A dear friend of mine was along for a guided cave dive last week. We drove 20 minutes into the jungle, set up our gear, and hiked down a slippery muddy slope in double tanks. By the time we finally reached the water, we flopped, exhausted, into the refreshing pool, only to find that her pressure gauge had tiny bubbles leaking from the connection with the high pressure hose on her regulator. Dive gear gets worn out, and o-rings and other small moving parts occasionally need to be replaced, so this was no great surprise. What surprised her was that, being rather detail oriented, I made her get out of the water, hike back up to my truck, and fix the problem. When she wanted to know why I was being so fussy, especially as her gauge had been bubbling for many dives and had never been a problem, I let her in on one of my diving philosophies: little bubbles eventually become big bubbles.
Dive equipment should be air-tight. Small bubbles, even tiny, champagne-size bubbles, indicate that an o-ring or seal is beginning to fail. Usually, small bubbles escaping from a piece of dive equipment will not become a problem immediately, but this isn't a reason to continue to dive when they are noticed. Little bubbles are the beginning of a problem, and should be treated as such and fixed as soon as they are noticed. In technical diving, this is a rule, but in recreational diving, I have observed many divers continue to dive for months with leaking hoses and connections until the leaks become larger and eventually present a real problem.
As a scuba instructor, I try to teach that prevention is nine-tenths of the battle. Once bubbles are observed, it is only a matter of time until the o-ring or connection from which the bubbles are emanating will fail completely. The most common situation in which such failures occur is when the scuba tank is opened and the regulator and dive gear are pressurized. While this doesn't put a diver in immediate danger, it can ruin a dive if the failure occurs on the way to a dive site or even a dive vacation if no replacement parts are available. In the worst case scenario, a failure occurs underwater and the dive must be ended immediately. This not only ruins the dive for the diver with the bubbling equipment, but for his dive buddy or team. An unexpected major leak on a dive can be scary, and even require emergency ascent procedures such as air-sharing ascents.
Why would anyone submerge themselves into a foreign, possibly dangerous environment with gear that is not one-hundred percent reliable? Perhaps a diver feels pressure from his buddies to complete the dive, or he feels the trouble of fixing the gear is not worth the hassle. Such a diver should be warned that while scuba diving has a very good safety record, diving is only safe as long as the dive gear works.
More dive safety articles:• The Pre-Dive Safety Check
• What All Divers Should Know About Oxygen Toxicity
• The Golden Rule of Scuba Diving
Most dive operators will have a spare regulator available for a diver's use in the case of a regulator malfunction, and many carry “save a dive” kits with basic parts for the most common in-the-field repairs. A diver who notices bubbles before a dive would be well-advised to ask for the spare regulator or for help repairing the problem. A diver who notices bubbles underwater should be prudent thing end the dive before the little bubbles become big ones. It is a bad idea to keep diving with scuba gear that is not functioning properly.
This may sound overly alarmist, but imagine a similar situation. If you were given a car and told that the brakes were beginning to fail, and that they might be okay for a few months or that they might fail the next time the car is driven, would you take that car on this highway? I hope not! Small bubbles are a warning to divers that a piece of scuba equipment may break at any point. Take the time to fix small leaks and the little bubbles will never become large ones!
