Tell us what caused your flood.

Today I was wondering if anyone had started a thread specifically on floods so we can all learn from the unfortunate luck of others.

So, if you've experienced any level of flood, please give a brief description of the flood and what caused it.

I'll start with two of mine.

Several years ago, I noticed a Nikonos V had what I call "the tiny bubbles of death" coming out of it at 80'. I'm not 100% sure what caused it but I do remember the door not closing as smoothly so I either pinched the o-ring or didn't lube the o-ring enough. Note to self: If it doesn't feel right, start over.

Last year, I noticed water sloshing around at the bottom of my dome port. I surfaced, removed the D200 from the housing and took out the battery. I'd already turned off the camera and strobes. I later learned that a improperly manufactured port slipped though quality control department at the manufacturer. True to their reputation, the electronics were replaced in the housing free of charge and I got a new port.

Chris

So, if you've experienced any level of flood, please give a brief description of the flood and what caused it.

I'll play. And while I think this will be an interesting thread, I believe it will also become "Stupid Diver Tricks" (myself included). Many of my flodds fall into the "You Idiot!!!" category.

1. Diving years ago with Nikonos. Find an eel. Wonder why the flash only fires once. Then remember that I don't remember putting the o-ring in the battery cap door. Sure, enough I had gotten distracted from my normal routine and then in the hurry-up-the-gate's-closing mode, goofed. User error.

2. Out at Las Animas in the Sea of Cortez. Doing my 13th dive of the trip on October 13th. When I got to 13 feet (well, maybe a little deeper but it's a better story this way) and looked through the viewfinder of my housed N90, I could see water sloshing around. Horrified to see the port filling with water. Once again, had gotten out of my routine. But this time, it was something as simple as that I normally hook up the camera when I'm wearing my glassess as oppsoed to my contacts. (I'm very near-sighted.) This time I had my contacts on but didn't feel like going back to find my reading glasses (so I could see closeup) as I was assembling things. Started chating with someone and didn't notice that I'd never bothered to install the o-ring port. User error.

3. Once again in the Sea of Cortez. Poor Hernan, longtime deckhand for the Don Jose, lifts my camera of out of the rinse bucket and somehow the lens port has totally popped off. Camera and lens are toast. I had had a port latch pop loose two weeks earlier as I was exiting the water but no damage. I suspect it's a bad design on the port latch (which was a push-down spring latch) on the Ikelite housing. I think that in handling the camera (they had a new panga driver that week), soneone inadvertently hit the latch and it popped loose and then flooded when submerged in the rinse bucket. I report the problem to Ikelite and they say that if they can duplicate the problem, they'll replace my camera and lens as well as repair my housing all at no charge. (Yeah!!) However, they say they can't duplicate the problem with the latch. (Un-Yeah!!!) Interestingly, within a month, they replace their latch design on all of their housings and offer retrofits as well. Not pointing fingers but . . . Hmmmmmmm.

4. Bonaire two tears ago. Walking back with my camera, fresh out of the rinse bucket. Back to room and am hoorifed to find a small amount of water inside and it's been sloshing and splashing while I walked with the hosuing. Water is fresh, not salt. Appears that an o-ring may have slightly extruded allowing water to enter. Doesn't appear to be water intrusion into camera or lens but some functions of the D70 won't work. Thoroughly dry it, including blasting a hair dryer in through the battery compartment for about an hour. Camera magically recovers. Subsequent discussion with Ikelite reveals that if you use Nikon grease on Ikelite o-rings, the grease will be absorbed over time and cause the o-ring to swell and not seat right. I replace all of my Ikelite o-rings and swear only to use Nikon grease on Nikon o-rings (strobes) and Ikelight grease on Ikelite or-rings (sync cords and camera housing).

5. Sea of Cortez last year. Camera fires fine for first five shots of third dive of the day. Strobes then stop firing. Ready lights are on, camera fires, but no strobes. At a depth of 60', I'm horrified to learn that the bulkhead connector between my housing and the dual sync cord has come partially unscrwewed. I screw it all the way down underwater to prevent any further leaking. Come back on board, thoroughly soak the bulkhead connector and the sync cord plug in alcohol and magically get everyhting working again. No clue as to how it came unscrewed as I'm positive it was tightly screwed down and I'd already done two dives that day with no problem. Never had it happen again but now make "checking all the screw-in components" part of my regular pre-dive check.

