I got on a rebreather a couple months after I got my open water. Made possible by a now defunct company I won't mention..... Its not an impossible thing to do, but I also became buddies with my instructor so I got a lot of extra hours of instruction because I had everything else to sort out. I also live in a place non conducive to diving... So I have spent a small fortune traveling around getting a couple hours every trip over the last couple years. I don't even bring my equipment home often. Presently mod2 and full cave on a revo and air dil on a sidewinder 130hrs ccr diving not dead yet. My advice to you would be don't get a prism they just seem cheap and their marketing gimmick seems to be anyone can sell them and instruct on them. I think the rebreathers with only moderate complication are the way to go, basically anything running shearwater divecan without other bells and whistles so revo, jj, meg tiburon. I think the revo was good to learn on as the hybrid setup gives you a good parachute and its practical to run manually as it originally was a manual unit, but it has a few shortcomings that I'm sure will be pointed out shortly. My second piece of advice would be don't be in a hurry to get deep and do long dives, do a lot of laps up and down long dives aren't really necessary for learning purposes when you are trying to get your buoyancy and loop volume sorted out. I actually have spent some time recently learning some of the stuff I should of tried first ie backmount doubles and hope to try sidemount soon (sidewinder was with doubles it was just an experiment for future endeavors).
