Dirty Lens and other Lessons Learned

One of the best ways to learn new things is to watch other people. During the cave tour week I was in the company of six other highly experienced scuba divers, five of which were open water Instructors! That's a humbling experience. But the one lesson I wish I'd learned was: Ear Drops. Some of the divers were religiously flushing their ears immediately after each cenote dive. Admittedly, the water in some cenotes doesn't look too good, but I'd never gotten an ear infection from cave diving before.... until now.

On Wednesday, a good five days after my last cave dive, I came down with a really BAD ear infection, the kind that is so painful you can't sleep at night. Fortunately some scuba friends recommended "Oto Eni" a strong antibiotic solution that would be prescription (and very expensive) in the U.S. It worked like a charm and four days later I am almost 100%. Even did three dives yesterday in salt water with no problem ear clearing and no pain. Lesson Learned: use ear drops after fresh water dives. And be careful of Cenote Calimba!! I am pretty sure that's where the bad water is.

Dirty Video Lenses

For two months now I've been using a Light & Motion Stingray II underwater video system both in the ocean and in caves. The system used to belong to John Mildenberg, friend of Andrew whom I'd mentioned before. John passed away last summer and his wife Maya, who came down last October with Andrew to Cozumel, sold me the kit. It's been a lot of fun to learn a new form of photography and to have a new "toy" to play with underwater.

The results have been pretty good, although I know that I am only beginning this learning curve towards "movie quality" composition. For now, it is a great way to document the places I'd been in caves and to capture moments in open water like "let's see how close I can get to this shark" and "what's that octopus eating?" and "look at this beautiful drum fish swimming out in the open at nighttime." The idea behind video is to tell a story in so many minutes but so far I am missing the script. Along the way I'm getting a lot of nice scenes though!

On yesterday's first dive we went to Palancar Bricks. Vis was less than average, maybe 60-80 feet. The view through the camera lens was even worse!! It looked like 10-12 feet. Ever since I'd gotten the video it seemed like something was not right with the optics but I'd put it off to lens flare. When I got home, I took a good hard look at my optics to discover that the flat port on the housing was filthy. You know how windows made of two sheets of thin glass will get foggy on the inside? That's exactly how this looked. Question was, how to open the flat port?

Manufacturers of dive gear are a strange bunch. They have EXCELLENT marketing staff and SUCKY technical writers. It's not just one brand, it is ALL of them. They write their manuals as if their only customers were 10 years old. They have no belief that any of us could be mechanically inclined enough to perform our own service work. I'd read the entire Light & Motion booklet and was disappointed many times over that there were lots of questions left unanswered. What to do with the flat port was yet another to add to the list. I got frustrated. I got angry. I got creative. I poked and prodded the inside O-rings with sharp objects in ways people say you shouldn't... and I persevered! Now my optics are crystal clear for the first time ever, and I'm seeing the world in a different way! What I thought was lens flare was in fact all the filth inside my optics.

Lesson learned: Don't assume equipment is 100% just because it works. Learn about it and understand it like a techie; don't be afraid to poke around.

Suunto Cobra Resets

Scuba diving is FUN. Diving to 130 feet doesn't scare me. Seeing sharks twice my size makes me want to get closer to investigate, not run away. Going 3,000 feet into a cave where there is only one exit (3,000 feet behind me) doesn't make me worried, it only makes me want to see what's beyond the next bend. Having my dive computer reset on me... that's a PROBLEM that doesn't get ignored.

On Tuesday, my Suunto Cobra (which I got of eBay and I've used for six years and three batteries) ran flawlessly on the morning dive. Just before the 2nd dive I'm setting up the Nitrox and as soon as I do, it resets!! No nitrox, no time-of-day, no memory of the last dive, nothing. So I set Nitrox again. It resets AGAIN. Scary. On the 3rd go, it sticks and I decide to dive anyway, not having an alternative like my spare computer. The manufacturer(s) and dive organizations say when you get erratic computer behaviour, you should cancel your dive.

Those of you who know me know I'm not big on taking unwarranted risks. On this dive we were going to be 50 ft maximum (40 ft average) and I had a 36% Nitrox tank. Even at worst case that gave me over an hour of bottom time. Without a computer, there's no real risk on this profile. What should I worried about? If the dive computer is failing because it was flooding (I'd replaced the HP hose seal the day before) then diving with it again would only make it worse.

Off we went. It worked great for almost the entire dive, and then coming out of the water right at the end, it resets while I'm checking the bottom time and temperature. Weird!! Back at home, I start surfing the internet for probable causes. Google: "suunto cobra resetting" and some interesting results pop up. Turns out that Lithium coin cell batteries are not always consistent and although you can have a "good" battery indicator on the computer, it may be at the end of its service life. This battery I'd been using for about two years (150 dives?) never registered the full 4 bars on battery test - it always registered three. I guess that was a warning sign in and of itself. But... 150 dives? I never worried about it. However some posts were saying the battery should be replaced after 100 dives or two years... oops.

That night I replaced the battery with a fresh new Energizer CR2450. The old battery was a mystery brand I picked up at a local camera store on Cozumel. Now I'm reading 4 bars again and the computer has worked perfectly for yesterday's three dives. I hope anyone who has come across this website because of a similar problem will take heart: If your dive computer is resetting and the battery is a year old or older, try replacing it with a name-brand battery. But do so only if you feel competent to keep all the seals clean.

Lesson Learned: Use only name-brand batteries. Change it after 200 dives, 200 hours or 2 years.

DiveRite H10 HID canister light

Dive Rite has been around a while and they make a wide range of products specially for the technical diving market. It is no surprise that among cave divers, you see their stuff all over the place. Most specifically I use their Transpac harness, Rec Wing bladder and H10 canister light.

On this particular dive trip (80 days in Cozumel, 8 days in Akumal) I've had more equipment problems than I care to remember. But the most annoying has been the H10 canister light. As you can guess the light is the heart of a cave diver's arsenal and although we carry backups, these powerful HID lights are extremely important towards our enjoyment of cave diving. When they quit working, we have a bad day.

I purchased my H10 about 2-1/2 years ago. It has been with me over 100 dives though probably closer to 150. Dive Rite makes good products but I feel they don't always use the best materials; case in point is this light. I have what is apparently known as the "infamous orange cord" a water-proof 2 wire cable that links the battery to the light head. In incidents barely a week apart, the wires BROKE inside the plastic in two places: near the canister and near the light head. Fixing this in the field involved extremely delicate surgery with a lot of tools and several hours' labour. I am enormously thankful I brought those tools with me, one of which was a soldering iron! The cable is now six inches shorter and it will be sent back to Dive Rite to be replaced at the end of this trip. Considering that this cord is notorious to fail, and that a cave diver's light is considered SAFETY equipment, I am both surprised and annoyed that Dive Rite did not post a recall or even an advisory on this issue.

Lesson Learned: If you own any Dive Rite canister light with an orange cord, GET IT REPLACED. NOW.