Iart Ccr Level 1

Ger Craven

I did the MOD 1 twelve months ago in Ireland, completed and passed the course with two others; I was not happy with it (for many, many reasons) and felt I was buying a cert , so I decided to do in again correctly. I will not comment further on this course, as I feel these forums are not the place for negative comments on agencies/instructors, as there is a danger of bias which cannot be policed and hard to defend against.

In saying that, positive experiences should be reported so as to help divers ensure they get correct training. I decided to redo the course with Simon Townsend (www.rebreathertraining.net) as he is a very experienced rebreather diver and certifies through IART (www.iart.de), which has, in my opinion a very through training program. I completed the course a few weeks ago in Menorca.

Each dive on the course has a number of tasks to be completed and at the end of each dive, student and instructor initial and date each skill completed. This ensured everything was covered, many other skills Simon felt were important were demonstrated. I liked the down to earth, practical approach of Simon. He explained why it had to be done, he demonstrated it, and then he observed you completing it. This is how instruction should be done and was a breath of fresh air to me, compared to previous experiences.
The course consisted of over 8hours water time, theory presentations, equipment workshop and final exam. Included in the skills were rescue techniques which were very interesting to do. Any questions I asked (there were many) were answered in full.

The course was completed over five very interesting days. Menorca is only a 2hour flight from Dublin; the rebreather cost €25 to bring over as sports goods, free on the way back (their mistake)! Flights and accommodation cost €325 with Sunway, weather and diving conditions virtually guaranteed. Cost of course included everything, no hidden extras. Certs were applied for on-line on a Thursday evening in the dive centre; certification arrived in the post Monday from Germany. Two working days later!

I am not where I would like to me with the rebreather at this stage, that is the MOD 2 done, but at least I am back on track and am looking forward to further correct training when I have more hours done.

Any comments or queries, let me know and I will try and answer them.

Rgds,
Ger