[Conor]

What I am thinking is of writing a letter detailing what happened, as much to make them aware of it as anything else. As for it only happening to me, that was strange as it happened to me 4 times and I was beginning to think I was going mad, until it happened to Gav on the last day. Viki (the Divemaster) did admit it had happened to her in the past also.

Even if it had happened only to me I would like to see someone explain how I could attach a clean 1st stage to a cylinder at 200+bar, dive with no sign of air escaping, return a tank with a minimum of 50+ bar and have anything inside the 1st stage and cylinder that wasn't in the cylinder before the dive.

It may have happened to others, but besides the YD crowd I don't know how many of the guys actually were checking their 1st stage before putting on the new cylinder.

The things that piss me off are;
That I own regs to use on Holiday so I don't have to rely on rentals, my air consumption and general enjoyment of a dive can vary dependant on the equipment I dive with. This holiday represented half my years diving that I couldn't use my regs for.

The next time I use the regs will most likely be on my next holiday, if this holiday is another liveaboard I may not therefore know if my regs are OK without having them properly serviced before I go. I was assured the regs had been cleaned, and they weren't.

Something in the processes/procedures being used is flawed, allowing contaminents to enter the breathing air. I was left diving with a slight feeling that if there was a little bit more of this stuff on the next dive it may be able to interfere with the operation of the regulator. One other diver reported smelling diesel after clearing his mask, he later said he felt dizzy on the dive. When my second reg got blocked for the second time, one of the crew tried to clean it by rinsing water through the first stage, hence reg 3.

But, just to be clear, I had a great Holiday and hold nothing against any of the staff on the boat, but I am thinking about bringing it to the attention of the people chartering the boat to see what they have to say. My holiday was by no means ruined but it may have been a little better.

Steve - I hope I didn't come across to miserable on the boat, but there was one occassion I could have throttled someone (when I was told I wouldn't see my regs until the end of the week). Unforunately/luckily none of the people available were the people I should have throttled.

Sorry to rant

Conor