My first day with GDS AH 1

leonardo

German Diving System AH 1 PASCR Basic Course

The first day.

The appointment is set for 10:30 to Baita Lake, a pond made from a former quarry close to Castelfranco Veneto (Italy). Nick Toussaint shows a box within which there is his GDS AH 1 reduced to the smallest possible pieces. Nothing, really nothing had been assembed. Not an o-ring, not a bolt or a screw were together with something else.

The course begins with the illustration of each piece, operation and assembly. He assembles, I look. It goes on like this until 14:30 when the rebreather is finally ready and I'm cooked because the humidity is 80% and the temperature rose to 38 ° C.





I expect at least a stop for a coffee instead Nick takes the rebreather and puts it on a table. He guide me through the negative and positive tests, so I wearing the tape and following its directions I start the tests in breathing machine. I am struggling to keep the mouthpiece that with the weight almost takes away all the dishes that, given the age, have now replaced the teeth of a time. I try to breathe: I try ... and nothing happens! I try stronger and I can put some gas in the lungs. Giving place and body to my worst fears and a few third-party opinion I am disappointed and bit, I know that I made yet another mistake of my life buying this machine.

It should be a little better when I breath out but not so much. I start to think that at the end of the day I put on sale the reb even before it arrives, in the meantime, because now I am here, we can see how we will finish today. I complete the controls in some way and I am finished. I hurts the jaw and it seems to have chewed stones. What mistake!

Even without a stop, we begin to wear the drysuit, then reb in the shoulder and I walk down the 18 steps that lead me to water. In the tanks I have Nitrox36 and the first dive will be on open circuit. If I was disappointed with the dry test, I am very torn down now: the weight distribution disconcerting me and I cannot do better than a horrible position at 45 degrees. But what jumped in my mind to take this trap? I ask to myself. A split that shake with a tanker on the shoulders, this is what I am. After a quarter of an hour I start to find a just decent position but at the cost of a troublesome back pain. At the end of the first dive I have not the strength to climb the 18 steps. I say all this to Nick that answered: "welcome to the rebreathers club." Or he is crazy, or something escapes me.





Nick explain me how, while on the OC, you can influence the buoyancy of PASCR with the positioning of the counterlung. He also says that in the next dive I have to switch from OC to SCC. We repeat everything and then descend. I start in OC and we stop at -5. I switch the BOV and I start to breath from the rebreather. It happens so suddenly that I haven't the time to react: I have just the time to think that it's easy to breathe that I fell on the bottom with the lightness of a Boing 747 that lost its wings. I inflated drysuite and GAV while Nick shows me to move back into open circuit. I do it, and I take off like a balloon. I am very confused now but, still in open circuit, I go back to -5. I switch onto SCC once again and this time I can keep the level albeit with an exaggerated use of drysuite and GAV. I try several times the passage open-closed and vice versa and every time I understand a little more. I also understand how to place the counterlung to have neutral buoyancy in OC. At the end of the dive I can make almost acceptable changes.

When we leave the water, Nick laughs like a crazy saying that he was very close to "matar" himself laughing after my first switch. Lesson number one: to be diving instructor is necessary to have a somewhat of madness.

Still checks on the machine, explanation of what happened, new indications and with some fear for the residual air in the drysuite tank, we go back in the water. On the fourth or fifth minute of the third dive my AH 1 is no longer for sale. I apply what Nick has taught me and the mouthpiece as if by magic remains in its place without any effort. At the thirtieth minute not only I'm enjoying, but I am excited even the absence of noise, breathe something warm and humid. The switches SCC-OC-SCC are without too much difficulty now, even though the quarter of an hour I finished the drysuite air. Again out of the water and again theory. We analyse the previous dive and plan the following one. I feel tired now, but when Nick asks me if I want to go down a fourth time, the answer is yes.





Fourth dive, I try to breathe in every position and is a huge surprise to discover that I can put it anyway. Of course, vertically, standing as a top-down, there is some resistance but I continue however to breathe. Even a belly-up I can breathe and this erases any residual doubt about my choice.

We leave the water by 18:00. In an hour, while clean reb and equipment, we repeat what we have done in the day, Nick questions about what he said and that I should have learned. Frankly I do not remember which were my answers, I remember only that in the end, at 19:00, I was so tired that I had eyes that closed on their own. Tired but also conscious of having enjoyed the day thanks to an excellent machine and a superb teacher.

Only at the end of all Nick gives me the time for a coffee. Lesson number two: a diving instructor does not drink and not eat, who knows if he does something else ...

Mikel-Deko

Congratulation Leonardo

Hope you will enjoy your kit and your time underwather...

Chiao

Mikel

__________________
Mikel-Deko
Basque Country
www.olatu.net

"DIR is the nanny state for divers who cannot think on their own" Ron Micjan