Went scuba diving with Ren’s group yesterday at Aquaventure Reef Club in Anilao, Batangas. On the first two dives, the visibility was good and there were lots of fishes but the dives were pretty much uninteresting. On the third dive, things got a bit more interesting. As I opened the tank valve when I did my pre-dive check, I heard a loud hissing sound. Investigating it, I saw two or three pinprick-sized holes on the high pressure hose. Ren tried sealing with glue it but the seal won’t hold.
I was thinking of not joining them on the dive but Ren and the others told me it’s nothing to worry about. Since the leak doesn’t seem to be too great and I was assured that there’s no chance of a catastrophic hose rupture, I relented and decided to proceed with the dive. Besides, since the last dive will be shallow, there’s the option of an emergency ascent. Of course, even from a shallow dive still, it still carries the risk of bends. Funny because we were talking about whether we would choose drowning or the bends during lunch. Fortunately, nothing bad happened during the dive. I did stick close to Ren ready to grab his backup regulator if necessary. Call it a precautionary measure ;)
Back at the surface after the dive, I checked the hose again and discovered that it was no longer leaking air. My theory is that the starting tank pressure which was higher than normal– the pressure gauge read 225 bar instead of the usual 200 bar– went above the hose’s age-degraded specification and so leaked. But when the air got used up, the hose was able to handle the lower pressure. I’m not sure if it would have been able to handle the normal 200 bar but considering healthy hoses should be able to handle 300 bar, it definitely needs to be replaced before the next dive.