Scuba Gear Sets

Does my title of finding how to make the world better by designing better scuba fins seem unusual, to put it mildly?  The truth is that a small thing like scuba design is indicative of why humanity is stuck in a planet-destroying rut.  Too many people are competitively trying to make a quick buck from only slightly modifying an existing innovation, instead of cooperatively attempting to make some quantum leaps for the long term good of both our world and our human species.

In the 1960’s, we were putting humans on the moon: at least we did if you disbelieve some conspiracy theorists’ claiming it was faked.  We people ought to be ashamed that in the nearly fifty years since the Apollo flights, nearly zilch has been built on it.  If we weren’t so inwardly focused, money lustful and resources wasteful, colonization of the moon would’ve been well underway and our objective would be set on Mars and beyond.  The young people of today would be braving new worlds in reality, instead of blowing their lives and energies on playing computer games.  Shame, Shame on us!

Look at the newest scuba fin designs.  I’ve linked to some performance data on trials these were subjected to.  Now closely examine the results of previous year’s scuba fins models: the differences are minute at best and utterly pointless when one considers that the sport of scuba isn’t competitive.  Whether one can cover a distance in a fraction of a second less time is of practically zero consequence—yet time, money and creative energies were devoted to it, because advertising can put some sales spin on the data.  A basic look at today’s top performing scuba fin is not much different from the first frogman flippers.  Shame, Shame on scuba gear designers and marketers!

I’ve been working on a new short novel ‘I Live in my Scuba Gear‘.  The hero has won 4 Olympic gold medals in swimming by innovating his kick.  He developed a new way of swimming, by studying reef fish and thinking of how he could make his human body mechanics work ergonomically like a fish’s tail.   Is this possible in real life?  I don’t know: I’m neither a muscular specialist nor an ichthyologist.  I’m a fiction writer with an imagination and some original thoughts but I don’t see how it couldn’t be theoretically possible.  Richard Fosbury’s way of jumping an Olympic high bar radically changed that sport.  How does this equate to scuba fin design?

What if the talent, brains, research and resources that went into the worthless new changes in scuba fins were pooled towards seeking a radical new improvement?  I’m thinking of something like a cross between a mermaid’s lower half and two toes of a frog’s webbed feet.  Try to picture the fantastic scuba fin performance improvement when the whole surface of both legs and an area of membrane in between are giving forward thrust, with the same muscle energy expenditure that’s going into making just two fins kick.  The military has long known that cutting the weight of footwear by half, double the weight that can be put into the backpack. Maybe the scuba industry could derive all the thrust from the legs and have only streamlined slippers on the feet that mostly act as a rudder.

However, the prevalent corporate philosophy is to plunder the earth’s raw materials, production capacity, and human ingenuity to make a mousetrap slightly lighter, marginally faster, a bit flashier looking than last season’s model, and somewhat more expensive one, just for the sake of profit—when it’s still an old style mousetrap that often kills the mouse in an inhumanely painful way.  And the newest scuba fins are still just like the ones of 50 years ago.  Big whoop!  And more Shame, Shame!

You want to know how to make the world better?  Start asking for improvements in the smallest things like radically redesigned scuba gear.  Then push for a really new mousetrap and see what develops from there.  Tell governments to stop emulating and catering corporation wastrels and to rebuild an aggressive space program.  Some of us should already be living on the moon right now in 2009.  But if people don’t start asking for a forward looking vision, the lunar surface will be just as uninhabited in 2059, 2109, 2159 and 2209 as it is today.  Shame, double-shame and triple-shame on the people of the last 50 years—and today!

The following is simply a lighthearted dramatization of a scuba gear related incident that really in a small community in Canadian Northwest Territories.  Fortunately, no lives were lost: only some gear that was not diving equipment went missing underwater, along with some dignity.

“Ooooooh!”  Earnest voiced his surprise on opening the black suitcase that had arrived by freight at the fire department where he was a volunteer.  Beside him, his brother Frances in both the familial sense and in the fraternal one of the emergency service whistled his pleasure.  Joseph didn’t make a noise but his heart palpitated from excitement when the opened box showed a bright yellow fiberglass wrapped air tank of a set of scuba gear: he didn’t notice that ‘u’ was missing.

They didn’t get many fires because the community was so small.  The last two had been training exercises and the real one previously was only a fish-smoking tent.  The guys had mounted a picture of that one on the training room wall because the total loss of the tent had been one of the biggest fires here – ever.

