunk by the owners to provide interest. I swam off with Marcus who had good trim but was incorrectly weighted. The chest mount RB added to the problems and meant neither of us needed anything to be sunk to provide interest.

After 20 minutes underwater one of my oxygen monitors started giving peculiar readings that exceeded my allowable levels of interest. Bailing out onto open circuit gas I signalled the end of the dive to Marcus and we swam back to the beach area where we surfaced. Andrew joined us shortly afterwards.

We then headed back to Andrews for an afternoon bar-b-q in the sun.

Marcus with his chest mount RB. The drive gas is carried in twin cylinders on his back for dill and bailout, the oxygen is carried on a 2 litre cylinder on his side, clipped to his harness. The module in his left hand is the O2 monitoring electronics.

Under the yellow cover is the scrubber and the two counter lungs with (left to right) the OPV, ADV and one of the oxygen sensors. After the dive Marcus was considering returning the RB to a back mount configuration for the upcoming trip. The chest mount configuration will be a project requiring further work upon our return.