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Following is a recap of my first experience renting cylinders from a South
Florida dive shop:

To keep things as simple as possible, rather than use my EAN instructor's
card, I would use my Recreational OWI c-card to rent the two cylinders we
needed.

The gentlemen who waited on us was no inexperienced kid.  He quite possible
could have been the store manager.  My buddy and I specifically and clearly
asked for two aluminum 80 air cylinders.  He asked me for a c-card.  I showed
him my OWI card.  He asked if we were using the tanks for dive training, to
which I said no.  He did not ask to see my buddy's c-card.

He pulled two 80's from the rack.  They were unpainted, galvanized steel, had
green valve caps, and contents stickers on the side.  The stickers had "21%"
written on them.  Additionally they both had small pieces of masking tape up
near the necks with "32%" written in black marker.

I reminded him I asked for *air*.  He said no problem and he offered to cross
out!! the "32%" on the tape; not even to remove it.

I said to hold on.  I asked for air, I don't know about these kind of tanks,
what might have been in them, how they are maintained, or anything.  He said
"We don't have to do that ... our agency doesn't use dedicated cylinders."

I should have left then, but instead I asked again for two plain air
cylinders.  After he spent a few minutes showing no effort to hide his
annoyance, he pulled two more cylinders from the same rack.  These cylinders
looked like the others minus the tape on the neck.

While this was going on, my wife whispered to me something about their air
quality.  I told her to look for a gas analysis report.  She found it tacked
to the wall by the fill panel.  It was dated 1994.

As we knew where we were diving, I kept much of this in perspective.  Of
course *he* didn't know anything about where we were diving. 

It seems to me the implications are severe:  What was actually in the first
set of cylinders?  32%?  21%?  Something else?  Whatever it was, how did he
know for sure? And what was he doing giving them to me?  Was he sure at all?

As he had no knowledge of our EAN training, how did he expect *me* to verify
that a cylinder with markings I had never been exposed to before in fact had
air in it?  I'm not trained in this area, remember?  Was I just supposed to
just take his word cause he's the expert?

There are a lot of divers in this world unfamiliar with the concepts of
alternate breathing gases.  People have been trained for years who never come
in contact with it.  Even for recently certified divers, exposure to EAN
theory in open water training is still more or less optional, and unless the
instructor is well-versed or well-trained, inaccurate by many standards.
 People generally do not know what it is they don't know.


Think of the impression on the mainstream, unsuspecting, and unexposed
public.  He sees tank markings he's never seen before.  He doesn't know what
they are supposed to mean.  He reads it and immediately sees an obvious
conflict.  He doesn't know how to resolve it.  He is not trained to know an
analysis or test is even possible so he doesn't know to ask.

Whether or not he buys from the store, he concludes there is no control.  No
rules, no procedures, no clarity.  Nothing special with regard to that
technical stuff he might have heard something about.  "Our agency doesn't
require it" is like saying I got a note from home.  Laxity, it doesn't apply
to us.  Imagine if a doctor, lawyer, or accountant, stock broker said
something like that to you or your family.

Based on what I went through, customers, "air" divers can inadvertently
receive EAN without ever knowing it.  The air had no noticeable odor, taste,
or other obvious objection.  I will, however, not visit that chain again.

After everything I've been reading about for the last few years, where the
experts are, who the experts are, where it all began, and on and on, all I
can say is:

Nice Job, really well done, South Florida.


RatDiver @AOL
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