Last Single Point of Failure

As I descend rapidly with my trigger finger hard against the DPV throttle, I begin to realise that the little trickle of water running down my neck isn’t just a little leak, but instead has quickly turned into what feels like a geyser. Before I know it I’m on the bottom in 80m with a fully flooded suit thinking “How did this happen?”. I quickly got out of Dodge before my predicament went from unpleasant in the 20C water, to life threatening an hour or two later.

The cause of my drysuit flood turned out to be the SI Tech silicon neck seal, which had pulled out of the ring that holds it in the suit. I suspect it pulled out progressively whilst doffing, though can’t be certain. What I do know for sure if that I’ll be inspecting my drysuit before any major dives in future, as I was meant to be diving the SS Federal in 120m on that day, so was lucky it happened on a Sydney wreck instead.

Complacency is also a factor in my demise here, as I had a minor leak on an earlier dive last (presumably due to a milder version of the same fault). I failed to inspect my suit, which would have trapped the error. An overwhelming sense of “she’ll be right mate” and laziness is no doubt to blame, which is stupid when you consider thermal protection is really the last single point of failure in our technical diving configurations.

On a side note, I’ve otherwise found the Si-Tech silicon neck and wrist seals to be both comfortable and reliable.