Angelo Pardinas wrote:

>     I finally had my first after-OW class dive :-)   It was in Pulau
> Dayang, Malaysia - I had 5 dives.
>    I thought that the first 4 dives were quite good - got to see things for
> the first time  - 3 Clownfish (all babies), 1 big Batfish, a Nudibranch.
> However, after going for the 5th (and last) dive where the location had
> several batfish, several species of clownfish, a school of barracuda (my
> first also), 2 big bumphead parrotfish (again a first for me), large
> schools of fish, colorful nudibranch, soft and hard corals etc. - all the 4
> earlier dive sites paled by comparison.  There was a part where I even swam
> straight through a school of fish - it was a great feeling seeing them
> swimming all around you  :-)   ....  But for me, the school of barracuda
> and the 2 huge parrotfish was the highlight of the dive trip. Too bad my
> girlfriend decided not to go for the last dive since she was tired ... so I
> had to buddy with some other guy - a teacher of mine when I was in college
> who I only met on the dive trip (small world).
>
>     Anyway, there were some minor 'bumps' during the dive trip - one was my
> mask kept on fogging. I used a supposedly new kind of defogger (TR-17) - a
> silicone-based one that you drop on the mask, spread out with fingers,
> buffed with a cloth and then rinsed. I think I did too much buffing with
> the cloth ... anyway, I'll just buy another defogger for my next trip.
>
>    The second problem was my air consumption - I was going in with about
> 200 bar and coming out with only 40-60 bar while the others still had 150
> bar left !! Well I have some ideas on why this is happening to me (shallow
> and rapid breathing, kept on adjusting my buoyancy using the BCD). Anyway,
> can you guys comment on this suggestion from Rodale's Scuba Diving :
>
> http://www.scubadiving.com/training/instruction/saveair.shtml
>
> The first suggestion was for a breathing pattern of exhale, inhale, hold,
> exhale, inhale, hold .... I know I asked something similar like this before
> : Is this ok - to hold the breath ? I mean since I'm not rising or anything
> I assume it's okay - I just want to hear your opinions before I consider
> trying this on my next dive trip.
>
>    I also want to ask the maximum amount of air that a 3000 psi air tank
> can really hold. The tanks we were using were always filled to only 200 bar
> (about 2000 psi). So I ask the guy who was filling our tanks to give me a
> tank with about 250 bar but he did not want to saying the last time he did
> it - the tank 'exploded' or something (he injured his hand which he prooved
> by showing me a nasty scar). And if I remember correctly, during our OW
> class this was also the case - tanks were filled up to only 180 - 200 bar.
> Is this true ? Do dive shops really stop at 200 bar ? Or are they just too
> paranoid / stingy ?

Hi Angelo,

I'm glad you had such a nice dive trip. Just for your info, 200 bar is more or
less equal to 3000 psi, not 2000. 250 bar would get you in the 3800 psi range
which is probably not a great idea if the tanks are not rated for that
pressure.

Jean-Marc