[Dave1w]

Well it isn't an inspiration, or a KISS or megladooberry whatsit, but I guess it is actually a rebreather. I bought a Drager Ray because as it came at about £500 quid complete and brand new, it is a good way to get the foot through the door, and check out whether I could be bothered with the hassle of cleaning it and packing the scrubber and so on. if I decided to hate it I would not have a couple or more grand sitting in the back of a cupboard.
We I did the course in a wetsuit (which I haven't used for about 400 dives) and seemed to get on OK with it, (even though the course was in French), and our Lass did the course as well. (something about justifying the cost....)
I dived the Ray and Dolphin on the course, and yes the dolphin was nicer and looked cooler, but the ray worked OK, and is a 3rd the price.......

Everyone seemed to want about 4-500 quid for a secondhand Ray, but I found a shop chain in France selling them at 975 euros (about 650 quid). Discount here, bit off there, another discount, came out with the ray and a diverite wing I fancied for a bit less than the listed 975 euros.

So then I am at a point where I have it, a shop at the other end of the lake carries all the bits and bobs and cheap fills and sorb, only drawback is a 150 odd KM round trip (it's a bl**dy big lake).

So yesterday afternoon, we went down to the lake and got it all set up and went for a dive. Easy as that.
I was concerned because the ray isn't the biggest thing in the world and has itself totally integrated with a Stab, which isn't too brilliant. It was I think designed for nice tropical diving in a wetsuit, so as well, I had to figure out using it in the bulkier drysuit.
Some fiddling with an old pony and some clips, and I had a small stage as bailout and drysuit inflation (the 4l bottle on the ray wouldn't last long if running a suit). A guesstimate of the weight to get it to go down and I was away.

It's not the biggest thing in the world so it kinda just strapped on there behind, me and the lungy things came round over my shoulders. I found it best to keep the shoulder straps loosish and the waist tight to avoid squeezing the lungs.
I was over weighted and needed a bit of air in the stab (from the mix bottle) but managed OK with the suit. Bimbled down and around to about 14 m max, and found you do have to work a bit to get the buoyancy working. Not a problem, just more work than OC. in the shallows, it seemed to have loads of bubbles from the op valves, but obviously this got better a little deeper. As it is quite quiet, it is hard to tell when you do dump where it is your suit, the ray or the wing, but it will come in time. For the first dive, I was quite happy though.
She had a quick go, but it was all set up for me and we had only quickly swapped in the shallows. After that I removed some lead and took it down to about 5 or so metres and found it had just about right buoyancy.

It was OK, nothing special, but it's nice to have something different. As standard, 50% and 20m, with bits from Drager, 30m, 40m?.

Next step is to get something O2 measurement wise, then once I have some experience get the dosage for deeper. Sortout a better way to control bouyancy, something like a wing, and further down the line, if I fancy a CCR get one, or adjust this to suit.

For now though, I don't recall seeing to many posts about SCR's which is interesting, I guess like everything else you need a good reason to buy one, which I think I did have.


Dave