Släggö 18/7 2021 Regulator problems require regulator solutions

Hi and ho!

This weekend we went to Släggö once more, as we brought with us someone who needed to rent gear due to not having their own, and not fitting in any of our extra gear. Either way, we arrived to the site, the day was beautiful, with both sun and some cooling winds. We kitted up, divided into pairs or groups and headed out for the first dive.

Crab hiding underneath a rock

Dive 1: 

Depth 28 m, Time: 43 min, Temp 14 C

We jumped in in a group of three, swam out to a good spot where we deemed it good to descend. We descended in a relatively orderly fashion, following the bottom slope downwards, as we reached our max depth, we swam around for a bit before the NDL told us that it was time to go a bit more shallow, which we did. As i was exploring some crevices on the cliff, one of my buddies signalled that something was wrong, which directly prompted me to decide that we were to turn around and go back to the starting point. As we swam upwards once more, our second buddy was having noticeable problems with their buoyancy, mostly with emptying their BCD, causing some rapid ascents before they got it under control, they also kept being very far away from the rest of us. We surfaced at 43 minutes, got up on land and doffed our gear. It was on land the real situation dawned on me, as my buddy showed that the cap and diaphragm of their 2nd stage had popped loose and fallen off in the middle of the dive, prompting the "problem" signal. A situation which was "less than ideal" for sure. Good thing they didn't panic, because that is a seriously dangerous issue to get mid dive.

Sea loch anemone, one of the more common species in the area.

Dive 2:

Depth 27 m, Time: 50 min, Temp 14 C

After a nice surface intervall in the sun, it was time for the second dive of the day.

This time we decided to try and look for the lost regulator parts, as we kind of knew where they probably had fallen off, So we descended at about the same spot as the previous dive, and followed the slope and cliffs, looking at the bottom as we went, but to no avail, we couldn't find the parts that fell out, so after a while, we turned around and headed back towards the starting point. As we swam, i got a pretty good motif of a lobster hiding in a crevice. We surfaced at 50 min, and got up. When we got up it turned out the dive pair that went in before us had found the parts and brought them up, no wonder we couldn't find them :)

All in all, it was a nice dive day, even if it was a bit on the stressful side, but hey, now i know how to unscrew and screw on the cap of a Apeks second stage.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

A nice close up photo of a European lobster.