Rebreather scrubber failure on a 40 foot dive in Port Angeles, had to hot-swap underwater

Rowan Hunt · 2026-08-08T10:00:54.08882+00:00

Last week I was running a survey job in Port Angeles, about 40 feet down checking a piling for a ferry dock. My unit started giving me high CO2 readings out of nowhere, even though I had packed the scrubber fresh that morning and logged it properly. I know the standard line is to abort and surface, but the current was nasty and my surface interval was shot, so I swapped the canister on the bottom in about four minutes using my bailout bottle. Everyone on the crew thinks I was reckless, but the truth is the sensor was the problem, not the scrubber, because the replacement was fine and the readings settled right away. I've done hundreds of bottom swaps in classes and this one felt no different, just colder and darker. Has anyone else dealt with a false CO2 alarm on a rebreather and stuck it out instead of bailing, or am I the only one who trusts the math over the dashboard?

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Rebreather scrubber failure on a 40 foot dive in Port Angeles, had to hot-swap underwater | Commercial Divers - HW Forums