6. Not a leak but . . . Post-Cocos last year. Nikon had just replaced both of my SB-105s (which were having performance problems) with brand-new SB-105s. On one day, when I was changing AA batteries in the strobes, I noticed one set of batteries was unusually warm. Didn't think too much about it. Put a new set in. At the end of the next day, strobes worked fine all day, but when I took the batteries out at the end of the day, the same strobe whose batteries had been warm the day before, now had three very warm ones and one that had split and leaked. I was able to clean out the battery copmpartment, put in new batteries and it worked fine, though was once again batteries were warm at the end of the day. Once home, I went back to Nikon in El Segundo, explained the problem, and asked if it was possible that the strobe was simply drawing too much power from the batteries and causing them to overheat and leak. They handed me a new replacement flash that very day. (I can't say enough about the good quality of customer service I've always gotten from Nikon here in the LA-area. Nice to be able to take things right to them.)

And the final I-didn't-do-it horror story . . .

7. Took my strobes in to Nikon because they seemed not to fire at the same intensity at the same settings on manual. That was the only problem with them. (This was right after the Bonaire trip mentioned in #4.) They repair these out-of-house and sent them off. Got a note back from the repair facility through Nikon saying there was a flood. I said, "Absolutely not." Nikon relayed that to the repair facility who e-mailed back pictures showing water droplets in the connector of what they said was my strobe. I said, "Absolutely not!!! I looked at those before I brought them in and they were perfectly dry." They insisted otherwise. I said, "Is it fresh or salt water?" They said they couldn't tell. I said, "B#$@*%@t!!!! taste it. And if I flooded it as you say, it would have been in Bonaire, which means it would have ben salt water, which means there should be corrosion all over the contacts since it's been two weeks sibnce I came back. How come your picture doesn't show any corrosion???" At this point, Nikon stepped in and essentially said, we don't know who is right here but we will do the repair at no charge. I am absolutely convinced to this day that the repair facility either sprinkled water into the bulkhead to make it look like a flood or sent me pictures of someone else's flooded strobe. I am absolutely convinced that there was no water inside the strobe.

And those are my stories. Anyone else????

- Ken

5. Sea of Cortez last year. Camera fires fine for first five shots of third dive of the day. Strobes then stop firing. Ready lights are on, camera fires, but no strobes. At a depth of 60', I'm horrified to learn that the bulkhead connector between my housing and the dual sync cord has come partially unscrwewed. I screw it all the way down underwater to prevent any further leaking. Come back on board, thoroughly soak the bulkhead connector and the sync cord plug in alcohol and magically get everyhting working again. No clue as to how it came unscrewed as I'm positive it was tightly screwed down and I'd already done two dives that day with no problem. Never had it happen again but now make "checking all the screw-in components" part of my regular pre-dive check.

Your incident (#5) is EXACTLY why I started this thread. It's those quirky things happening that we can all learn from. Thanks, Ken.

Never lost a camera so far (knock on wood…) but had a couple of minor floods:

First happened with a DS-50, I put together all my gear, batteries and everything and leave the strobe latch a little open, planning to fully close it just before the dive... I test the rig for leaks on a rinse tank and several drops pass by... I realize this immediately and take out the batteries, dry it, blow the compartment with a compressed air tank, and leave it to the sun almost half an hour. No damage to the strobe or batteries.

Second was with an Ikelite port 5508, this port have something weird on it...the port fit on the housing to tight, I almost have to apply a little effort to take it out (even without pressurize it)… I have at least three minor leaks with this port in the same weekend, and the only conclusion I came so far, is that this port is too damn long, so when I leave my rig to rest between dives, somehow all the rig ends resting on the port and this separates it from the housing just enough to let the water pass by when I go diving again.. that, and the fact that the he came with what it looks to me, a thicker o´ring than normal flat port o´ring from Ikelite.

Well so far this is it… Hope never have to post in this thread again…

Some are too painful to recall exactly, first time was just dumb pilot error. Grand Cayman, night dive in late 80’s. I left the strobe loose from the Nikonos IV and when the boat guy went to hand it to me the camera hit the deck. Amazingly every thing still seemed to work and looked OK so I made the second mistake that evening and went for it. At thirty feet that sickening feeling came when the film swells and the film advance doesn’t feel right came and I headed back to the boat. Turned out the sleeve for the strobe connector was cracked in the fall, but it was just in front of the o-ring where I couldn’t see it. I was able to clean the camera and save it but the strobe, and old 101 was unusable the rest of the trip. I didn’t carry a spare sync cord in those days. Why do things always break at night?

