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dave burke · 2nd January 2007, 01:13

First happy new year to all
A quick introduction my name is David Burke, I live near to London (welling in, Kent)
I started diving in 93 and moved through the PADI system course after course after course. Until the beginning of 95 when I got involved with a group of divers that were diving not to do course’s they were diving just for the fun of it, well it seam that way at the time (i.e. removing bit and pieces from the wrecks we were diving) it was then that I started to realise that the single 12lt cylinder (+ 3lt pony) I was diving with, was not enough gas for the diving that I was doing 35/45M and staying there for 18/ 22 min, so in 96 moved over to twin 12lt , in 98 took B.S.A.C nitrox + advance nitrox
99 took B.S.A.C , ERD then in 2000 TDI mixed gas diver, in early 2002 started thinking about rebreathers, but lost a friend to Rebreather near the end of 02 so put the idea out of my mind. I started to look again in 05 ( but lost yet another friend to RB in this year) so I sat down and had a long hard think about what had happened to them , and should I move over , but deep down I knew in my mind that the time was right for me to move over,
So at the start of 06 I made enquires about booked onto a course this I did and order the vision at the same time , I said to the instructor that I had a lot of diving booked for 06 so did not want to start course until end October start November 06. Was told that there was a 9/10 month waiting list, so this would not be a problem. The order was put in and the course date booked. I was to started the course on Monday 27th November 06, so no looking back now, even though I did have second thoughts on a couple occasion, I was not going to change my mind, this time and had made my mind up, and that was that , so on 27th of November I headed up to stoney cove where the course was to take place .on getting to stoney and after being shown how to set up the unit, and going through all start up drills, it was time to hit the water for the first time, big shock, I have not had to wear a weight belt since 98, as the instructor that I had for nitrox course said that with twin 12lt do I need to put one on, I took it off and found out that he was right and that I did not need one, so belt was put in shed were it stayed until the start of the Rebreather course. With 18lb (9kg) of lead in the pockets of the harness I Jumped in , only to find that after letting all air from suit, BC, + lung, I was still floating on surface, so back to side and out of the water where another 10 lb (5kg) was put on , back in and I then sunk like a stone, but I kept all this weight on until after I had finished the course, when I then ask the instructor if it would be possible to have a play around and take some weight off , I then took 10lb off but this was to much as I found that even after letting all gas out of suit + BC + lung as soon as the ADV kicked in I was back on the surface, so got back out put 2lb back on with 20lb ( 10kg) now in the harness , submerging was ok . this is the weight at the moment that I need , to use , I am going back to stoney 5/1/07 with 2 x 7lt will add these one at a time to see how much lead I can get out of the weight pockets , this should also make it easer to work out my sea weight , At the moment I have only 17 hrs.53 min on the unit and all of these have been in fresh water, so I am looking forward to getting back into the sea hopefully by end of Feb 07. but at the moment it practice, practice and more practice, so it’s off to stoney again (at this rate I will own the place), I hope to be able to contribute to this forum and be able to ask a lot of question and maybe in time with a lot more hours and experience on the unit, I may also be able to answer some question as well. At the moment I love the unit, hopefully it will stay that way, but as I said I do only have a small amount of time on it.
Hope this intro has not bored you all too much
Thank you all
Dave Burke

2nd January 2007, 01:13	#1 (permalink)
dave burke Custom Title Allowed! Current Rebreather/s: Inspiration Vision Other Rebreather/s: Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: kent Posts: 133	new to Rebreather World First happy new year to all A quick introduction my name is David Burke, I live near to London (welling in, Kent) I started diving in 93 and moved through the PADI system course after course after course. Until the beginning of 95 when I got involved with a group of divers that were diving not to do course’s they were diving just for the fun of it, well it seam that way at the time (i.e. removing bit and pieces from the wrecks we were diving) it was then that I started to realise that the single 12lt cylinder (+ 3lt pony) I was diving with, was not enough gas for the diving that I was doing 35/45M and staying there for 18/ 22 min, so in 96 moved over to twin 12lt , in 98 took B.S.A.C nitrox + advance nitrox 99 took B.S.A.C , ERD then in 2000 TDI mixed gas diver, in early 2002 started thinking about rebreathers, but lost a friend to Rebreather near the end of 02 so put the idea out of my mind. I started to look again in 05 ( but lost yet another friend to RB in this year) so I sat down and had a long hard think about what had happened to them , and should I move over , but deep down I knew in my mind that the time was right for me to move over, So at the start of 06 I made enquires about booked onto a course this I did and order the vision at the same time , I said to the instructor that I had a lot of diving booked for 06 so did not want to start course until end October start November 06. Was told that there was a 9/10 month waiting list, so this would not be a problem. The order was put in and the course date booked. I was to started the course on Monday 27th November 06, so no looking back now, even though I did have second thoughts on a couple occasion, I was not going to change my mind, this time and had made my mind up, and that was that , so on 27th of November I headed up to stoney cove where the course was to take place .on getting to stoney and after being shown how to set up the unit, and going through all start up drills, it was time to hit the water for the first time, big shock, I have not had to wear a weight belt since 98, as the instructor that I had for nitrox course said that with twin 12lt do I need to put one on, I took it off and found out that he was right and that I did not need one, so belt was put in shed were it stayed until the start of the Rebreather course. With 18lb (9kg) of lead in the pockets of the harness I Jumped in , only to find that after letting all air from suit, BC, + lung, I was still floating on surface, so back to side and out of the water where another 10 lb (5kg) was put on , back in and I then sunk like a stone, but I kept all this weight on until after I had finished the course, when I then ask the instructor if it would be possible to have a play around and take some weight off , I then took 10lb off but this was to much as I found that even after letting all gas out of suit + BC + lung as soon as the ADV kicked in I was back on the surface, so got back out put 2lb back on with 20lb ( 10kg) now in the harness , submerging was ok . this is the weight at the moment that I need , to use , I am going back to stoney 5/1/07 with 2 x 7lt will add these one at a time to see how much lead I can get out of the weight pockets , this should also make it easer to work out my sea weight , At the moment I have only 17 hrs.53 min on the unit and all of these have been in fresh water, so I am looking forward to getting back into the sea hopefully by end of Feb 07. but at the moment it practice, practice and more practice, so it’s off to stoney again (at this rate I will own the place), I hope to be able to contribute to this forum and be able to ask a lot of question and maybe in time with a lot more hours and experience on the unit, I may also be able to answer some question as well. At the moment I love the unit, hopefully it will stay that way, but as I said I do only have a small amount of time on it. Hope this intro has not bored you all too much Thank you all Dave Burke
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