Definition of Rebreather Friendly?

nilmol

As I´m unable to find any written consensus on a definiton on what exactly Rebreather Friendly is I´d like to ask you what you think?!
From looking at the (boat/resort/dive center) ad´s it would seem that anyone who lets on Rebreather divers is RB Friendly. I belive it takes more to be called RB Friendly.

In my mind a divecenter should at least be able to provide the most commonly used lime, 100% pure O2 to 200 bar and at least the most commonly used O2/dil bottles as rental. O2 analyzer to borrow. If not in abundance - at least enough to keep a minimum of 4 guests diving Rebreather continuesly day after day.

A Rebreather Friendly live aboard should provide all the above on the ship allowing the guests a minimum of two dives/day for the duration of the trip.

In order to be be classified as a Rebreather-dive center also, on top of the above, provide complete machines as rental. Center should have staff diving and teaching RB. Also 100% pure He (boosted) should be provided so that any mix can be obtained. O2 and He analyzer to be borrowed.
Also the most common spareparts and other consumables for the Rebreather's that the dive center specialize in should be provided.
Type of Rebreather that center caters for should be clearly stated.

A Expedition live aboard should as a minimum provide all the above on the ship allowing the guests a minimum of two dives/day for the duration of the trip.

Sorry about the square language, I´m just trying to be as clear as possible...

Anyway these are my thoughts at the moment. Additions, comments?

Anyone care to draw suitable logos showing the dive centers level of Rebreather Friendlyness?


cheers /nils

w ripley

Your thoughts are probably appreciated by everyone reading them. So thanks.

Still, what a shop provides is really a direct function of the type of demand it has. If everyone walking into the shop has a Rebreather, then the shop is going to natually cater to Rebreather services. On the other hand, if everyone walking in is on OC, then...

My experience is that there are lots and lots of very good shops that don't see many RBs. If a shop supports us, then we should acknowledge that fact and let everyone know that they do, and that they are "Rebreather friendly," for lack of a better description.

I personally listed a shop as being Rebreather friendly. It doesn't primarily sell RBs, doesn't primarily train RBs, doesn't even carry Sofnolime (yet). But what it does is to allow our dive club to have meetings there where RBs are displayed and discussed. More importantly, for me, its dive boat captains allow RB divers to jump in when they drop the hook and to surface before they pull it. 2 to 3 hour ocean RB dives, solo or with buddies. That's HUGE, IMO. That's "RB friendly," at least it is the way I see it.

RBs are still new to most of the diving world. Go on some of the other lists and see how little talk is about RBs. Maybe the purpose of "Rebreather friendly" is the recognition that we're in that transition period and that we all need to do what we can to encourage operators to get onboard with the type of equipment we're using and the way we're diving - vs OC.

I am absolutely convinced that 10 years from now RBs are going to be so common place that their users will just think that's the way it always has been. Unfortunately, it's not the way it is today.

So, maybe we should recognize that Rebreather divers are pretty sharp people, people who will check in advance as to where they are going and as to what shops will be in the area, and of course as to what services those shops will be providing. "RB friendly" may be just a way of pointing our friends on this list in the right direction. I'm afraid that if we hold every shop up to a very high bar, and only list the full-service RB shops, that we might just be the ones getting hurt in the process, at least until the rest of the diving world catches up.

Regards,

Bill

silent running

Hello nils, I must wake you from your dream. It sounds nice though.

Obviously, if you are a wreck diver, there are many operations who cater to CCR divers the same way they cater to OC tech divers and many of those operations are near enough to major population centers and have enough patrons to stay in business. But as somebody who does almost all their diving in far-away places, I must tell you that it's hard enough to find a dive op that will source O2 for you and allow you to dive on your own. In 14 trips overseas, I have managed to obtain Sofnolime 8-12 from a dive operator only once and it was very expensive. But other than the physical effort, it's really not that big a deal to bring it yourself, as long as the airline will allow the weight. I've never had to pay an overage on an international flight as I live in the US where the weight limit is 70lbs/32kg per bag, with 2 bags allowed. Well, at least for now.

Although there are a few recreational dive ops that fit your requirements, the bottom line is that where there is demand, there will be services provided. There just aren't that many CCR divers and we tend to interfere with recreational dive operators schedules and make extra work for them for little or no benefit. Another factor is where the diving is. Most of the best recreational diving is in hard to get to places and asking a dive op to do anything more than get O2 is often impossible. A dive op in Grand Cayman may have all the things you asked for above, but some of us don't like diving in a place with 100's of other divers and minimal fish life. I don't base my decision to spend thousands of dollars on a dive vacation on how convenient it is, it's based on how good the diving is and how much value I can get. I have found that the number of people in a place is inversely proportionate to the numbers of fish and the integrity of the food chain.

The best solution to getting a dive op to cooperate is to ask as little of them as possible and then gain the independence needed for CCR diving by getting a small group of CCR divers, even just 2, and paying for your own boat. This is very easy to do and actually very cost effective in places like Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. I recently returned from a remote part of Indonesia with 2 other CCR divers. We had our own boat and did 3 x 90-120 minute dives a day, with food and hotel for less than $115 USD per day. O2 cost for 8 days of diving was so little, I forgot what it was. The dive op ordered it months in advance through the hospital supplier and we were able to take advantage of their shipping agent and their liberal cylinder rental agreement with the gas supplier in Surabya. A neat, new trick I learned from our very nice, accommodating dive operator in Alor. I will definitely try to do that in next remote destination, too.