Second flood was a year later, miles from civilization, off the beach at Cabo Pulmo in the Sea of Cortez. When I did the pre dive camera check I didn’t hear the cap on the strobe coming up so aborted and started trying to find the problem. That Nikonos 101 strobe for you young guys had 3 D’s in the handle. When I opened the battery compartment that ugly brown crap came oozing out. I was diving every weekend back then and I left the batteries in without checking. I needed something to clean out the compartment so I could reload. Have you ever walked around a beach in a foreign country in a wet suit trying to get someone to give you some toilet paper? Since I didn’t speak the language then I had to revert to some interesting gestures that I will leave to your imagination. Thankfully Mexico is full of friendly people and I got what I needed to clean it out. Reloaded and finally in the water I immediately saw a nice juvenile golden spotted eel and started setting up to try to get him to swim through the framer for the 1:1 extension tube I had on. About the fourth attempt he came right into the center of the frame and I hit the shutter. What I found out in the next 30 ms or so was that battery gas can leak into the strobe head and make a powerful explosive device. BOOM! The blast was very impressive; it drove my mask completely against my face. All I saw at first was a mass of bubbles that looked just like a miniature depth charge from an old WWII movie. The strobe came completely apart into about 12 pieces and the cool part was the water pressure made them slowly separate, perfectly aligned; they appeared to my addled brain exactly like one of those exploded views engineers used to use. I have a shot somewhere of a very over exposed young eel with a remarkably surprised look on his face. Better yet, two weeks later some yahoo broke into my home and stole the flooded Nikonos IV and the pieces of the 101 I was able to salvage along with an old TV and stuff. That’s how I got my first Nikonos V and my trusty 102 from my insurance company. I’m not sure what the moral to that story is but it’s all true.

I didn’t have another flood until last year in Fiji, sixteen years between leaks isn’t bad. The new O-ring I bought for the trip didn’t feel right when I put it in before the first dive but I stupidly installed it anyway. About 20 minutes into the dive I got that old sickening feeling again. It had leaked just enough to swell the film. I think the Nikonos O-rings they are selling today were made years ago and they are dried out or just plain too old. I do know the moral of this story. It was finally time to go digital and start studying wetpixel. My old buddy V has an honored place in my office and I’m waiting not so patiently for a housing for my new 40D.

Steve

July this year. I was diving in shore diving at Babbacombe on the south coast of the UK. There are very little by way of facilities. I checked the camera throughout the dive and there were no problems. Took the kit home (5 hour drive) and put it in the bath. Worked the dials through. Luckily the house was port down. Took the kit out of the bath to dry and, when it had, I opened the housing. There at the bottom of the port was water; fresh thankfully. The problem appears to have been caused because I had been leaving the housing for too long before rinsing it off. There was a built up of salt in one of the buttons which had cut into the seal in one of the glands and allowed water in.

Now I make sure that I wrap the housing in a wet towel and then put it in a plastic bin liner to keep it moist if there is to be a delay in getting access to a rinse tank.

My second flood was this weekend. Went to change the memory card and found a couple of spoonfulls of water inside. THe camera and lens are again OK. The water again appears to be fresh water from the rinse tank. No idea what caused it. I'll find out when Kevin at Aquaphot gets his hands on it to test it.

Daniel

What I found out in the next 30 ms or so was that battery gas can leak into the strobe head and make a powerful explosive device. BOOM! The blast was very impressive; it drove my mask completely against my face. All I saw at first was a mass of bubbles that looked just like a miniature depth charge from an old WWII movie. The strobe came completely apart into about 12 pieces and the cool part was the water pressure made them slowly separate, perfectly aligned; they appeared to my addled brain exactly like one of those exploded views engineers used to use. I have a shot somewhere of a very over exposed young eel with a remarkably surprised look on his face.

GREAT story!!

1) Closed the housing with the o-ring out of the groove in one spot. Contrary to what some believe, you can do this with a Subal. The unit was dipped in the rinse tank prior to going on the dingy and the moisture alarm went off. Too late. Camera worked no more, but was fixable by Nikon.

