KISS Mod1 Course - Sharm El Sheikh

KISS Mod 1 – Sharm El Sheikh
By Janos



I returned from Sharm a couple of weeks ago, where I’ve just passed my Mod 1, and I thought I’d write a bit of a report about my experiences there, and also my initial decision to go down the Rebreather route. I’m sure that I’ll be teaching quite a few grannies to suck eggs, but hopefully it will be useful to some of the people who are thinking about going down the RB route, and hopefully the grannies will have a chuckle at my naivety.


The First Step

I’d been thinking seriously about going down the rebreather route for around eighteen months before I took the plunge. The main factor in my decision was that I wanted to dive deeper, and wasn’t interested in an Open Circuit Trimix course (I had the opportunity to get an OC Trimix ticket for around £200 and an extra day earlier this year but turned it down). Also, I have a very high SAC rate, and was annoyed with the amount of gas I needed to carry for even a short 40m dive. It was either buy another stage or buy a rebreather.

However, I finally made up my mind in August of this year. I’d been potted with a suspected bend, and although I was well within my very conservative profile, I’d been diving air. Although I’m a big fan of Nitrox, typically only the first dive of a UK trip is on Nitrox, as it’s too time consuming to get a Nitrox fill for the remaining dives. Sitting in the pot tends to concentrate the mind a little, and one thought that kept repeating was that perhaps I wouldn’t have been there if I’d been on Nitrox. Also, when I walked out of the chamber at Whipp’s Cross I saw Danny, the Chamber Supervisor’s Classic KISS drying on a towel. I was keen to talk to Danny about it, but Mrs. Janos soon put the dampeners on that one, pointing out quite reasonably that she’d been sitting around for five hours and it was 10:30 in the evening. No matter, I tried it on the following day and was hooked by the simplicity of the unit, and the lack of clutter on the front.

I then spent a bit more time researching the unit. I’d originally discounted the KISS, reasoning that it was a unit for Luddites and I’m not a Luddite. However the more I read about it the more I liked it. Also Mrs. Janos and I were due to be buying a new house, and as we all know, mortgage money isn’t real money, and so I had funds available, and so I decided to get one.

I looked briefly at the second-hand market, but suitable units weren’t available, and so I decided to buy a new one. I phoned up Kim and Gordon, signed the disclaimer, and put my name down for a new one. I was pleasantly surprised about the waiting time, just three weeks, and soon enough I was unwrapping my new KISS, unit number 211.



The Unit Arrives

My first impressions of the unit were good. It has a solid, chunky feel to it, and the build quality is evident. I was pleasantly surprised about the simplicity of the whole unit. The unit comes without o-rings, and so I had to spend some time disassembling the unit and reassembling it with the o-rings in. Before getting the unit I was a bit worried about this, and set aside a whole afternoon so that I could take my time and work through it slowly. However, despite taking my time, and pausing for numerous cups of tea, putting the thing together only took me a couple of hours.


The Start of the Course

I’d already booked on a course with an instructor before ordering the unit: Dave Thompson. Although Dave is famous for inventing the Inspiration, he is also a KISS Instructor and knows a lot about rebreathers generally. The first day of the course was down at Dave’s house in Bournemouth. There were four students on the course: myself, Roy, Pete, and Liv, wife of Lou Rankin, who is also on the board. Pete and Roy were diving Inspirations, Liv had a Sports KISS, and I was on my Classic. After a bit of theory Dave went through each of our units and showed us how to assemble them and do the pre-dive checks. It was very interesting seeing how the other models stripped down, not just my own.

During the day, there were a few things that I needed to change on my unit. First off was the display. When calibrating it became apparent that there were problems with two of the three segments in my displays: One would not turn on at all and the other would not go into calibrate mode. I was a bit worried about this but Dave reassured me that Jetsam’s customer service would excellent, which indeed it was. I phoned them up at 4:30pm on Monday afternoon, (9:30am Canadian time) and a complete set of new displays, including the kidney, was on my desk at 10:30 on Wednesday morning, less than 36 hours later, despite having to travel thousands of miles to get to me!

The second problem I had was that the steel braided hose that goes from the diluent first stage to the manifold. I have very large lungs, 7.13 litres according to Danny at the pot, and have two four litre counterlungs. These are restricted by the counterlung case, so you do not get the eight litres you would expect. The braided hose was restricting the counterlungs even more, meaning that I could not get a full breath in the loop. I blanked off the 1/8th NPT hole in the manifold that the braided hose screws into, and used a normal rubber regulator hose running on the outside of the counterlung case instead. A quick trip to my local dive shop, Amphibian in West Norwood and I had a couple of reusable hose ends which are great for making sure that the hose is exactly the right length.

