Newbie Questions for you

[Casarez]

I am a very new diver. I know I have a lot of knowledge, skills, and experience to gain before I get into technical diving. However, I would like to eventually get into Ichthyology and from what I have seen many of them use rebreathers now in the water. I saw one documentary where they were using them for somewhat shallow dives in the rio negro. So I feel I will need to someday get good training on them to use them. So I have been reading this board and others to research it.

So my question to you guys is should I look at rebreathers when I get my diving skills good enough to consider technical diving and learn technical diving on them? Or should I look at rebreathers after I have completed technical diving training and gained more experience?

I know there may be conflicting opinions on this but I would like to hear them all. Thanks.

 

[Saltwater Junky]

That's a good question. I've been thinking the same thing. I'll watch this thread. Welcome to SB.

 

[ScubaDadMiami]

There will not always be agreement on this subject. On the one hand, the general knowledge (decompression theory, etc.) you will gain from your technical diving instruction on open circuit can be used for closed circuit. However, CCR skills are related but not the same, and they will take some time to acquire (especially bouyancy control). The more CCR time you have, the better.

Personally, I would not pay all of that money to get doubles, etc. only to then start all over again buying a rebreather. I would suggest moving over to CCR as early as possible.

Again, there are those that do not feel the same way about this.

 

[Hyper-limits]

I'm one of those diver that went from OC Technical diving to CCR. I learned a lot from my OC diving experience which help my transition to CCR mostly regarding gas law etc. I don't regret spending money on a set of double, it was part of my learning process. Of course if you already know that you like to move to CCR it would be easier to just buy a CCR from the start. As mention by ScubaDadMiami more hour spend diving with an RB the better. By the way I sold that set of Double when you owned a Rebreather you don't want to dive anything else.

Ichthyology, well we may have a future Richard Pyle here.

Good luck

Al

 

[Gill Envy]

I skipped the doubles and went streight to CCR with no prior tec experience... even got nitrox cert in order to do CCR. The only regret I have is that I did not have the opportunity do it 10 years ago. My years of OC diving probably helped some but it's so different I can't really say it made that much easier.

if you love diving, can do it often then money is the only reason I can think that's worth waiting on... it ends up sucking up a lot of $$ resources initially. I personally think starting out early before you've gotten into deep OC tec diving may just give you more patients to take it slow, which I recommend. I think it's best to gradually build on your experience as if you are starting from scratch anyway.

If you are in to critters, you are going to love the silent observatory CCR diving offers! The first time I became "one with the school" was a trip! It's amazing how everything just goes about it's business like you are not even there or better yet, attempts to interact with you because you don't sound like a train going through their living room.

 

[Meng_Tze]

I did all the OC stuff before turning to CCR. Reason is that even though I was going to CCR eventually, I was in no rush. To be honest, I wanted to go CCR even before I started diving. But would not have wanted to miss all the OC diving and all that comes with it.

 

[Mr.X]

As a rebreather instructor...I'd say get experience on OC (not investing in OC technical gear too much) and really develop your buoyancy, swimming skills and overall underwater sense. Folks who have a solid grounding in maintaining buoyancy, swimming skills (frog), plate usage and slinging a bottle don't often have too hard a time transitioning to CCR as they have a firm grounding in basics. After a few dives they tend to sort out the the RB's "different" characteristics.


In my experience the folks that may have problems tended were those who breathe hard and heavy, use their lungs as a part of their buoyancy 'package', need excessive amounts of lead, spend time on, or near the bottom, or never really intellectually, or physically grasped/exercised the concept of buoyancy and the effects that lung, suit, bladder, positioning and misc equipment play on "horizontality" etc.

x

 

[The Chairman]

This is great to read! I ripped my Achilles tendon coming out of the water on a technical dive: Dual steel 130s, and three stage bottles and a small slip of the foot did me in! It has since been repaired, and I am fairly certain that I want to continue on my technical trek, but with a somewhat lighter unit! Go figure! I will be doing my first boat dive post surgery on the Speigel Grove this Thursday. It should be fun!

 

[SFLDiver3445]

I made the transition to closed-circuit in August of 2007. Prior to that, I had been diving since 1984, became a PADI Instructor in 1986 and a technical/mixed gas diver in 1995. Do I think all that experience helped me when I ultimately made the jump to closed-circuit - Absolutely! Do I feel as though I needed all that experience to transition to closed-circuit - Absolutely not!

It's probably helpful to have a ton of experience and a knowledge and working understanding of the the effects of the different gasses at depth, but the knowledge can be acquired at the time, and the experience portion is dependent on the person. Some people have lots of experience, but have no business being in a task-loaded underwater enviroment, because they can't handle it.

I personally feel the critical component that a diver transitioning to closed-circuit diving must possess, especially a fully closed-circuit system, is being very coole-headed and comfortable underwater! Rebreathers require a diver to monitor multiple components at one time, as does most advanced technical diving, and if you are not totally comfortable in that enviroment, you have no business being there.

When I first got certified in Deep Air and Mixed Gas Diving in the mid-nineties, the requirements called for someone to have something like 100 to 150 dives, "in varying conditions." I think the "varying conditions" requirement is the component that assists in helping ensure that a diver has been around the block a few times underwater and can handle a bit of task loading, but that's no guarantee.

Ultimately, I feel it's going to come down to the professional judgement of the instructor determining whether each diver has the mindset and the comfort level underwater to handle the increased task-loading that comes with closed-circuit diving.

 

[Meng_Tze]

The investment into OC still has benefits after going RB. I still dive OC with some buddies, but when the dive calls for too many stages and such, my CCR wins hands down.

What I am saying is that OC and RB are not mutually exclusive....you can dive both on and off and have a lot of fun in all kinds of circumstances...