HeyCatfish!
Registered
I know that no one here knows who I am, but I'm hoping to be a bit more active poster now. I joined ScubaBoard in March of this year as I was getting interested in rebreather diving. This meant I became a pretty heavy lurker, reading as much as I can while I saved those pretty pennies for my jump into the CCR world.
My lurking paid off, because I ended up doing what I imagine is an all too familiar dance of "which CCR should I get when I finally have the money." My LDS was pushing the Prism 2 hard. It seems to be the most common CCR down here in the Houston area. Something felt off about it though, because I remember seeing one of the Prism 2 advocates on a fun dive diving a completely different unit. That made me think long and hard about the optics of whether the Prism 2 was actually a good choice, or just good marketing.
I ended up dancing around the Meg, JJ, Fathom, and the Choptima. I have no idea if I made the right choice, but as a newly minted CCR diver I'm pretty happy with the choptima. It travels light - and I already have a severely bad habit of overpacking for trips (sorry JJ, you really were my second choice). As a new rebreather diver, I couldn't really find a lot of info about the Fathom which made me remove it from consideration for now.
The choptima felt a lot more approachable as a beginner diver. I could dive it in my current back-mounted doubles configuration, something I'm already familiar and comfortable with. The versatility seems unmatched (which doesn't mean much coming from someone with literally no rebreather experience). And, to be quite honest, the price gave it a lot of brownie points from the wife.
I contacted a few different instructors outside of my local area who I could actually talk to about different units, and those who were diving the Choptima all had very good things to say about it. I ended up clicking well talking with Ben Lair from Paragon Dive (@DiveTucson) about the unit. We discussed pros and cons of the choptima vs other units he's familiar with such as the Prism and the Revo (even thought the Revo wasn't on my list). I got to know his teaching philosophy, and decided to pull the trigger. He had two courses available later this year, one in Playa del Carmen and one in Florida. Playa seemed like a lot of fun - getting to do some dives in the Cenotes seemed like a great place to learn how to dive all over again.
Going into the course I was a bit intimidated. My classmate was a Trimix diver and I'm just a lowly Helitrox diver. Ben did a great job of making me feel comfortable and invited from the get-go, despite having a slightly lower certification level than the other student. He did a great job of teaching to all levels - when I needed more it wasn't condescending. When the other student needed more help, I never felt left out or like the course was being taught "down" to the lowest denominator. There was always something to learn, even if it wasn't directed at me.
I just finished last week, and really had a great time. I'm really happy so far with my choice of the Choptima, and the experience of learning to dive it.
Our first day was some theory, along with a few hours of building the unit. Learning the ins and outs of how it works, what to always inspect for, working through the checklist step by step with critical details and emphasis applied. I still will always use my checklist, but I felt like I got way more than just a "do this." Everything was taught with a "do this and here's why, here's what may happen if you don't, and here's where to look if you experience these types of issues." I like to believe that all instructors teach this way, but I know from experience that many are just looking to check off boxes. This gave me a lot of confidence going forward.
The second day, we went to Chikin Haa for our first dive on the unit. I felt like a brand new diver again, my buoyancy was an absolute mess. One thing I noticed while attempting to get an optimum loop volume was that on every inhale the ADV would fire, despite feeling like there was still a bit more air in the loop. When exhaling, I would have a lot of pressure and the work of breath just felt like a real struggle. Call me a stickler, but while my thought was to turn off the ADV, that wasn't something that we talked about doing. After our first dive, I mentioned this to Ben along with my thought of turning off the ADV once at depth and he agreed that it is a useful solution. I'm a pretty big guy with pretty large lungs (I have to do a lung volume test for work every year). I know that my lung volume is around 8.5L, and the choptima has a total loop volume of 6L. I knew this going into it, but figured it would be okay. Getting the full 8.5L takes a lot of feeling like I'm totally out of breath when doing my annual physical so I thought 6L would be okay. On the next dive, I did turn off the ADV and it helped tremendously. When I took even a deep breath I would just start feeling the counterlungs collapsing, and when exhaling deeply I would just start feeling the pressure on the BOV. Ben did tell me that Diverite is working on some larger counterlungs, as I'm not the first person with this problem. While I definitely think I'll go this route, I did find that with the ADV off once at depth, it wasn't really an issue with the current counterlungs. More practice and time will tell, but I was glad to be able to get that resolved.
For the second day of diving, we went to Cenote Angelita. This was a really neat Cenote with a layer of sulfur gas, and one I'd get to see a few more times on the trip. This time, once we got to depth, I turned off the ADV and felt much more comfortable on the unit. I did learn that this meant when bailing out, I needed to turn it back on in order to do a dil flush, but this was an experiment I'd get a lot more practice with. Unfortunately, the other student had some equipment malfunctions with his new sidemount setup, and resolving it would take some time. Our guide assisted him while Ben and I went on a dive. I got to dive with a failed controller, lost mask, and a number of other skills. For the second dive, my classmate's gear was fixed and we went and did more skills.