The third problem I discovered during the theory day is that my backplate is not particularly great for the KISS. It has a relatively deep vee, meaning that the edges of the plate are quite far from the counterlung case (I can fit three fingers between the plate and the case). Dave was concerned that the counterlungs would be a little too far from my real lungs, with consequences on the WOB. I spoke to Woz, of Kitfondle, and he is hopefully going to make me another backplate, which matches the angles of the counterlung case perfectly. However, in the meantime he agreed to send me an unbent back plate, which I was going to use. Unfortunately, the “next day” couriers delivered it after I’d already flown to Sharm, and so I used my twinset plate instead.



Sharm or Stoney?

When I booked on the course, Dave said that I could do the course in Sweden, Stoney Cove, or the Red Sea. I thought for about two milliseconds before deciding on Sharm. I live in London, and so a week in Stoney Cove is going to cost me the best part of £250 anyway, once B&B and travelling costs are factored in. There are some excellent deals to Sharm at the moment, and so the additional cost of a week in Egypt is surprisingly little.

However, the clinching factor for me was the amount of in water time we would have. I am a relatively hardy soul, having a thick covering of bioprene, but even I would get a bit chilly on a long dive in an English quarry. The Red Sea is a balmy 23 or 24 degrees in December, and so much longer in-water times where possible. And of course, I would get to escape another miserable English winter for a week.


The Flight Out

I normally take my dive kit in a large soft canvas bag, but I was a bit worried about taking the KISS like this. During one of the many phone calls we had, Dave recommended that I take my rebreather in a hard case. During the weekly grocery shops, I spotted a set of three hard cases for £50 in my local Tesco’s. Thinking that one of them would hold the ‘breather I made an impulse buy and breathed a sigh of relief when the KISS fitted in. I used my wetsuit to pad the outside of the bag, and the unit fitted in snugly. The rest of my kit, including 7kg of Sofnolime, took up another bag, and my clothes for the week were in my small carry-on bag.


We were flying with Thompson Airways, on a package organised through Longwood holidays. The standard luggage allowance is 20kg, but as divers we got an extra 5kg. In addition to this, I’d booked an extra 15kg of luggage each way, for a total of £60. Even so, my bags were over the limit weighing in a 48kg, although I managed to get away without being charged. Other divers in our party weren’t so lucky, and were charged at the rate of £4 a kilo. This may have been because I was lucky with the person who checked me in, but all the guys who were charged extra had big AP valves crates. I think the days when airlines didn’t weigh outsize baggage are over.

The flight itself was murder, but we all arrived in one piece, and more importantly, so did our rebreathers. Sharm airport was it’s usual chaotic self, but we all made it through ok and arrived at our hotel, the Helnan, which by the harbour. We prepped our units, ready for the next day, and then it was off for dinner.



Day 1

We were diving with Tekstreme, part of Emperor Diving. Aaron runs a good operation, and is well set up for rebreather dives. Full Inspiration and KISS Oxygen and diluent bottles were available each day, along with rigged stage bottles, and hire of bottles and O2 was included in the price. Sofnolime was available at €11 per kilo. The high price reflects the cost of getting into the country. Most of our group had brought some lime with us, and so only needed one or two fills during the week.

We were also joined on board my Mike, Penny and Giles Rowley, who run the Maureen of Dart Mike was running a BSAC Inspiration course, teaching John to be an Inspiration Instructor. John’s student was Kerry, a Trimix diver from sunny Cornwall. Lou and Liv unfortunately came down with upset tummies, and were unable to join us on the boat.

Units prepped we headed over to Ras Katy, co-incidentally the site of my first ever open water dive. Once the boat was anchored in 4m of water, we jumped in for a weight check. With eight kilos, and my 5mm Woz plate, I was a little over weighted and sank easily. Viz was an easy 30m, and as I looked around I was struck by the silence of it all. Open Circuit is very noisy! I re-ascended and once we were all correctly weighted Dave shepherded us to the bottom. Again the silence was amazing, putting air in the wing was really loud, and when a boat passed overhead, it sounded like it was an aeroplane landing.

It was then time for some skills and drills: Recovering the mouthpiece and getting used to the rebreather generally. I had a few problems in that my harness was a bit loose, and so the ‘breather kept floating up from my back. My trim was also well off, but I was pleasantly surprised with my overall buoyancy control. I was expecting runaway ascents and seabed crashes but no, I was okay.

For the second dive, it was more of the same. I tightened up my harness, and dropped a couple of kilos and moved some weight up on to the cambands of my tanks. I was still a bit overweighted, but the WOB was less. Buoyancy was ok-ish in that I flapped my hands a couple of times but managed not to crash into anything.

