Starting to KISS

Starting to KISS
By Aquaholic


Why on earth did I get a rebreather?

Good question! Here is some history...

I like big tanks. I like having lots of gas on my back. I like bubbles to find my buddy by and to hear them breathe behind me without having to go turn round to look for them. I like being streamlined and not to have spider webs of hoses behind my head, I like being able to get into smallish holes in a wreck...

I 'refused' to get (too) interested in diving a rebreather myself for several years now. They are designed to get you - right? It says so on the box!

That doesn't mean I didn't learn about them, or wanted to understand how they work, or watched what other divers around me got up to; I just could not justify to myself the expense of acquiring one and, more importantly, did not want to go back to novice status up to now as I was just getting comfortable doing deepish (60 - 70m) Trimix dives on OC with two stages.

In a cunning, subversive plan, under the pretext of wanting to use Trimix on a holiday to dive Bikini, the team I dive with started to buy one KISS after the other over the last four years or so, one of them even swapped his Inspiration for a KISS - hence I found myself surrounded by first four, then six, then up to eight KISSes on most of our Trimix trips.

OK, they had the odd problem with CO2 hits (all learned to change their scrubber frequently very soon), or slight manufacturing wobbles - what do you expect if your unit number is #10? Spent lots of time fettling with their units between dives (or mostly unseen at home secreted away in their garages). But on the whole, they survived and got used to them, and stopped holding on to the deco bar and had more gas in their stages at the end of a dive then me in my twinset (oops!) and kept gloating over how warm they felt on deco and how my gas cost was 4 -5x theirs on a week’s Trimix trip etc…

But then they spent a fortune on the bloody Beasts, and on booster pumps, and Sofnalime etc. So to me the financial angle didn't stick!

Then they moved the goal post! We started to do trips on boats without compressors where I had to bring a twinset per day, plus two stages per day! And all I could beg or borrow - and my car was able to carry - was three twinsets and six 7 L stages. Hence, I could only participate on trips of max three days duration - bugger! And my car suspension was NOT happy! And the hassle of organising fills between weekends was starting to get to me!

So what changed my mind?

Two things really.

One was the realisation during a week's diving the Northern Liners off Malin Head last year that my bottom time, even when using a scooter, at 65m is limited to about 25 minutes and I wanted to stay longer, and maybe go deeper... but didn't want to carry twin 18s (ouch!).

Secondly, during last summer’s atrocious weather, I had three sets of twin 12s sitting in the cellar with 17/45 mix in them for several weeks. Too expensive to blow off, and no good to use on 30m dives. So I had to go to my very friendly LDS and borrow a fourth (!) set of twin 12s to be able to do some Nitrox dives on several weekends! That did it! Enough is enough!

So I started to enquire about purchasing a unit myself and then one came along within the UK and I grabbed it! It was complete, never been wet, one week in the country with all shipping and import papers - not cheap, but here, now! Great!

I had a week between agreeing to buy and receiving the unit so I fired off lots of emails to my friends to get as much info on their units, their setups and what they did when etc and then went to collect my new unit one lunchtime and sat impatiently at work till I could take it home that evening. It's mine - all mine!

What now?

So there it was. Sitting in its box in my kitchen on the Monday night. What next?

Phone a friend! Friend very kindly came straight away, with some 'lime and a spare 3L tank and helped me put the Beast together. Accounted for all the O-rings. Made sure it passed all the tests. Test breathe to check O2 flow rate was set OK. Fitted wing and backplate.

Off to the pool for a practice bimble on Wednesday. Hard work this! Breathe in, breathe out... very hard work, doesn't feel right at all! Switch to OC - nice n easy - Doh! Must remember to breathe out first before going to OC! Back to CC. Hmmm something's up! Out of pool check CLs. Looks like hoses are blocking the CLs. Readjust, back into pool - try again... much better! Easy peasy! Carry on... don't like hoses inside CL case.

