Unsure of my next step for cave training...

[rjack321]

Just take a gander at the GUE jj ccr FB group.

“My thing’s broke pls halp” is pretty frequent.

more or less than the DiveX blacktip group? lol

 

[Wibble]

more or less than the DiveX blacktip group? lol

Oh please don't say that! Wife bought me one for Christmas and am massively looking forwards to it on my release from prison. It's the only thing I've got to look forwards to with the long hours of solitary confinement.

 

[Wibble]

Choosing a favoured CCR is much like choosing a motorbike. Something I like will be eschewed by others. Main thing is to know why you've chosen something, as opposed to 'someone told me it was good'.

I do like my Revo. 5 cells, 2 scrubbers, leaky O2 orifice, scrubber monitoring, enclosed lungs, redundant electronics, clean front, 'hybrid' running manual and full electronic, cheap to run (3lb/1.3kg scrubber per dive). Not excessively flood tolerant though.

 

[Imla]

Did the same as above. Finished C2 (and GUE CCR) and then did Cave crossover with SDI? TDI? Can't remember. (this should tell you loads..) Did Cave DPV with IANTD. There was no "news" in the cave crossover. It was a nice retraining for some bigger dives we had planned. (This was a "new shop demands cards kinda thing". We had dove rebreathers in the same cave the past 3 years... ) I live about 800 miles from this cave.

But... Do the Cave 2! It will serve you true and well for many years to come. What you end up doing with your CCR is then up to you. A small crossover when you eventually need ccr in a cave is no big deal. Call it exercises to refresh before bigger plans.

 

[rddvet]

The one advantage of an eCCR (assuming normal functionality) is that it will not let the loop go hypoxic. You might be stuck to the ceiling with chipmunk cheeks, but that loop isn't going below setpoint when it's working as designed. PSCR and mCCR can't claim that. Whether that advantage is worth the tradeoffs in design philosophy is something we could probably argue about for weeks, but hypoxia scares the **** out of me and I like the parachute.

I definitely cant' argue that having the parachute an e-ccr gives you is beneficial. At the end of the day it's really personal philosophy. I never actually wanted a ccr to begin with. I fall in the category of mid-40s slightly overweight white guy that historically is the hallmark of ccr deaths. My wife needed one for her research project, so I joined in. I've since changed my opinion and feel safer on my fathom than oc in caves. Either way I didn't want to rely on a computer as my backup, and fall under the philisophy that says mCCR increases your attention to p02. It may not be true for all, since obviously the recent death at Ginnie disproves it. For me, knowing I need to stay on top of my p02 myself keeps me on top of it. I have a HUD that will annoy the hell out of you if you let your p02 drift too much. I also personally believe people shouldn't be diving mCCRs without some sort of secondary monitor, and more specifically a HUD. It potentially would have avoided the Ginnie issue. I dove the sidewinder with no HUD and 1 monitor and absolutely hated it and thought it was unsafe to dive that way. So it's all about personal philosophy. The JJs a great unit. In the end, it was the size, weight, and more difficult travel of a JJ that ruled it out for me.

 

[tbone1004]

@rddvet the exception for me to the multi monitor and HUD thing is if your handset vibrates. I have a divesoft freedom on my sidemount unit and while I think a NERD that vibrates would be better/safer, I don't have any issues with the single monitor because when the ppO2 goes outside of whatever limit I set it to, you can feel it vibrate easily through a 7mm wetsuit and you can hear it from about 20ft away and it is utterly obnoxious. Unfortunately Shearwater doesn't make anything that can compare at the moment. Since the NERD2 and Petrel are getting long in the tooth, and they have new computers with haptics, I hope that changes this year and I'll go back in the fold...

@Blackfrogfeet you are in a weird predicament. It sounds like you need to figure out what CCR you want and commit to it sooner rather than later for the majority of your local diving. What that looks like for the rebreather depends on a lot of factors and is a different thread.
When you decide that you want/need to go farther than your current limits with GUE Cave 1, you can choose whether you do the next step on the breather or go back to OC for that training. Outside of Ginnie, none of the caves that I'm aware of require a cave CCR card, so you can take GUE Cave 2 and mix those dives on OC and CCR or commit to one or the other for a while. Either way I think that prioritizing CCR now is the right step given your local diving requirements.

 

[rddvet]

@rddvet the exception for me to the multi monitor and HUD thing is if your handset vibrates. I have a divesoft freedom on my sidemount unit a.

I've actually wanted to try the divesoft computers. I like everything they make and their office is literally 7 minutes from my office. I've been told that the divesoft computers aren't quite as easy to navigate, but do a ton more

 

[tbone1004]

I've actually wanted to try the divesoft computers. I like everything they make and their office is literally 7 minutes from my office. I've been told that the divesoft computers aren't quite as easy to navigate, but do a ton more

they're not nearly as intuitive as the Shearwaters but for CCR's have two massive safety features.
1. is the haptics mentioned above
2. arguably more importantly is the ability to manually vote out known bad cells. On the Liberty this is huge because it allows the diver to control the voting logic which is something I think is a huge safety issue on all eCCR's running 3 cells with traditional voting logic which is everything except the Poseidon and the Liberty.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Finish Cave 2 with GUE. I think you'll be disappointed finishing with other agencies. Alot of agencies don't even include stages in full cave (which is dumb).

Is the difference between GUE and Cave training from other agencies really that much? There are some very big name cave instructors teaching cave courses so would the end product from reputable cave instructor be that different from GUE? Secondly, is the stage bottle handling you learn in any technical diving course not transferrable to Cave? If someone is already a technical diver, proficient in the use of deco bottle handling then what value can a Cave Stage course offer to them?

 

[rjack321]

Is the difference between GUE and Cave training from other agencies really that much? There are some very big name cave instructors teaching cave courses so would the end product from reputable cave instructor be that different from GUE?

Some of biggest names in diving are the absolute worst teachers. So it could be great, and it could be awful.

Secondly, is the stage bottle handling you learn in any technical diving course not transferrable to Cave? If someone is already a technical diver, proficient in the use of deco bottle handling then what value can a Cave Stage course offer to them?

Gas planning with a bottom stage in a cave is nothing like using a deco bottle. There is both the gas management of its use and how to manage its loss - as a team.