Yeah, me too...

College Diver

so tomorrow I do my final check dive for my PADI OW cert.
I'm about as new as they come, having only been training since March.

Today, at the nudge from my instructor, I drove 2 hours over to Ventura to check out a rebreather demo (I have been interested in them since I was a kid)
So I get there, meet all kinds of really nice people, and finally see a childhood dream realized - I got to check out an Inspiration for about 20 minutes under water... it really was everything I thought it would be and more!

My wife is worried that I am suddenly talking about spending $7-8 K like it is just laying around the house!

Was given the advice today that since my ultimate goal is to be doing deep dives on a rebreather, I would be better off getting into the rebreather first, getting a minimum of 100 hours on it, and then do my technical training with the system, so as to save myself quite a bit of money on technical gear that I wouldn't be using very long...

made sense to me

so anyway I found your board, and I will most likely do here what I do on other scuba forums - cruise through the threads, "eavesdropping" on conversations of those who know more than I, so as to develop my understanding.

Doorduijn, Niels

I will assume that your posting is not a troll.

I would not consider this to be good advise. There is an endless debate whether a diver who wishes to proceed with technical diving is better of first learning trimix OC diving before stepping into rebreather technical diving, but this assumes - at least in my view - that the diver has already recreational OC diving experience. My suggestion would be to spend time in the water to become a competent diver before rushing into rebreathers. Diving is not a complex sport, but it takes a certain amount of time in the water before you are truly at ease under water, and being at ease greaty helps to become a safe diver.

Rgs,
Niels

Dyvrdwndeep

Hello to the new diver,

Ok what ever I say here is only opinion. DO NOT GET A REBREATHER YET!!!!!

Like our friend's reply to you, become a good diver before you decide on a CCR. Here's the bottom line, diving is in itself a dangerous sport for however many reasons. OC diving, like walking, is the first step to advancing your ability.

I would think there are many schools of thought as to what you should learn 1st, 2nd, and so on. For me, I feel I did it the right way. I stayed on OC and learned all I could, and getting my adv, and tech certs for it. After 5 years of hard diving, and training did I venture into the CCR world. Guess what?? learning to dive a CCR was like learning to dive all over again, however the difference was, your ability had to be at a certain level.

Lets not kid ourselves, a CCR will at one point or another try to kill you, the difference will come, not in weather you have a cert to use one, but the experience of diving to do the right things to fix it and survive.

The choice is yours of course, but if I were you, I would let common sense take over on this issue.

OceanOpportunity

get some real experience before you even think CCR. There are several fundamental skills and manners of thinking on and underwater that only come with experience. Rack up a few hundred openwater dives in varying conditions, varying depths, take some advanced level instruction, then maybe think CCR if you have the need for it. CCRs are powerful tools useful to get specific jobs/missions done...there's more to it than that they are just cool toys.

Take the $7k and go on a 2nd honeymoon with the wife...do some diving while you're at it

__________________
Michael Lombardi
Oceans of Opportunity
www.oceanopportunity.com

Elected Director, Society for Human Performance in Extreme Environments

MN'07, The Explorers Club

Project Manager, Diving a Dream

rigdiver

My advice is to get a couple of hundred real dives before thinking about a Rebreather. Get comfortable with OC. Go slowly. Live.

nigelh

It took you since March to do OW?

Go away and have fun doing diving.
If, later, you discover that what you want to see means you need to go somewhere your OW card doesn't qualify you for upgrade it.

A rebreather is not some magic Holy Grail it is a spanner. It is just a tool to make some types of diving work better. Wanting to dive a rebreather as if it were some end in itself is just sad.

__________________
nigelh

colinicky

I would agree with everybody else's point of view & I "rushed" to do my ccr course ,the last dive of my course was my 100th dive .
I thought that you had to have advanced nitrox which means you need normal nitrox before that & AOW as well ? certainly under TDI the minimum number of dives was 100 when I did my ccr course .
Don't rush to a rebreather ,unfortunately there are always instructors who will bend rules & allow people to qualify when they dont meet the course pre requesites or even the standard during the course . You will hear people say that rebreathers kill . IMHO that is 99.99% wrong ,it is the diver that kills himself by either not knowing or not recognising what the unit or & possibly more importantly what their body is telling them & a lot of that knowledge comes from oc days .
HTH

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Colin

I trust my rebreather completely ,
I just don't trust the user

onwards & downwards