Posted by MHK on August 06, 2001 at 16:29:24:
Kelphead, I believe, asked a question last week about what position do most divers leave their drysuit dump valve during a dive..
I answered that I do NOT leave my valve open and that I believe that it was a wiser course of action, for the reasons that I stated, that you should leave it open..
I was with Andrew Georgitis, training director for GUE, this weekend and he saw my post. He disagreed with me for a variety of reasons, including; but not limited to, the fact that if you have a runaway argon inflation bottle that it was better to have the valve open. We discussed the issue and I countered with the fact that I thought since I was turning around so much, I go upside down so much and given the probability of the argon bottle running away -v- inadvertant dumping that I thought it was a better idea to leave it closed...
Andrew asked the prominent question, which was... If you have a valve that gets stuck at 300' what happens??? ie; you're dead.. If you get inconvienced by an inadverntant dump, what harm does it do??? ie; you're NOT dead..
Accordingly, I plan on revisiting my prior advise and as Andrew pointed out this weekend, prioritizing your problems..
To that end I wanted to share what I learned this weekend and suggest that others take this sound advise into their diving...
Later