What I really enjoyed was Ben didn't just ask us to do a skill. Rather, he threw scenarios at us and we had to react appropriately. Instead of telling us our PO2 was high and to bailout, he would show us cards with cell readings. It was up to us to react accordingly, but there were definitely some times when I could hear Ben laughing (in good nature) at the struggles of new rebreather divers. It wasn't mean, and in fact it was light hearted and made the whole experience more fun and a bit relaxed knowing that we weren't going to be scolded or shouted at for making a mistake. We all struggle, and as long as we weren't a danger to ourselves Ben wanted us to develop the troubleshooting skills based on information rather than instruction. After all, during a real dive you won't have someone else telling you to bail out, you'll have to rely on the information available to you on the controller. After each dive, we debriefed and us students tried to point out or mistakes first and ask questions. Then, Ben would discuss other issues that he saw or ones that we missed.
We had some ocean dives planned, but unfortunately ports were closing due to Hurricane Grace so we only got one day in the ocean. The first dive went, best I can put it is... no one drowned. There were some issues with SMB deployment and other skills, including the operator dropping us in fairly shallow (approx 15m) water when it was supposed to be deeper.
The second dive, well again no one drowned, thankfully Ben had already built in some extra dives in case there was extra work that was needed. To better assess, we did the second dive open circuit. He wanted to be sure we could actually do a deco dive safely, in current in the ocean, while performing skills. At this point, I thought Ben may just fly back home and be done with us. It felt like one issue after the other was hitting us that day. After doing a bubble check at 6m, my right post start leaking. Literally right after checking. I shut down the right post, and although the leak stopped I thumbed the dive, but Ben quickly identified a protruding o-ring, fixed it, and we opened the right post back up to no leak. We gave it a minute or two to be sure that it was okay, he signaled me if I was okay to proceed the dive and I felt comfortable so we continued the dive.
We descended to about 40m and had a nice little drift dive. Ben tested a few standard open circuit skills, and we rode the current for a bit before beginning our deco. Once we hit 15m, Ben first had me send up my SMB then the other student, then he sent his up. As we hit our deco stops, and reeling in I stayed with the current while the other student was swimming against the current. I noticed, and I could still see Ben about 25 feet behind me so I started swimming back towards him into the current. Once I caught up, we finished clearing deco but the other student wasn't able to stay with the group. We got to the surface, me, Ben and our dive guide, and couldn't find the other student. Thankfully he could see our SMBs (we could not see his) and swam over to us as the boat was pulling up.
Honestly, I don't think I'd have the patience at that point. Even open circuit it felt like a calamity of disasters. At least the ports were closed, so we went back to the cenotes to continue working on our skills.
(continued)
My lurking paid off, because I ended up doing what I imagine is an all too familiar dance of "which CCR should I get when I finally have the money." My LDS was pushing the Prism 2 hard. It seems to be the most common CCR down here in the Houston area. Something felt off about it though, because I remember seeing one of the Prism 2 advocates on a fun dive diving a completely different unit. That made me think long and hard about the optics of whether the Prism 2 was actually a good choice, or just good marketing.
I ended up dancing around the Meg, JJ, Fathom, and the Choptima. I have no idea if I made the right choice, but as a newly minted CCR diver I'm pretty happy with the choptima. It travels light - and I already have a severely bad habit of overpacking for trips (sorry JJ, you really were my second choice). As a new rebreather diver, I couldn't really find a lot of info about the Fathom which made me remove it from consideration for now.
The choptima felt a lot more approachable as a beginner diver. I could dive it in my current back-mounted doubles configuration, something I'm already familiar and comfortable with. The versatility seems unmatched (which doesn't mean much coming from someone with literally no rebreather experience). And, to be quite honest, the price gave it a lot of brownie points from the wife.
I contacted a few different instructors outside of my local area who I could actually talk to about different units, and those who were diving the Choptima all had very good things to say about it. I ended up clicking well talking with Ben Lair from Paragon Dive (@DiveTucson) about the unit. We discussed pros and cons of the choptima vs other units he's familiar with such as the Prism and the Revo (even thought the Revo wasn't on my list). I got to know his teaching philosophy, and decided to pull the trigger. He had two courses available later this year, one in Playa del Carmen and one in Florida. Playa seemed like a lot of fun - getting to do some dives in the Cenotes seemed like a great place to learn how to dive all over again.
Going into the course I was a bit intimidated. My classmate was a Trimix diver and I'm just a lowly Helitrox diver. Ben did a great job of making me feel comfortable and invited from the get-go, despite having a slightly lower certification level than the other student. He did a great job of teaching to all levels - when I needed more it wasn't condescending. When the other student needed more help, I never felt left out or like the course was being taught "down" to the lowest denominator. There was always something to learn, even if it wasn't directed at me.
I just finished last week, and really had a great time. I'm really happy so far with my choice of the Choptima, and the experience of learning to dive it.