By the way, while it is nice to have a boosed 200 bar O2 fil, it is not necessary and it's not such a big deal to bring 1 or 2 O2 cylinders on the boat to fill with. But using CCR cylinders of less than 3 ltr is impractical as you will wind up having to refill for every dive. I think 3 of us used less than 6 large cylinders of O2 over 8 days of diving and we were able to start out with 1700 and 1900 psi every morning by using the lower pressure O2 to fill with first, then topping off with a full one.

I have been able to dive in all the places I wanted to go using the above strategy. These days, it turns out that with the the internet/email, logistics take less time to arrange than sorting through all the information necessary just to select the best place to go. Which though tedious, is a more pleasant problem to solve. For my purposes, I'd consider any operator CCR friendly just for having O2 and letting me dive on my own schedule and profile. -Andy

single tank numpty

I think that true rebreather friendly would be a place that provided you with bailout tanks but didn'tcharge you for them if you didn't use.

They'd have to make a charge to cover costs, leakages during storage and wear and tear, but if you didn;t use it it would be a percentage of the price of a fill

I heard of a place in Egypt that offered this

safagamarc

Hi Nils,

Good question Rebreather friendly, but it is as stated above tricky to answer due to what each of us requires. Doing your homework in advance and getting a feeling via e-mail cooms does help I find. Sorb, gas, boosters and spares are becoming more readily available at least in the more popular dive destinations. Taking the Red Sea as an example you get cracking RB support anywhere now and still avoid the masses. With charter companies getting ever tougher on excess baggage and price per KG skyrocketing you are now finding more and more dive centers doing the best to help. This does of course involve alot of investment to start with, but as RB's are becoming ever popular and more people diving them the dive operators are seeing a market and are intrested in cashing in. It is offcourse better when you have staff that are diving units as then the support just gets better.

On the other point of bail-out gas, well it is bail-out don't use it don't pay for it. I know the center in Egypt that doesn't charge for bailout they just levy a pump charge for boosting your selected stage which is I think 5€.

nilmol

Well I just thought that defining - not "a very high bar" - but some minimum requirements for a few different levels of service would help us from misunderstandings. Just as we are agreed on what's understood with "round trip", "B&B", "half board", "full board", "all inclusive" etc.

rgds /nils

nilmol

I've pinched myself and I've found myself fully awake...

As I'm sure you have been succesful with your strategy, I'm also sure that there are a lot of disappointments out there due to misunderstandings.
A dive operator that welcomes Rebreather Divers maybe should be labeld RB Welcome instead? That would give us three levels of service, something like:

Rebreather Welcome (what it says, nothing more)
Rebreather Friendly (caters for basic RB consumables and rental bottles)
Rebreather Dive Center (Full service on specified type of RB)

rgds /nils

nilmol

Hi Marc,

I know it's tricky... that's why I ask...

And the e-mail bit is exactly how I first got in contact with you. However it took some time to find youre DC and then deciding that it's the best for Rebreather courses in the area.
If ORCA had the label Rebreather DC it would certainly have helped me in deciding.

But if I tried to put myself in the DC-operator situation I think clearing up the meaning of whats included in Rebreather Welcome/Friendly/DC would help me cash in faster.
As a Rebreather Diver going for a long trip I would instantly gravitate towards centers declared RB Friendly or RB DC, rather than those just declared RB Welcome. For dives close to home RB Welcome would do nicely. Something like that.

My problem is that as of today Rebreather Friendly means just about anything and nothing. Which leaves the label RB Friendly pretty close to pointless to me, it just sounds nice, nothing more.

Anyway, "I'll be back..."

cheers

Ferg3333

Half Price is reasonable maybe on bailout fills??? That would be a good dive centre.

Its a shame when the bailout costs more than the weeks mix. To me CCR friendly means they can supply me 3ltr tanks, helium and sorb. I have started taking my own sorb now, so all I ask is 3ltr tanks and fills. I take all my own spares.

This to me is rebreather friendly.

silent running

Hi nils, it is very common to find that an operator would be willing to source the O2 from a local or regional industrial gas supplier, but does not even know what Sofnolime is or where to get it. In some countries, there may not even be any distributors for sorb of any brand.

If you can fit your CCR-minus the cylinders and harness-into your carry-on bag, there will be plenty of room in your checked baggage for sorb and cylinders. I have never had a problem flying with cylinders and sorb, as long as I explain that it's dive gear they always let me through. But it's good to have an MSDS handy for the sorb if they are suspicious. Even the smallest domestic airlines in Indonesia give an extra allowance for dive gear, as it's in their best interest to have more divers using their services, not less. Trans Nusa Airlines, who flew our group of 4 to Alor from Kupang on a short flight couldn't do enough for us, even though we were all overweight, didn't even charge us. I have had only minor problems thus far and aside from the physical effort of lugging the gear to the airport, it really isn't that big a deal. You will then be most self-sufficient and nobody can ruin your trip by forgetting to order your sorb or letting it bake in the tropical sun next to the wood pile or holding it in customs and demanding 4 times it's actual value due to some imagined commercial purpose. These are things that have actually happened... -Andy