Trip Report / First Post

jimdiverman

Left home yesterday (Friday May 2nd) afternoon to drive to Marianna, FL. Stayed at the new Fairfield Inn in Marianna right off 71. I think I am the first person to ever sleep in the bed. The hotel is in great shape, and if you are coming down here for the NSS-CDS workshop at the end of the month and you don't have lodging arrangements yet, I highly recommend it.

Showed up at Jackson Blue around 8am this morning (Saturday May 3rd) and started putting my kit together while helping Steve, Jeff and John get the DiveRite gear unoaded and setup. Since there were only two of us signed up for the Rebreather demo at 9am, we had the opportunity to listen to John Faircloth tell us about Optima rebreathers and related stories about diving on rebreathers, what he likes about them, and why he still prefers the Optima over the other models. After waiting a little longer and no one else signing up, we then decided to grab a quick bite to eat. Edd and Stacy from Cave Adventurers cooked up hamburgers, hot dogs and all the fixins for those of us that came to this event. The food was great.

So finally it was time to get suited up in the Optima and get in the water. This was my first time on a rebreather, so I breathed it a few minutes under the pavilion to get used to it. The first time I took the mouthpiece out, I let all the gas out of the loop. I was careful about closing the mushroom valves after that. Once all the harness adjustments were made and I was in the water, John went through some checks on the Optima. There is a red light (DVA?) that is supposed to blink in a particular way if all is working properly. All three sensors were indicating PO2 in the loop and you could hear the valves opening to add diluent into the loop whenever makeup was required. John let me swim around in the open water while he swam behind me. I didn't find it particularly difficult to breathe through it. It wasn't as much work as I thought it may be. I was a little underweighted during the dive, but I was trimmed out pretty well even though I had a 80cf stage bottle on my left side for bailout. (I never needed to breathe on the bailout reg in the water.) I only swam around for a few minutes (there isn't much open water at JB deeper than 8 feet. I got to spend a little while with John at the surface discussing the operation and maintenance of the gear, particularly the canister. You do not pack the scrubber of an Optima like some other rebreathers. You use a scrubber canister which has a limited shelf life and limited life once its been opened. Its whole mission in life is to take CO2 out of the loop. One of the most unnerving things about rebreathers is that if you don't properly track your scrubber life, there are no CO2 sensors on the rebreather to tell you that the CO2 in the loop is rising. The sensors measure O2. The other gases in the loop are Nitrogen and CO2 prior to the scrubber, unless the scrubber media is exhausted. Fortunately, John and Steve take good care of their equipment.

After the Rebreather dive, we were getting the worst of the storm that came through today. So during the downtime, I checked out the deals going on through Cave Adventurers and wound up buying a pair of RG2500s (complete with 1st stage, second stage, SPG, hoses and carry bag) and a Nomad sidemount kit. You can PM me if you want to know the deal I got. It was a really smoking hot price. I think Edd sold about 8 or 10 Nomads today, and as many or more regulator kits. I still need to break down to get that dry suit. One of these days, Edd...

So Mat (SuPrBuGmAn) called me Thursday night and said he wasn't coming, but on the drive yesterday, he called back and said he was coming. Mat tried out the Nomad and wound up getting one also. There's going to be a whole new crop of sidemount divers soon. Anyway, Mat and I finally decided that it wasn't going to be lightning when we got out of the water, so we got in the water and made one cave dive. I ran the mainline into the cavern, and Mat led us into the jump off the main line to the Goodman circuit. We had plenty of air, but for some reason, I started out of the cave after Mat collected his jump spool when we made the circuit, and we finished the entire dive and circuit on, not thirds, but a third. Sorry Mat. Next time roll off my primary (j/k) . Even though it was a short dive (45 minutes, max depth 91 feet, water temp 69, used 1200 PSI, vis excellent - light length), it was enjoyable to get the dive in nonetheless. It was a new section of the cave that I had never dove previously. The line was in good shape (I think it was pretty new). The only thing we need to fix before the summer is add another step on that farside set of steps into the water. That first step is a douzzy... but that step getting out of the water with twin 130s is even worse. Let us know when you get that done, Edd.

I want to say thanks to Edd, Stacy, Gordon, John, Jeff and Steve for putting the event on and offering us these great deals, as well as their valuable time and experience. I look forward to seeing you all again at the NSS-CDS workshop in a few weeks.

Tomorrow, I'll be at Vortex diving the cave with Eduardo. If you are in the area, come out and join us. The DiveRite folks have about 8 divers that I know of testing out the Optima and Shane will also be offering deals on gear.

Dive Safe!

- Jim

sfldiver

Hi Jim,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, I'm glad you enjoyed trying the Optima. I've been diving mine since August of last year and I love it! I also love the Nomad system, which is what I use on my Optima - It's awesome!

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Mark Chase

Thanks for the report, Its great to read about dives as well as just talk about units.

Love the Avta


ATB

Mark

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Is it supposed to make that noise ?

I took my unit to the dive shop and demanded they bolt on every thing that would fit.

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jimdiverman

Orange Grove.

Christoph

now that´s a first post! Welcome aboard and greetings from Austria.

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Cheers, Chris

When my basement became full, I believed to have enough divegear. Truth is, I had to get another basement.
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BillGraham

I hope to be in town for the NSS-CDS conference and would love to do some dives with other rebreather cave divers.

Also, we've got a great place for groups to stay right on the pond, within walking distance of Cave Aventurers. It's booked that weekend, but check it out for another trip:

Hole in the Wall House Home Page

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