[Padowan]

Here's my write up from my CCR course, completed last week (it's a bit of an epic, sorry!)
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It had been a long time coming, but at last I spent to money and booked myself onto an Inspiration rebreather course down in Plymouth with Rich Stevenson at Deep Blue Diving.

I arrived the night before and pitched my tent in the closest campsite available, I decided that having spent close to 5 large, on a box and course, the least I could do was save a few quid on the accommodation!

I arrived at Deep Blue dead early on the Monday morning, partly because of the rubbishy weather keeping me awake in my tent, and the excitement at getting my sticky mitts at long last on my new toy. It was going to be a i 1 to 1 course, which was great as it meant that things could progress at whatever rate worked for both instructor and student. I was soon presented with a yellow and black crate and a pair of scissors and told "You might like to have a look at this…" – too right I do! After opening the crate and having a little stroke of the unit, I was told to take the cylinders out, get them filled and take everything upstairs into the classroom ready to begin.

After the formalities of completing paperwork and another cuppa we began with a presentation about the history of rebreathers and some of the units available. Most of this was old news for me as I had conducted very thorough research into most aspects of rebreather theory and so we moved swiftly on and started taking the unit to bits and I was shown all the important elements and how everything was assembled and checked. Shortly after this, once the tanks were filled we then went through the pre-dive checklists and how to validate the integrity and performance of the unit before a dive. By lunchtime I had disassembled my unit, put it back together and performed a full set of checks and was now ready to get things wet!

The dive centre has access to a local quarry that is about 12m deep, and so we loaded all our gear into the Land Rover and headed up there. We talked about the dive we were going to do, and the skills we would practice – again my research had already highlighted the drills and I had a good understanding of the steps and reasons for each, but needed to learn how to do it for real. Once we arrived and unloaded we quickly got ready and performed our last minute checks including the 5 minute pre-breathe. We then dropped in, and descended onto the platform at 6m. The unit felt a bit cumbersome, and it took a little while to be able to be able to immediately lay my finger on the diluent injector required while descending. I arrived on the platform, we did a bubble check then dropped over the side. I found the buoyancy strange, but comfortable, and never had a "moment". I occasionally found myself using a 1-finger push off from a rock to keep above the bottom, but generally I took to it very well and felt comfortable with things very quickly. Once we’d swam round the quarry we settled on the bottom on the slipway in about 5m and started practising bailout drills from CC-OC-CC-OC over and over until it was slick. After about 20 minutes, we came up the slipway and surfaced for a chat about the dive, and a brief of the skills to be performed on the next part. Once back under the next drill was performing a diluent flush on the unit, which again was practiced a number of times. We then spent some time manually controlling the PO2 at 1.3bar using the manual O2 injector. After arriving back at the platform we settled at about 5.5m and performed an oxygen flush and cross checked the PO2 reading with the expected reading at the depth. The ascent to the surface was nice and controlled and I got out, thoroughly pleased with my performance. Rich then commented that he was looking forward to a nice easy week!

Another rainy night in the tent and the following weather the next day meant that we would be going to the quarry again today, instead of using the boats. The morning was spent covering more theory and talking about decompression (a bit off topic, but an interesting discussion) and dive planning. Again, the research paid off in spoonfuls as everything we talked about I had already read and understood well, so what would normally have taken a day or two, we covered in the space of a couple of hours. It was then back to the quarry to put theory into practice

The skills for the first dive were bailouts to OC and back on the move while swimming, and manual control of the PO2 on the injector, again, while swimming around the "attractions" in the quarry. I also decided to take my 7L side mount for bailout to get a feel for the weight and configuration of it. The final dive of the day and we performed the steps of the hyperoxia drill (simulated solenoid stuck open) – bailout onto OC, close O2 valve, diluent flush, check loop PO2, bail-in if it’s breathable, then manually allow injection by throttling the cylinder valve. Firstly this was performed on the platform, then trying to do it mid-water, then we dropped to 10m and performed the full drill there, and continued the manually control while we swam around the place. We arrived back at the platform and I deployed a DSMB and ascended, again chuffed at how well things were going. Once back at the shop I was given the final exam to do, as the theory side was now complete.