2) During boat ride to dive site, I picked up the unit. I noticed that the Dome port/extension had been jarred enough to turn the port/extension. I turned it back. What I didn't notice was the that port had come out of the housing on the underside. Full flood and fast. Toast. Destruction.

be careful on liveaboards: we were getting ready for a dive on a liveaboard in Oz when my dad goes to his camera to find the housing filled with salt water - on the camera table!!

Turns out he'd left the back latches 1/2 on (ikelite housing latches hooked on but not closed) and one of the crew mistook his camera for another, handed his open housing to someone in the water who said "that's not my camera". The crewmember swapped cameras without even knowing he just flooded my dad's. The livaboard company replaced his kit.

I prefer to prepare everything the night before as I can be quite a zombie in the morning. I once flooded a canister light first thing in the am cause i forgot to put the oring on. I always say that i never really wake up until i get underwater... and if that doesn't wake u up then some water sloshing around the port certainly will.

I've had a couple of disasters. Two that are worth mentioning are as follows.

I was in Grand Cayman around 2001 and I was still using a Nikonos V with an early digital Kodak point and shoot in an Ikelite housing as something to play with. I got in the water with the Kodak and noticed some condensation in front of the lens so I came up to the side of the boat and asked the boat captain to dry it off and hand it back to me. He did and I went down again - at about 10 feet I watched the Ikelite housing fill up with water. It seems that when he sealed the latches he left the o-ring sticking out between the two parts of the housing. DAN insurance paid off promptly but of course Kodak stopped making my camera so it took about 3 months to find a replacement camera so I did not have an Ikelite housing with nothing to put into it.

Most recently - I was in Little Cayman this past May using my D70S in an Aquatica housing with the dome port and my one week old Tokina 10 - 17 lens. I checked and double checked my seals because something just didn't feel quite right but I couldn't put my finger on it. Of course as I started down I watched the whole dome port and housing fill up with water. One ruined mess. I finally figured out what happened - I had put the dome port in the mount at a slight angle instead of flush with the housing and so it was never threaded properly. Live and learn. Fortunately I had just renewed my DAN insurance again - and of course Nikon has stopped making new D70S's. Oh well.

Heading to St. Lucia Saturday with my D200 - Aquatica housing - and replacement Tokina 10 - 17. I want nothing more to add to this thread.

Andy

It sounds like most of these situations are pretty obvious.

So far no one has mentioned things like a cat hair across an o-ring...

Left the strobe socket cover off a Nik V diving the ex HMAS Hobart. Just wanted to do BW ambient. Got the shots but drowned the camera.

Left the catches clipped but un-closed on an Ike Coolpix 5000 taking photos of swim class in a pool. Saw the bubbles in time and saved the camera. Whew!

Now have really noisy leakdetectors (x2) in the Ike D80 housing.

This thread is scary.

This isn't a flood but nevertheless an uw photographer's nighmare.

When at Scuba Club Cozumel in August, charging my batteries the night before my dives, I accidentally plugged the Focus Fix Light Charger into the Ikelite Substrobe 200 battery and left it to charge the battery overnight.

The next time I looked at it, in the morning, the charger had completely fried the battery! The battery was red hot in temperature and appeared to have melted in several places. Not only that, but I had left it on top of a piece of plastic on a spare bed in the room. The plastic had melted and had affixed itself to the bedspread.

I was horrified. Even after I disconnected the charger from the battery, the battery still remained hot for several hours.

The nice part of the story, though, is that I was able to find a fellow photographer who happened to have a spare Ikelite SS 200 battery in her room. She kindly offered it to me and I was OK for the rest of the trip.

Needless to say, when I charge batteries in the future, I'll be very careful which charger I use.

Ellen

It sounds like most of these situations are pretty obvious.

So far no one has mentioned things like a cat hair across an o-ring...

I met a dentist on a liveaboard who said he flooded 2 nikonos RS's and either one or both were from a single hair seated across the oring. That same day another guy flooded his RS i think from an ill-seated oring. The dentist loaned the guy his backup RS.

.......

4. Bonaire two tears ago. Walking back with my camera, fresh out of the rinse bucket. Back to room and am hoorifed to find a small amount of water inside and it's been sloshing and splashing while I walked with the hosuing. Water is fresh, not salt.

............

- Ken

was that intentional or a typo ?

As for my near or total floods:

My main scare was when i slid while walking to the water. I found the camera (a minolta 7xi) loose in the housing (ikelite). Afterwards it turned out to still be OK.

