Is CCR the right route for me?

[davehicks]

You can get a smaller plastic jug, perhaps like a 10lbs Cat Litter jug. I would not consider plastic bags as that will be a messy spill when the bag inflates due to low pressure.

That said, at 20-40 dives a year a CCR does not make a lot of sense to me. That's low frequency to build and maintain skills. I do travel with two CCR units (wife and I) but only to places where it is both very useful and well supported. Places like Truk Lagoon, Socorro, Cocos, etc. I do most of my CCR diving close to home. Local and to destinations I can drive too. That is about 100 local dives a year, maybe 30-50 on fly to dive trips.

 

[justinthedeeps]

There are LOTS of CCR-supportive shops and instructors around the world now. Visit to one or more of these and do try-dives or intro courses. A good shop will have one or more rental/teaching rebreather units for hire on location

No need to fly sorb or cylinders around yet, as long as you pre-arrange in advance with one of countless outfits that already have it sorted. This includes some liveaboards.

Expect to find plenty of suitable aluminium S13, S19, as well as steel 2L and 3L, depending on locations

Backmount units recommend (but not required) for first experiences, well established, best semi-flood tolerance, most stable/familiar breathing characteristics etc

Obvious advantages of CCR: quiet, bubble-free, better gas mix / lower nitrogen load for non-deco diving, extended bottom times possible, more time available for problem solving at depth (for those trained and practiced to notice and respond accurately)

But do not expect to just show up at any shop as a stranger and get all the oxygen, cyls, sorb etc you need and go solo diving wherever you like... Even with a valid CCR certification, you may need to develop a relationship with the shop and/or hire their guides before they will be comfortable supplying you. Typically this is worth it, and in many locations you won't be allowed to dive without some kind guide anyway.

 

[happy-diver]

Typo! Was triton Poseidon mccr, not titan.

A few more months of reading and learning to research for you, but no soup!

 

[jale]

Typo! Was triton Poseidon mccr, not titan.

Never heard of a "triton Poseidon"
Sorry but are you not the guy who came here a few weeks ago asking about "big companies" ccr?

 

[sea_ledford]

Mixed gas route puts me off because im limited to needing to find a dive shop that does tech, and adhering to their timetables when im on holiday etc. where as if i have a ccr abroad with me i can just go for a 2 hour semi shallow/40m swim for fun.

My main goal is primarily to be able to have my own kit i can easily transport around the world, if i have to rely on a dive center for things like filling deco gas thats fine, but i want this to be as minimal as possible.

I travel the world a lot, and basically want to be able to dive on my own at any time, anywhere, without having to rely on others / dive shops as much as possible.

CCRs are a logistical challenge, even diving in your own area, unless your local area is a place with a lot of rebreather support.

They aren't a random travel and figure it out type of thing. Sure you can ship or fly with sorb, but getting O2 fills will probably be the harder part. My last trip to Roatan we took two tubs of sorb down with us. They were held in customs for 5 days until we paid $200 to "import" them. It was a BS shakedown, but it still cost $200 and 5 days. Fortunately, we had local shop support that had sorb we could use until we got ours out of the pokey.

I read a lot on this forum that ccr users go solo a lot so its an appealing aspect.

Please don't. I know several very experienced CCR divers that have died while solo diving. When (not if) things go bad, it is really nice to have another brain and set of hands to help out.

Maintenance wise, i have a background in mechanical electrical engineering. So definitely want something i can mostly fully maintain myself and not have to ship off once a year for a service.

There is some stuff you can do on your own for the bi-annual maintenance, but you'll probably still have to ship off at least the head once every 5 years or so.

Given all of that, I don't think a CCR is a good fit for you. Which is great! That's $15,000 you can spend on travel instead.

 

[davehicks]

There is nothing the matter with solo diving if you are trained for it and have redundancy. Which every CCR diver should have by definition.

You can choose to dive an mCCR unit that does not have any electronics than need to be sent anywhere at any time. eCCR units have a lot of added complexity and are dependent on factory service, electronics and software self-tests that are not entirely dependable, solenoids and battery issues, etc.

All of which underscores that CCR diving is not for everyone and should be entered into with a lot of study and consideration. It's good to start asking these questions to decide if it's a good path for you. Maybe you are not ready now, but you can start planning what you need to do to get to that point.

 

[rjack321]

Yeah you need more than sorb... You need o2 and dil cylinders, a facility with a booster pumping high pressure o2, you'll want helium shallower than on OC too if you mind the density guidelines. You'll fill up your baggage allowance with at least one or two more regulators on top of the unit and everything else.

Your destination will of course need to have shore diving too, no skipper is going to just let you wander for hours and hours while the rest of the boat is done diving.

 

[lermontov]

get a rebreather - dont look back, once you get past th beginner stage youll find it opens up a lot more opportunities to do whatever you want - i sweated fro a year before buying one - my only regret is I waited a year

 

[justinthedeeps]

Re: the solo taboo
Yeah generally good to discourage from solo, since well-tuned and matched buddies exercising pre-dive checks, dive planning, close communication, decision-making and good contact definitely make each other safer

And there are too many 'lone wolf' CCR tragedies

But MANY tragedies have also occurred in buddy (or 'others present') situations where surface+underwater group dynamics either i) didn't save the victim, or ii) actually contributed even greater risks and human factors errors due to inadequate buddy roles, added pressures, shifted or relaxed judgement, increased distractions, warped objectives, interpersonal confusions, unmet expectations, greater risk taking, abandonment of conservatism, something to prove, fear of missing out, downplay of warning signs, false sense of confidence and safety, snowballing error chains, rescuers becoming victims, lagging, separations, and effects of the group on the environment (silting, crowding) etc that can all increase in the presence of others. Lots more 'human factors' at play

 

[DiveLikeAMuppet]

At 20 - 40 dives a year you simply don’t dive enough to maintain CCR skills. Depending on where you did your first intro to tech and ANDP courses, you might also be in for a rude awakening on what good looks like - not judging but it simply takes time to build muscle memory.

If you are in the UK, go diving - the season just started, it’s easy to get in a lot of dives and ANDP opens up so many wrecks in the 30-40 meter range. Get 50-80 dives this year, maybe head up to Scapa. You will meet people diving different units on boats, see what works and what doesn’t.

CCR is keeping you alive so you need to take care of the unit - cells replaced every 12 months, serviced regs, serviced unit - a lot of time even if you do it yourself. If you are flying somewhere, you need to carry all necessary spares, any specialised tools etc. Lots of cost and logistics - as much as I love my unit, for shallower depths OC is so much easier to arrange.