Day 3, and the weather was again pants, and Rich thought that what was needed now was to increase the depth of the dives to get a feel for things at more depth, and therefore the quarry was now no use to us. By the afternoon, the weather had improved sufficiently for us to take the hard boat Seeker out to the Scylla for a real dive in salt water on a wreck. Rich said that we would be doing no skills, and that we could just go down there and enjoy ourselves. After doing all the necessary checks we dropped in and made our descent onto the wreck. I’d dived the Scylla a couple of times before and so it was nice to see how the life is starting to develop on the site. After swimming around inside and out for a while we arrived at the bridge and went in. I checked my handsets, as I’d been doing regularly for all the dives but noticed that the PO2 was a little lower than I’d seen it before. I was running a setpoint of 1.3bar, and would expect from experience for the controller to keep this close enough that I’d seen it between 1.25 and about 1.35 bar – this time it was at 1.1bar. I continued to watch it, to see if a "slug" of O2 might make it round to the sensors, but it continued to slowly drop, 1.09…1.07…1.05. I reached round and grabbed the O2 valve and found that it was closed, so opened this, and almost immediately the PO2 rose back up to 1.3bar. After exchanging OK "grunts" through the mouthpiece we were off again and soon made our way back to the buoy line and made our ascent and got back on the boat. After taking the kit off, I asked Rich if he’d switched the O2 off, as I had a funny feeling that it might have been a little test – he had and it was, and I was pleased that I caught the problem soon enough that there would not have been a big issue.

Next day and we were out on the RIB as the hard boat blew up an engine the night before. We headed out to the Scylla again for another dive, this time with skills to perform. Another good tour of the wreck with a period of time controlling the O2 manually on the injector. 2nd dive of the day was on the James Eagen Lane and the only skill was the full solenoid stuck open drill after changing the set point to 1.5bar followed by manual PO2 control at 1.3bar. Again no major dramas, and I was beginning to feel comfortable with the unit, and had got into a routine of checks and actions that I was using on the dive to monitor the operation of the unit, checking handsets, listening for solenoid firing and injection lengths and feeling buoyancy changes and characteristics. Great stuff, I was starting to be able to enjoy the dives AND drive and monitor the unit – this is what it was all for!

There was an evening dive going on which I wanted to go out on, and because Rich was happy that all the skills had been completed to his satisfaction, the exam was complete and all the theory had been covered he would sign me off as completed then and there so that my venture out this evening would be as a qualified RB diver, which meant that I could buddy up with some of the other staff from the shop who were out for a pleasure dive. The site we chose was Mewstone Ledges and after rolling in off the RIB, my heart sank as the vis was only a couple of metres, but after dropping further and arriving at the bottom at about 25m it cleared and we found ourselves with about 8m. Normally I’m not a reefy person – wrecks are my bag, and I can take of leave fish, but the difference that CCR allowed, made even me interested in following cuttle fish about and looking at the life on the reef. I think it was partly the perfect neutral buoyancy, partly the silence, and partly the fact that it was my first unescorted CCR dive, that made this a really great dive, and one that I’ll remember for a long time – scary stuff – next thing I’ll be getting all into photography of something!

Safely back on the surface with a huge grin from ear to ear and we all went down to the pub for a beer.

On the Friday the weather had turned crappy again, so after hanging around the shop for the morning hoping for a break in the conditions, but nothing looked promising so I decided that I would get an early start on the traffic for the journey home, boxed up the new toy, said my thanks and goodbyes, got my congratulations and headed back to the south east, thoroughly pleased with myself...

It was a great course, and the diving skills were challenging, which is one of the things that appeals to me in technical diving. The biggest advice that I could give to anyone comtemplating doing this course is to do LOTS and LOTS of research, because if you can understand exactly what each skill is for, and have a mental understanding of what you need to do, the final step of putting it into practice is that much easier.