With the same rig, i noticed water inside the housing when stepping in the water (at a deep quarry, Hemmoor). I returned it to the car and went to dive. I remembered that i had to apply somewhat more force then usual, so i guess I seated an oring wrong.

Then with my new 20D and ikelite strobes, I had some strobe problems during the dive (but blaimed them on dead batteries even though i charged them). While rinsing I saw rust leaking out of the battery compartment. I think I might have left it a bit open, when i installed the batteries straight from the charger (so very similar to another one in this thread).

Gerard

OK for stupid flood of the week. This happened a month ago, and I had been planning on going for a dive after watching Survivor. (We live on a boat) The guys were fishing off the back deck at dusk and I thought "If I hurry I can get a dive in BEFORE the show" and then I don't have to do my dive too late. We were in a great spot. So, off I go and it was shallow at the back of the boat so I did not really have the camera positioned going down correctly, as my buoyancy was off. When I realized that I had bubbles coming out up I went, handed it up to my husband, and he thought it was heavy, but did not think I flooded it. Until of course he took it off and it was TOTALLY filled up with water! Not an inch anywhere of air I believe. The cord for the hotshoe had gotten caught. Rushing to set it up, and get the dive done before watching Survivor that night cost be a D200 body and a 60 mm lens. An expensive TV episode if there was ever one! But a good reminder of how careless you get, and the saying "it is not if you flood it but when" So, yep, I kicked myself for a week or two over that one.

OK for stupid flood of the week. This happened a month ago, and I had been planning on going for a dive after watching Survivor. (We live on a boat) The guys were fishing off the back deck at dusk and I thought "If I hurry I can get a dive in BEFORE the show" and then I don't have to do my dive too late. We were in a great spot. So, off I go and it was shallow at the back of the boat so I did not really have the camera positioned going down correctly, as my buoyancy was off. When I realized that I had bubbles coming out up I went, handed it up to my husband, and he thought it was heavy, but did not think I flooded it. Until of course he took it off and it was TOTALLY filled up with water! Not an inch anywhere of air I believe. The cord for the hotshoe had gotten caught. Rushing to set it up, and get the dive done before watching Survivor that night cost be a D200 body and a 60 mm lens. An expensive TV episode if there was ever one! But a good reminder of how careless you get, and the saying "it is not if you flood it but when" So, yep, I kicked myself for a week or two over that one.

See what reality TV shows do kids?

I won't let me wife even talk to me while I'm putting my rig together. I distract easily...

I think we're seeing a pattern here: When we don't take our time, bad things happen.

There are floods, and there are leaks.

Never had a "flood" - as in fatally drown the camera, kill the lens, file insurance claim, etc.

I have had two leaks, tho.

First one was a button leak on my D70 Ike rig. I was at about 60 FSW with a buddy. It was the end of the dive, and we're on our way back up. We went by this wreck and I wanted to shoot some Nudis I knew were there. I went to change some settings and I noticed some small droplets in the housing. I tilted the housing so the lens port would catch the water, made a safe ascent and that was that. Found the bad button Oring, replaced it and dived the next day.

The second one was when I blew the installation of the Ike 8" dome. I have had dozens of successful dives with that rig. But I was on a private boat, we were pitching, I wasn't feeling well and I just blew it. Water came into the housing on the descent. I tipped it again to fill the dome, made a safe ascent, wipped stuff down, switched to Macro and did two more dives that day.

I feel very fortunate. Close to 700 dives with a camera, and those are the only two incidences.

---

Ken

I don't want to talk about it. I thought I had forgotten. I thought the wounds had healed. Pass me my Valium.

I hear ya John! :-)

Two floods, both on P&S. Camera lived both times, luckily.

First time: from being ignorant that just one drop of water left in the oring channel can make a big gigantic salt crystal. Never thought to wipe the channel. Lesson learned.

Second time: from getting in a hurry. "Oh boy, the sea lions are here, I'm going to get my littlel camera out real quick instead of using the big rig."

I agree with whoever said he puts his rig together the night before and doesn't let anybody talk to him. That's what I do.

Hope you don't mind this link, it's to a similar thread I started on scubaboard awhile ago. Got some good stories there as well. Compilation: Ways to Flood a Camera

These threads are great to read before a trip, just as a reminder to be careful. :-)

Taxgeek