I passed Mod 1 back in September and I put mix in the unit straight away. Initial dives were in the 35-40m range and I had no intention of being narked out of my skull stressed out on an unfamiliar bit of kit.
He was normoxic 21/35 and I deeply resent TDI/APD who ever putting me out side my terms of insurance for diving the safest diluent gas available.
To me depth was not an issue it was deco that was important. As a result I limited my diving to short deco / no deco dives where going straight to the surface was not going to kill me but might end up in the pot for a session.
On every dive I carried bail out gas and a deco plan so if it went wrong I would bail out to a familiar OC deco profile and ascend in comfort. This was all the security I needed to do the dive. If the unit so much as blinked an error I would bail out.
As it was I haven’t had to so far.
Personally I see all the potential bail out scenarios on a CCR as being straightforward in terms of deco and easily computed for in bail out plan. The need for a course to reiterate this to a qualified and experienced trimix diver is zero to me. However I hope the course will focus more on running the unit and staying on the loop in error modes so I have to rely less on OC bail out.
As far narcosis I can say it is similar to if not the same as OC. I dived the unit on air dill down to 64m in the red sea, assessed deco, took video, navigated a canyon and got out and drew a map of the dive site. All good fun in the warm low stress 20m viz environment of the red sea but I would not have liked anything to have gone wrong whilst I was down there.
Had I had the option of Trimix I would have grabbed it but the dive centre was only going to give me air as a dill as I was not Mod3 trained. Tats the main thing for me I have to have Mod 3 to get mix away from home so I have to have Mod3
IF the course has any thing earth shattering to offer I'll let you know as I do it in Feb
ATB
Mark Chase