DATELINE: 30th November 2000
COMING HOME
Warwickshire diver Andy Marks, whose pony cylinder and regulator were dropped and lost in Lyme Bay two years ago, has been reunited with his gear after a remarkable story of recovery, renovation and detective work by others.
Previously, Divernet News reported how Adrian Norris, of Romsey BSAC, came across the rusty pony with Poseidon Cyklon 5000 regulator while diving with club friends on the submarine M2. The cylinder was finished but the regulator was to prove a very different story.
Norris sent the Cyklon to Poseidon Diving Systems. Its boss, Brian Bickell, oversaw its restoration back to full working order.
"The regulator's high-pressure piston had closed, so water did not enter and corrode the first stage," Bickell told Diver. "Basically we gave it a good clean and standard annual service with new O-rings, high-pressure seat and first-stage diaphragm, and it came up as new, bar the few scratches you'd expect after it had rolled around the seabed for two years."
Ironically owner Andy Marks, who was tracked through the serial number, is a servicing technician. He runs the dive gear service department at Aquamarine in Warwick!
"I'm delighted to get the reg back - and so is my wife Laurette [who runs Aquamarine's scuba school]," Marks told Diver. "She was the one wearing the gear when it was lost! It snagged on the dive boat as she jumped in and was ripped away."
Marks complimented Bickell's renovation work and the Cyklon itself. "Don't take this as a product plug; it's just a fact that, like other better regulators, the Cyklon has good-quality chroming which helped keep it in such good basic condition.
"Servicing these things, you often see the chrome on inferior models peel after a few years and even interfere with O-rings.
"It either unseats them or, as peeled chrome can be very sharp, cuts them. So watch your chrome!"

---