- O-Ring & Housing Flood: On the o-ring…. I think the design of the main seal in the back isn't tight enough for my liking and I'd rather the housing overlapped the o-ring rather than just pressed against it. We did a shore dive towards the end of the vacation at a spot called Windsock – it's an easy walk in entry with a little bit of sand at the very edge of the water where the waves have kicked it up. Despite walking through this fairly quickly and making sure the camera wasn't subjected to any unnecessary roughness from the oncoming waves, enough sand was able to get into the o-ring to cause a major flood. We had a short surface swim and during that time, unknown to me, the camera was slowly filling with water from the sand in the o-ring.
I recently returned from a trip to Bonaire and when I found sand around my o-ring I recalled reading this post, so I wanted to comment.
I, too, have an Aquatica housing. A lot of my diving in Bonaire was shore diving with surf entries. My camera and I spent time swimming, standing, and sometimes tumbling in shallow water with a lot of fine sand suspended in it. When I would open up my camera I found quite a lot of sand that had worked its way into the area next to the o-ring, but on the ocean side of the o-ring (not the inside half). Some of that sand appeared to wedge itself in the groove with the o-ring. And when I removed the housing back that physical act caused some of the sand to move onto the surface of the o-ring. I have to admit it certainly looked like the sand had been covering the o-ring, and it was a bit scary! However, the inside of the housing was bone-dry. I carefully cleaned the sand off and reassembled everything only to find more sand there the next time.
But the point I wanted to make is that while it sure can look like the sand was the cause of the flood, my camera stayed dry the whole trip, so I believe the original poster made an incorrect, but completely understandable, assumption.
-Gina