Our first day was some theory, along with a few hours of building the unit. Learning the ins and outs of how it works, what to always inspect for, working through the checklist step by step with critical details and emphasis applied. I still will always use my checklist, but I felt like I got way more than just a "do this." Everything was taught with a "do this and here's why, here's what may happen if you don't, and here's where to look if you experience these types of issues." I like to believe that all instructors teach this way, but I know from experience that many are just looking to check off boxes. This gave me a lot of confidence going forward.
The second day, we went to Chikin Haa for our first dive on the unit. I felt like a brand new diver again, my buoyancy was an absolute mess. One thing I noticed while attempting to get an optimum loop volume was that on every inhale the ADV would fire, despite feeling like there was still a bit more air in the loop. When exhaling, I would have a lot of pressure and the work of breath just felt like a real struggle. Call me a stickler, but while my thought was to turn off the ADV, that wasn't something that we talked about doing. After our first dive, I mentioned this to Ben along with my thought of turning off the ADV once at depth and he agreed that it is a useful solution. I'm a pretty big guy with pretty large lungs (I have to do a lung volume test for work every year). I know that my lung volume is around 8.5L, and the choptima has a total loop volume of 6L. I knew this going into it, but figured it would be okay. Getting the full 8.5L takes a lot of feeling like I'm totally out of breath when doing my annual physical so I thought 6L would be okay. On the next dive, I did turn off the ADV and it helped tremendously. When I took even a deep breath I would just start feeling the counterlungs collapsing, and when exhaling deeply I would just start feeling the pressure on the BOV. Ben did tell me that Diverite is working on some larger counterlungs, as I'm not the first person with this problem. While I definitely think I'll go this route, I did find that with the ADV off once at depth, it wasn't really an issue with the current counterlungs. More practice and time will tell, but I was glad to be able to get that resolved.
For the second day of diving, we went to Cenote Angelita. This was a really neat Cenote with a layer of sulfur gas, and one I'd get to see a few more times on the trip. This time, once we got to depth, I turned off the ADV and felt much more comfortable on the unit. I did learn that this meant when bailing out, I needed to turn it back on in order to do a dil flush, but this was an experiment I'd get a lot more practice with. Unfortunately, the other student had some equipment malfunctions with his new sidemount setup, and resolving it would take some time. Our guide assisted him while Ben and I went on a dive. I got to dive with a failed controller, lost mask, and a number of other skills. For the second dive, my classmate's gear was fixed and we went and did more skills.
What I really enjoyed was Ben didn't just ask us to do a skill. Rather, he threw scenarios at us and we had to react appropriately. Instead of telling us our PO2 was high and to bailout, he would show us cards with cell readings. It was up to us to react accordingly, but there were definitely some times when I could hear Ben laughing (in good nature) at the struggles of new rebreather divers. It wasn't mean, and in fact it was light hearted and made the whole experience more fun and a bit relaxed knowing that we weren't going to be scolded or shouted at for making a mistake. We all struggle, and as long as we weren't a danger to ourselves Ben wanted us to develop the troubleshooting skills based on information rather than instruction. After all, during a real dive you won't have someone else telling you to bail out, you'll have to rely on the information available to you on the controller. After each dive, we debriefed and us students tried to point out or mistakes first and ask questions. Then, Ben would discuss other issues that he saw or ones that we missed.
We had some ocean dives planned, but unfortunately ports were closing due to Hurricane Grace so we only got one day in the ocean. The first dive went, best I can put it is... no one drowned. There were some issues with SMB deployment and other skills, including the operator dropping us in fairly shallow (approx 15m) water when it was supposed to be deeper.
The second dive, well again no one drowned, thankfully Ben had already built in some extra dives in case there was extra work that was needed. To better assess, we did the second dive open circuit. He wanted to be sure we could actually do a deco dive safely, in current in the ocean, while performing skills. At this point, I thought Ben may just fly back home and be done with us. It felt like one issue after the other was hitting us that day. After doing a bubble check at 6m, my right post start leaking. Literally right after checking. I shut down the right post, and although the leak stopped I thumbed the dive, but Ben quickly identified a protruding o-ring, fixed it, and we opened the right post back up to no leak. We gave it a minute or two to be sure that it was okay, he signaled me if I was okay to proceed the dive and I felt comfortable so we continued the dive.
We descended to about 40m and had a nice little drift dive. Ben tested a few standard open circuit skills, and we rode the current for a bit before beginning our deco. Once we hit 15m, Ben first had me send up my SMB then the other student, then he sent his up. As we hit our deco stops, and reeling in I stayed with the current while the other student was swimming against the current. I noticed, and I could still see Ben about 25 feet behind me so I started swimming back towards him into the current. Once I caught up, we finished clearing deco but the other student wasn't able to stay with the group. We got to the surface, me, Ben and our dive guide, and couldn't find the other student. Thankfully he could see our SMBs (we could not see his) and swam over to us as the boat was pulling up.
Honestly, I don't think I'd have the patience at that point. Even open circuit it felt like a calamity of disasters. At least the ports were closed, so we went back to the cenotes to continue working on our skills.
(continued)