I used to swear up and down that I would never dive a rebreather. Too expensive, too much maintenance, too dangerous, etc. etc. etc.
But after dealing with logistics of NC offshore weather, going back and forth from cave country, doing deep dives, and managing an arsenal of doubles and stages that are tied up with expensive gas that I can't really use (no way I am blowing a $150 15/55 fill on a 80ft wreck dive), I started to reconsider my position.
When I did my first 100M dive I made up my mind that CCR is a safer way to do these types of dives and the gas logistics associated with diving them would make my life a LOT easier.
That being said, diving rebreathers is serious business. They can kill you lightning quick and you would never even know it. If you forget to turn on the O2, or the solenoid/ oriface fails and you don't catch it, lights out. If you splash with a hypoxic dil and your ADV freeflows and you don't carch it quickly, lights out. If anything fails open under water, you can go hyperoxic very quickly, tox, then lights out. If you lose control of your bouyancy and descend too fast you can tox out or choke, if you ascend too quickly you can go hypoxic. Hypercapnia is always in the back of your mind and you need to be hypervigilant. You need to constantly monitor not only the machine, but your physiology throughout the entire dive.
All of these things are relatively easy to manage, but it iis always multi-tasking. It's a much more robust skill set that has to be mastered in order to do it with a reasonable amount of safety. IMO, all of these reasons vastly outweight the "cool" factor of CCR's. Unless you have needs that justify it (and you are the only one who can decide that) I would stay on OC.
Despite all of this, I would be a liar if I said I didn't love diving CCR's. They open up a new world of diving, time constraints all but go away, and it has brought the challenge back into my diving.
But after dealing with logistics of NC offshore weather, going back and forth from cave country, doing deep dives, and managing an arsenal of doubles and stages that are tied up with expensive gas that I can't really use (no way I am blowing a $150 15/55 fill on a 80ft wreck dive), I started to reconsider my position.
When I did my first 100M dive I made up my mind that CCR is a safer way to do these types of dives and the gas logistics associated with diving them would make my life a LOT easier.
That being said, diving rebreathers is serious business. They can kill you lightning quick and you would never even know it. If you forget to turn on the O2, or the solenoid/ oriface fails and you don't catch it, lights out. If you splash with a hypoxic dil and your ADV freeflows and you don't carch it quickly, lights out. If anything fails open under water, you can go hyperoxic very quickly, tox, then lights out. If you lose control of your bouyancy and descend too fast you can tox out or choke, if you ascend too quickly you can go hypoxic. Hypercapnia is always in the back of your mind and you need to be hypervigilant. You need to constantly monitor not only the machine, but your physiology throughout the entire dive.
All of these things are relatively easy to manage, but it iis always multi-tasking. It's a much more robust skill set that has to be mastered in order to do it with a reasonable amount of safety. IMO, all of these reasons vastly outweight the "cool" factor of CCR's. Unless you have needs that justify it (and you are the only one who can decide that) I would stay on OC.
Despite all of this, I would be a liar if I said I didn't love diving CCR's. They open up a new world of diving, time constraints all but go away, and it has brought the challenge back into my diving.
