In the not distant past, one of my friends asked if he could borrow on of my bailout tanks for a dive. Being the nice and generous guy that I am, I of course let him borrow it. Obviously I was not going to be needing it on that particular weekend since I was not invited to go along on this dive.
As it turns out, the tank was actually to be used by yet another of my friends who was actually invited.
Now I know the rule about analyzing any tank that you plan to carry and made sure to remind him of that when I gave it to him. My tanks are all marked with the gas contents and MOD. They all have a stage rigging with two bolt snaps in a basically common setup.
When my tank was returned the next week, I was informed that my MOD label was unreadable and that I should have fixed it before loaning it out. Needless to say, I got defensive and told him to **** my ****. I mean really! There were 3 MOD labels and one of them was scuffed up and hard to read.
I decided to double check all my tanks and renew some labels. It turns out that a great deal of them were in bad shape and not as easy to read as I would like. I spent a couple of hours putting new markings on my tanks.
The moral of this little story it to verify that your tank markings can be read. They tend to get scratched, scuffed, and ripped over the course of time.
As always - Have fun and Dive Safe
Dsix36