Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
I'm in the camp that the more time you can spend on tech OC, the better your CCR skills will be. Unfortunately the cost of helium makes it prohibitively expensive to get those OC hours in with trimix. OC dives that involve deco don't necessarily need to be trimix dives.
So don't jump to CCR early. Do a bunch of 90'-120' dives longer on doubles and deco cylinders.
I did T1 in 2022, CCR-F in January this year, and just finished my CCR T1 upgrade a few weeks back. All of those were on Vancouver Island, FWIW.
Personally, I think the path of T1 —> CCR-F —> CCR T1 was very worth it. I got ~60 T1 dives in on open circuit in 18 months, which I hope gave me a very solid foundation in OC tech dives and particularly gas switches. Gas switches are burned in pretty deep to my muscle memory now, which will be great if I have to bail out of a CCR tech dive for real.
I also found the CCR course progression pretty straightforward, and it didn’t take a ton more time than doing CCR-F —> CCR T1. It basically just required a 3-day upgrade on the end, which was largely centered around failures on the CCR.
Personally, I think the path of T1 —> CCR-F —> CCR T1 was very worth it. I got ~60 T1 dives in on open circuit in 18 months, which I hope gave me a very solid foundation in OC tech dives and particularly gas switches. Gas switches are burned in pretty deep to my muscle memory now, which will be great if I have to bail out of a CCR tech dive for real.
I also found the CCR course progression pretty straightforward, and it didn’t take a ton more time than doing CCR-F —> CCR T1. It basically just required a 3-day upgrade on the end, which was largely centered around failures on the CCR.
Rich1280
Contributor
I've got a friend who has just done CCRF rather than T1. He wants to be in the T1 range for things, but had a lumpsome available so went CCRF. We've been on 30m wrecks today and he looks great in the water, better than I did immediately post CCR1, and I think he'll do well with the progression.
I'd historically have said going T1 first was valuable, but now post CCR2 I think a proper foundation of shallow ccr diving is very valuable, and so a Fundies, CCRF, CCRT1 progression makes sense.
It's also a cash now vs cash later problem. If you can do the initial outlay, I'd say go CCRF, you can rattle through the 50 dives easily before CCRT1 and learn a lot of comfort and buoyancy work in the process.
The difficult bit of the rebreather is managing the gas shallow and ascents. We, and I'm sure a lot of others, did the 25 dives begrudgingly before going back to T1 diving where we wanted to be. The unit is easy to dive deep and doing the bottom phase of square profile wrecks or steady ascent walls. By only really having 30m and no deco as the option available I think you're more likely to put the effort in to enjoying them and learning from them, rather than seeing it as a fence to cross as soon as you can.
I'd now suggest CCRF rather than T1 then crossing to CCRT1 if people ask.
Rich
I'd historically have said going T1 first was valuable, but now post CCR2 I think a proper foundation of shallow ccr diving is very valuable, and so a Fundies, CCRF, CCRT1 progression makes sense.
It's also a cash now vs cash later problem. If you can do the initial outlay, I'd say go CCRF, you can rattle through the 50 dives easily before CCRT1 and learn a lot of comfort and buoyancy work in the process.
The difficult bit of the rebreather is managing the gas shallow and ascents. We, and I'm sure a lot of others, did the 25 dives begrudgingly before going back to T1 diving where we wanted to be. The unit is easy to dive deep and doing the bottom phase of square profile wrecks or steady ascent walls. By only really having 30m and no deco as the option available I think you're more likely to put the effort in to enjoying them and learning from them, rather than seeing it as a fence to cross as soon as you can.
I'd now suggest CCRF rather than T1 then crossing to CCRT1 if people ask.
Rich
I agree with all the benefits you outline, but I’m curious, do you not think the same applies when doing T1 —> CCRF —> CCRT1 upgrade ? You still have to do the 50 shallow dives after CCRF with this path, the only difference is you get some experience with OC tech diving (and particularly gas switches) first.
Rich1280
Contributor
I think if you've done T1 and got a taste for it, human nature is you want to rush back there, so you don't take the time enjoying and learning from the shallower diving. It's just a speed hump to roll over "to get back to what I can already do".
Rich1280
Contributor
Also, gas switch isn't a really difficult skill. It's a drill that needs to be done right, but it's gross motor movement done whilst trimmed and buoyant where you want to be in the water column. It's done on a Rec pass at Rec3 (separate conversation on the value of that course). Teaching deco theory appropriate for rebreathers and a few failures that are relevant in conjunction with the stage usage makes more sense to me as it's done on a properly solid ccr base, and all integrated together. It also prevents the need for re-teach on sloppy skills, and people trying to rush it because they know it already.
It's more about human management rather than anything else really.
It's more about human management rather than anything else really.
Similar threads