In the evening, we sampled Sharm’s nightlife before heading back to the hotel for an early night.



Day 2

The second day of the course was a bit deeper, and today, and for the rest of the course, we took side-mounted bailout bottles, using our own regulators. We built on the first days skills, but this time bailing out to our sidemounts instead of our diluent, and Dave gave us some extra drills to practice as well. I shed a couple of kilos, and we spent some time just bumbling along. The highlight of this was Dave having his ears dewaxed by a tiny cleaner wrasse! Also, I definitely felt warmer on the CCR. I’ve been to Sharm several times before in the winter, and remember feeling a bit chilly by the end of the dives. I didn’t feel this on these dives, even though they were over an hour long.

In the evening, we met up with Danny from Whipp’s Cross, who co-incidentally was on holiday in Sharm, and Dusty his girlfriend. We talked crap in the Camel bar for a few hours.


Day 3

The third day was more of the same, with a few more skills. I shed a couple more kilos, down to just 4kg, and I felt really comfortable in the water. My trim was spot on, and my buoyancy really came together on the first dive. On the second dive, I tried to tighten up my control of my ppO2 setpoint, and ended up focusing on just this and nothing else. I was buddied with Liv on this dive and I must confess to being a bit of a poor buddy. My constant monitoring and tweaking of my ppO2 meant that I ended up neglecting her, especially on the ascent. I was a little disheartened by this, and I was quite envious of the ECCR boys with their automatic setpoint control.



Day 4

Today we went out to Ras Mohammed. Once again, the emphasis was on just going diving while Dave threw in the occasional drill. Diving was nice, and a bit of a change from the shallower ‘novice’ sites that we’d been doing earlier in the week. My ppO2 monitoring was a bit better; it was starting to become a bit more automatic, although it was still taking me a while to get the ppO2 up to a sensible level after the descent.

Day 4 was also the day I learnt to drink my drool.



Day 5

This was another good day of diving, this time we were up at Tiran. There was a scare on the first dive when the Velcro on Liv’s Sports Kiss came undone, and her counterlungs and scrubber popped out of the counterlung case. The expanding gas meant that she had problems controlling her buoyancy and ended up on the surface. However, a few cable ties that she was ok for the next dive. This was a dive on the wreck of the Kormorant. Although well broken up and lying in just 10m of water. She is apparently little dived as the current rarely allows the boats to drop divers on her.

Day 5 was also the day that I got stuck in the lavatory and the door had to be broken down by chisel-wielding Egyptians.

In the evening, we had our usual debrief in the bar. Dave told us that we had completed the course, and gave us some frank and honest feedback about our performance. I found out that I had passed! Woo-hoo!



Day 6

My first dive as a qualified rebreather diver was above the Thomas Canyon. Mike and Giles Rowley planned to explore the bottom of the canyon in 80m, and had ordered in some Trimix diluent. The rest of us planned a more sedate dive to shallower depths. I was confident enough with the unit to take my camera down and managed to take a few photographs without neglecting my ppO2.

The final dive of the holiday was also superb. Another leisurely, silent drift through schools of fish, before meeting up with a turtle who seemed very interested in us and wanted to pose for the photos. Again, it’s great being silent.



Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m glad I got the KISS. I love the simplicity of the unit, and it is very well built. The back mounted counterlungs are excellent, and I think it’s a much easier unit to dive than the Inspiration. The only weakness is the electronics, which seem a little delicate, although I like the fact they are completely independent.

Mid week, I was jealous of the ECCR guys, and I can see the advantage of the electronic setpoint controller. However, as the week went on and my ppO2 control improved, I became less concerned about this. Currently on OC, if I find myself a bit negative then I inject a bit of air into the wing or breathe in without consciously thinking about it. I hope that in time, and with practice, my ppO2 control will become much more automatic.

I’m also a very different diver to how I expected to be. Everyone tells me to expect to be a beginner again. Which I did, but I thought that this really meant that I would have crap buoyancy but everything else would be ok. My buoyancy is actually reasonably good. True, it’s by no means perfect, but it is significantly better then I expected. It’s just everything else that I’m having trouble with.

Also doing the course in the Red Sea was definitely the right decision. Dave is a fantastic instructor, but also the warm clear waters mean that you get much more time in the water with your instructor. I doubt I would have got twelve hours of in-water time if I’d done my Mod-1 in Stoney. Well not in the winter anyway!


What next?

Well, I’m a little more confident then I thought I would be. But I’m also a little more wary then I thought I would be. I can see myself doing a fair amount of stuff shallower than 20m, both in quarries and hopefully the sea. But I’m not making any plans beyond that. I’m going to take it one step at a time.


Janos



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