None of the men thought about the scuba gear for several days.  Joseph, the fire chief, ha learned that a guy from the Territorial Fire Marshal’s office would arrive in a few weeks, to show them how to use it but really, it hadn’t looked all that complicated.  Then Friday night rolled around and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired a special: The Undersea World of Jacque Cousteau.  Joseph knew the others would’ve seen the underwater adventures the French men in scuba equipment gear were having because the CBC was the only available television channel.  When the special ended, Joseph rushed to the fire hall and as expected, Earnest and Frances were already there and trying out the scuba gear.

“Remember the snowmobile Frances lost in the spring?”  Earnest asked.  His brother had parked his sled on the frozen Mackenzie River but hadn’t managed to collect it before the ice broke up.  All three had watched, but only two of them were laughing, when the machine had slid off a chunk of broken ice and disappeared underwater.

“Tomorrow,” Joseph answered with an eager grin, “we can go find it in our new diving equipment.”

Out they went, three firefighters in a boat and they dropped anchor at the place where they remembered the snowmobile going underwater.  They each put on their scuba gear, as they had practiced last night and as they’d seen the frogmen on TV doing.  Then as Earnest and Frances rolled backwards off the sides of the boat, the fire chief had a belated thought.  ‘Why would the fire marshal’s office send us out scuba gear?’  But the idea surfaced just too late.  The two brothers were already surfacing and sputtering as their facemasks filled with murky river water, when Joseph hit the drink.

Two of the three expensive sets were lost, likely coming to rest beside the never-to-be-found sled.  A firefighter’s SCBA isn’t designed for or usable as scuba gear.  This small scuba gear story is truth and not fiction.  Only the names were changed to protect the sheepishly guilty.

In answer to our search for stories, Author Russell Twyce shares his memory of a drowning death, fortunately temporary, that resulted from rental scuba gear critically failing.  You’ll see how quickly a fun underwater adventure can develop into a life or death, truth or fiction moment of diving equipment drama.

A truth or fiction death underwater – by Russell Twyce

I was on a dive charter near Vancouver, BC.  I’ve done a goodly amount of SCUBA but this was my first time in the Northern Pacific waters.  I hadn’t scuba dived in cold water with a heavy wetsuit diving equipment since mustering from the navy and my only my only other cold, make that frigid, water experience was from using a dry suit scuba gear set in the Arctic Ocean.

We were diving a 350’ vertical wall, but weren’t planning to go that deep.  I was enjoying the new conditions northern waters presented but was experiencing the usual minor difficulties with my rental scuba gear.  As typical with most major accidents, mine was a series of little problems adding up to, and exacerbating a critical underwater malfunction.

The heavy neoprene diving gear hood kept pushing my scuba mask askew and making it leak underwater: I often had to clear the water from it.  I also found the heavy mittens made doing things more difficult than using bare hands.  There were the other standard rental scuba diving equipment difficulties, like a scuba weight belt not fitting correctly and the scuba BC device straps misadjusted. At about the ten-foot mark, I had balanced my buoyancy to neutral but now at a depth of 100’, pressure had squeezed the tiny air bubbles out of the thick neoprene diving equipment wetsuit.  This made me heavier than water and as I swam out over the remaining 250’ abyss, I began to sink rapidly.

Strangely, I had the same vertigo sensation that I would’ve had standing at the edge of the roof of a twenty-story building.  I kicked and scrambled back onto the ledge.  My underwater breathing became moderately heavier from the small amount of extra exertion and mild fright.

I was about to adjust the air in my scuba gear buoyancy control device, when I checked my scuba diving gauges.  My diving equipment’s air supply was down to only half a tank remaining which meant we should start heading back to the surface.  I indicated my air status to my partner, with a flat hand cut across my inner elbow and he signed back that we would start our slow ascent.

I still hadn’t yet solved my scuba gear buoyancy issue but I turned my head briefly to view a starfish on the rock wall.  I swiveled my head back and suddenly began to breath seawater.  My underwater drowning had now begun.

A note: In dissecting the underwater events afterwards, I’ve come to a belief that some things could have been done differently but most of these would’ve resulted in a death, with no chance of rescue.  Things went wrong leading up to my drowning but then everything began to go right and those saved my life.

My first (mistaken) thought was that I didn’t have a proper mouthpiece seal.  I removed my diving equipment regulator and then reinserted it.  This was my first and my gravest mistake.  I should have switched over to my spare scuba gear regulator.  That would’ve saved my life and that’s precisely what the extra one is for.  However, I didn’t and another underwater breath of water unmistakably told me that I hadn’t found the correct solution yet.

Next, I tried clearing my scuba dive mask.  I’d been having difficulty with the fit around the diving wetsuit’s hood.  Now, I incorrectly assumed the water might be coming in from the scuba mask.  Retrospectively, this couldn’t have been the source as that should’ve been quite noticeable in my nose.