Starting Out

One Friday morning, Manchester airport. Three people, four dive bags, several smaller bags, laptop, video, camera... slight disagreement with lady from Exell at Check-in over luggage allowance. Ended up paying GBP88 in excess (ouch!) Off we went.

Arrival in Hurghada and settled in on the boat. Started extended fettle to fit two standard 3L ponies, both with left-handed valves - (try that with your Inspiration!). Got it all setup in the 'standard way' valves down - getting kitted up was PITA! Unit way too low for me to get into comfortably, so enlisted help of a crate to support the unit whilst kitting up - problem solved for now, but not really an option for rocking UK boats without helpful crew to place and remove crate. Must think about this one. Go diving first!

Lovely clear blue water, 23 degrees, loads of fishes - great! Dives from back of boat - easy, dives from RIBS requiring backwards role off boat and struggle out of unit on surface... not so easy, but got better over the week (I hate RIBS!). Night dives, shallow reefy up and down dives (fixed ppO2.. what fixed ppO2?). Drifts along deeper walls, struggle between coral outcrops against the current, got picked up by current inside Ghianis D and spat out of door at other end! Dump, dump, dump, breathe out, out out... doesn't work! Not nice! Grab hold of wreck - settle down. Regain control. Pfffuh! Carry on! Deeper wreck dives - easy!, Into and out of wrecks - do I fit into this door? Hmmm, clonk… maybe at a different angle. Hmmm, clonk, clonk - yes! Down corridor, now turn round to go back. Hmm… what? No clonk? Must be getting the hang of this. Abu Nuhas, Thistlegorm, Dunraven, Kingston, El Mina.

First 8 hours were a bit of a struggle, learned to not have 'loose lips' during current dives, slowly got used to the feel of the unit. Started taking video camera with me - easy this! Nice fish on top of coral no longer afraid of bubbles - great! Frame that shot, breathe in to rise, bummer - doesn't work! OK, add air to wing - off fish skids away - bummer.

Great week without major incident. 13 hours in the water, various conditions and degrees of difficulty overcome. Still alive. Goodie!


Back Home!

Review kit setup. Got dumpy 4L tanks now. Still inverted. Want to remove manifold from unit. Don't like failure point where all LP hoses are interconnected. Need custom length hoses to be able to do what I want with current setup… don't like!

Hours of fun fettling. Back into the pool for some more practice and extended fettling with setup. Tried different height of tanks on unit, tied valves correct way up. Nice! No longer need custom length hoses, can get rid of manifold but have spiders nest behind right shoulder! Grrrr! Unit still too low to get kitted up comfortably. Maybe fit a stand? No! Fit longer tanks? Yes!

Into the cellar - take twin 7's apart and fit 'valves up' to unit. Ace! Now unit can stand on tank bottoms and is good height for getting kitted up.

Surf the web and review photos of RB80 setup. Now there are some usable ideas. Trial dive in Capernwray. Feeling nice and warm during dive. Can reach tank valves with some contortions and having to relax waist strap, but just get there. Next trial Littlehampton - very good. Lots of comments from Inspiration divers present on the trip Now feel comfy and have lots of gas to play with. Happy! Only problem on boat is that tanks without boots slip on the bench. Unit is a bit top heavy with all that lead plate I tucked under the backplate and in rough seas I was worried the unit would crash to the floor.

Back home dug out boots from cellar! Forgot what they look like! Can only find one - hohum, guess it reflects my split personality. Next sea trial - Weymouth. Boot on tank makes unit more stable on boat bench now and it did not fall off in rough seas!

What Next?

To get round the spiders web of hoses behind head will try to have both 7's using Dil. I can then use standard neat twinset reg hose routing, then use two extra tanks for O2 and Argon. Weight of extra tanks should offset required lead, or maybe use Ali tanks.

Will report back when this has been accomplished!

Cheers

Aquaholic



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