Quote: (Originally Posted by
Mark Chase)
All good points but I wouldn't go without a gauge on my 02.
I don't find it relevant to my diving. I've either got waaaaaay more than enough if nothing has gone wrong or far too little if there is a problem. I'm comfortable that a gauge is not giving me a lot of benefit. If there is an O2 problem then I'm going home with no second thoughts.
Quote:
Whilst adding the spare 02 and of board suit inflation adds two more tanks I think its fair to say most divers are using off board suit inflation anyway so in fact I am only adding a 0.75ltr 02 bottle which can go on the side of my back plate just like my suit inflation.
It may well be true that CCR divers will use offboard inflation but if I was doing the dive on OC then I'd more than likely not be unless I had mix backgas. If I can eliminate relying on another cylinder, regardless of size, then I will. I'm not entirely sure what you'd be achieving with the extra O2 bottle. Massive dives maybe but that's not the kind of diving I'd want to be taking my CK on. Adequate bailout is adequate bailout, there's no shame in swimming out on it -- if nothing else the chances of it failing if you've got enough volume are minimal. Extra O2 is one more thing to carry, one more thing to get tangled in the line or keyed into a restriction or shave another m/min off your swim speed. Especially when you've got full OC bailout.
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I totally agree that on easy dives CCR is harder work in caves than OC. If I could guarantee everything would go to plan id much rather do it on OC.
I've had far more failures in 3yrs of cave diving on a CCR than I've had in 12yrs of OC cave diving, so much so that I've even considered giving up CCR's in caves and going back to OC. I used to think GI3's "ebola" comments were an overeaction to Rebreather's in caves but it didn't take long to actually understand what he meant. Caves magnify problems that you don't notice in open water, that's probably one of the hardest things to get across to wreck divers. Take a rebreather into a cave and you see how much of a bastard a rebreather is. OC isn't, I'm struggling to think of a problem that's happened to me on OC that has been anywhere near as serious as a few that I've had CCR and of the problems I've had OC I'm struggling to see where a RB would have made it better.
I dive a rebreather in caves for one reason, logistics. If I could get cheap, readily available helium then I wouldn't own one. No way would I be diving one because it's more reliable in an emergency!
Cheers,
Stuart