I first filled my scuba goggles with water and then cleared them completely.  But the water in my airflow remained and now I realized that my situation had slipped from problematic to grim.  While underwater I never did identify the source of the leak.  A post-accident inspection of the scuba gear set showed that a piece of the regulator had inexplicably split.

I briefly considered my current underwater options but as I was already choking on the brine, there was not much time for a lengthy decision process.  Ascending from underwater quickly might cause serious medical problems but I made a conscious decision to worry about consequences later.  First, I wanted to get some air that wasn’t saturated with water and that would definitely be available at the surface.

I tugged my dive buddy’s scuba fin and I pointed upwards.  He interpreted my gesture as a second acknowledgement of the plan to start angling upwards for a controlled ascent.  He nodded affirmative before turning away.

With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, I should have displayed more urgency to him.  My guide was well experienced in SCUBA and doubtlessly would’ve gotten me to change to my diving equipment spare regulator.  But perhaps by this time it might’ve already been too late for that to save my life.  I already had a significant quantity of seawater in my lungs.

As my partner resumed his slowly ascending track, I started swimming straight up.  Remember that I still hadn’t corrected my scuba gear set buoyancy issue and that means I’m dragging extra weight along with me.  Luckily, I forgot about that.  I also wasn’t in the panic mode that might’ve had me quickly inflating my diving equipment set buoyancy control device, to take a balloon ride up.  That would have definitely had a terminal result.

My dive partner looked back to ensure I was trailing his wake on a shallow upward angle.  Instead, he saw me climbing for the top and he guessed I was experiencing nitrogen narcosis from the 100’ underwater depth.  In his catching up and arresting my upward progress, my friend did exactly as he should have done.  He had no way of knowing that I was breathing liquid.  Another diver witnessed the truth or fiction struggle and joined in halting my ascent.  As a result I only made it up to approximately 50’ below the surface.

The pressure panic both other divers suspected is an interesting affliction, but whether or not I experienced it that day is a truth or fiction question: I don’t think I had any underwater panic related to depth.  The closest I came to even mild terror was in the unusual underwater falling/vertigo sensation but that was before I started drowning.  I continued to be lucid and moderately calm through the whole emergency situation that followed.  I had also spent years in various fire departments and had been in quite a few dangerous positions before without loosing my head.

To be honest, I wasn’t even completely aware that my underwater progress was being slowed.  The two other scuba divers had grappled me from below and outside of my diving mask’s peripheral vision range.  I was drowning and was fully focused on my reaching the surface.

At this point I spit out my scuba gear mouthpiece because my lungs were already seizing up from the water I had ingested.  I realized in this moment that my death was now inevitable.

Then another face appeared in my vision.  My dive-mate had seen me eject my regulator.  He had climbed up my body to bring his own diving equipment air supply to replace mine.  I took the proffered mouthpiece and tried an underwater breath, but this only pushed the fluid further into my lungs.  His scuba regulator contained good air, but it wasn’t helping me.

Strangely enough, here at the worst part of the truth or fiction drama is where things started to go right instead of wrongly.  When I spit out that second diver’s mouthpiece, I ensured that I would drown, but it also saved my life.  If I had made the surface before my underwater breathing stopped, I probably wouldn’t have survived and the second diving equipment set regulator shows why.  On reaching the atmosphere, my breathing would’ve circulated caustic seawater throughout my lungs.  I would’ve died of a process called secondary drowning where the lungs produce mucus to protect themselves from an irritant.  The seawater I had already ingested would kill me long before reaching emergency care.

I looked up at the surface, which seemed tantalizingly close and the rays of sunlight in the water were reminiscent of many religious images.  That was a melodramatic final scene I’ll remember vividly until my next death.

As my eyes darkened I fully expected that it would be the utter end.  I didn’t experience any fear of pain at this point, even though I knew that my underwater death was inescapable.  I was frightened in my soul because I had no faith in any afterlife.  I expected that all I would experience would be nothingness but in a few more seconds I would know the answer to the ultimate truth or fiction question.

I have to say that drowning underwater like this was a fairly painless way to go.  Maybe if my lungs had actually filled up with water it would’ve been worse.  For me, the death was due to a relatively small amount of salt water causing my lungs to seize in rejection.

And in that underwater instant, I had gasped my last and my scuba gear failure dilemma was over: my vivid afterlife experience had begun.  But that’s a whole other truth or fiction story.

The End

Thanks to Russell Twyce for relating that to us.  I’ve posted this here at Scuba Gear Sets as a firm reminder that the selection and care of your diving equipment set is critical.  A well maintained diving equipment package saves your life every time it’s used and allows you to enjoy underwater adventures without worry.