Before I was bent in October of 2018, I was scheduled to be in a GUE Rebreather course. I didn't have much interest in diving rebreathers, but the instructor needed a buddy for the student, and I took the offer to join class as an opportunity to learn something. I had done a Drager Atlantis 1 course in the late 90's (or thereabouts) and never dove the unit after class. Also did 2 dives on a rEvo with Jason Fisch at the Scuba Connection at Dutch Springs, but that was a demo day type experience.
The day before I was bent, I taught an advanced trimix course. I had one more advanced trimix class to teach before the season ended in the 1,000 Islands and I was never going to dive that deep again. I was thinking about getting into vintage equipment diving to putz around in shallow water playing with Sea Hunt gear.
Now, that I've come back from 2.5 years of hell caused by DCS, I'm trying to figure out if I want to risk SCUBA diving again. I returned to freediving, broke out an old speargun, and tried target shooting with my left eye since my right eye is patched due to nerve damage.
One thought I had was combining the advantages of oxygen from a DCS safety standpoint with the play of vintage gear. I know that oxygen rebreathers have resulted in fatalities related to toxicity due to depth and time violations. In my case, the danger of CNS toxicity would also rein me in from diving deeper than 20.5 feet. When I did underwater habitat training and became an aquanaut, I learned that 20.5 feet was the "magic number" or the maximum depth you should be able to live underwater for days and surface without DCS.
I know that the safe zone for non-combat recreational use is ridiculously shallow at 13 feet with O2 being at a ppO2 of 1.4 at that depth.
I was wondering if there are any vintage oxygen rebreather divers just (not) blowing bubbles to swim around places like the spring run at Ginnie, staying above thermoclines in lakes at 10 feet, and that kind of thing?
The day before I was bent, I taught an advanced trimix course. I had one more advanced trimix class to teach before the season ended in the 1,000 Islands and I was never going to dive that deep again. I was thinking about getting into vintage equipment diving to putz around in shallow water playing with Sea Hunt gear.
Now, that I've come back from 2.5 years of hell caused by DCS, I'm trying to figure out if I want to risk SCUBA diving again. I returned to freediving, broke out an old speargun, and tried target shooting with my left eye since my right eye is patched due to nerve damage.
One thought I had was combining the advantages of oxygen from a DCS safety standpoint with the play of vintage gear. I know that oxygen rebreathers have resulted in fatalities related to toxicity due to depth and time violations. In my case, the danger of CNS toxicity would also rein me in from diving deeper than 20.5 feet. When I did underwater habitat training and became an aquanaut, I learned that 20.5 feet was the "magic number" or the maximum depth you should be able to live underwater for days and surface without DCS.
I know that the safe zone for non-combat recreational use is ridiculously shallow at 13 feet with O2 being at a ppO2 of 1.4 at that depth.
I was wondering if there are any vintage oxygen rebreather divers just (not) blowing bubbles to swim around places like the spring run at Ginnie, staying above thermoclines in lakes at 10 feet, and that kind of thing?
