What Rebreather for Me?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

gearbow

Contributor
Messages
201
Reaction score
110
Location
Blairmore, Alberta, Canada
# of dives
1000 - 2499
I am thinking of a rebreather so that I do not scare wildlife. Dive longer, not deeper.

I live in the Rocky Mountains so I need to travel to my dive destinations. So far I have been diving mostly Cozumel and area with others on a small dive boat but.....

My future dive dreams include a trip to bonair with my son where we can dive as buddies alone and take pictures and film, A dive videography internship in Thailand for 2 months. A trip to Baffin Island to dive with Narwhals and Belugas, trip to Dominica to dive with sperm whales, ext. ext.

I have seen some of the sticker prices for some of the rebreathers and I am excited to see some more info on the new Hollis Explorer but I have no Idea of the cost per dive and servicing per year on these units.

Also, I would really like to know how much it would cost per dive for something like the Explorer. turtle dream .jpg
 
The Explorer is expected to come out around $5000 (RB & BC, as of right now no tank). Other costs include Training will probably be $1000 - $1500, Extended Air Cartridges, Sling bottle(Bail out tank). This will be a recreational RB. Although RB's are becoming more and more popular you still have to do a lot of research to find RB friendly operations. Some place will allow RB's and have everything you need (sorb or extend air cartridges, tanks, bail out bottles) while others may allow it but you need to bring all your own things.
 
You could easily spend less than $2,500 on good instruction and mentoring to get good OC skills and not have the added cost, travel hassle, and required focus for CCR. When calm and relaxed in the water you can get right on top of wild life with OC about as good as with CCR. Without that you will have the same issues on CCR as well.
 
I have logged about 4 hours on a Hollis Explorer and I was not expecting to like it as much as I did.
Advantages:
Easy to set up and dive
Easy to tear down and clean
shorter learning curve, class should be about 3 days and cost less than $1000
Uses nitrox which is easier to get than pure O2
The unit I used had a packable scrubber instead of extendair. I would have liked it less if it did use cartidges.
Very good gas consumption compared to active semiclosed such as Draeger Dolphin
light weight
Less cost than CCR

Disadvantages: (over true CCR)
Depth limited to MOD of nitrox
No decompression advantage over open circuit

For the dives you describe above the Explorer woulod be a good choice. It will not be able to grow if your diving needs expand but you could just sell it or trade up to a Prism 2
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom