Inspiration CC Rebreather

12/1/03

For about the last two years, I could have been heard muttering to myself on various dive boats: "I'm not having one, I'll kill myself in six months on one of those, I'm not disciplined enough".

Yeah Right.

November 2002 I got a rebreather.

Why?

I blame it on two people...Pete Steggle and Mark Lester.

Pete - for telling me what his gas bill was for a week's trip to the Lusitania, and Mark for getting an RB and only living up the road from me!.

It's no secret to those that know me that I live to dive deep.  Trouble is, I'm a 5ft 2" weakling, and for some of the stuff I ultimately would like to do I simply could not stand up under the weight of the OC kit I'd need to carry.

Having mulled it over for about 6 months, I decided to take the plunge.

I had heard from many people that "At the end of the first day on the course you'll hate it, and wonder what on earth you have done".  But then, I hated it before I got it, and after I had bought it.  I had very low expectations from the unit and regarded it as a necessary evil to accomplish a longer term aim.

Result:  I was pleasantly surprised at the end of day 1, and thought maybe I could actually get to like this thing.  By the end of the course I had ascents and descents under control and things like a dil flush (flushing the unit from the diluent to reduce high PPO2), in reasonable shape.  What I couldn't get sorted was horizontal buoyancy during the dive.  I had 2 kilos in the little pouch at the top of the unit, dumped my ankle weights and loaded my weight belt down with more lead than I have ever carried since my single cylinder days.  Could I swim horizontal???  Could I hell!

Oh, and I kept "losing" the buddy auto air and wing inflate.

Once the course was completed, I lost the auto air and buddy wing permanently.  I now have my diverite classic and steel backplate.  I have a reg off the diluent bottle and will shortly have one off the O2 bottle also.  I have 3 kilos in the top pouch, and have reduced my weight belt back down to the same as I used for twin 7's.

The main problem with the diverite is the position of the inflate.  It comes from the centre of the wing at the back which makes the carry handle on the rebreather useless.  Also it doesn't have the nice D rings on the side like the buddy wing.  Eventually I will replace the inspiration harness with a home made one, as I don't like the position of the D rings at all.

My dry suit, wing, bailout and counter lung inflates are all the same fitting, so I can have the additional safety of my dry suit inflate bottle if needed. 

I've got around 20-25 hours on the unit (must write up my log book), and I can now swim horizontal and hold a stop reasonably well at 3M.  Well in fresh water anyway.  I've yet to try the unit in the sea.

I'm getting used to it, although I still find the mouthpiece uncomfortable...it's actually too big (yah yah I know what you are thinking).

I haven't had any "OH shit" moments yet, but it's only a matter of time.  I'm not known for my patience, and I know eventually I will push my limits just like I did on OC...  I already have a queue of people wanting the unit, but I've decided to make it difficult for them.  No position finding device, so if you want it, you have to find me first!

Oh and I had the nicest compliment I ever had from Dr Allan when he heard I had a unit:

"You utter bitch", said with real feeling.

I'll update this page every now and then as I move through the learning curve on the unit.

Many thanks truly to Pete Steggle, for the advice so far, and the much more to come as I pester him to death, and Rob for his support and for keeping me with my feet firmly on the ground.

13/1/03

I forgot to mention that Rob did the course with me, as I didn't want to dive with him on OC without him knowing about the Inspiration.  Next thing I know...he's gone and got himself one too!

A word of warning about Buddy Clean

Over the Xmas week, I was pretty stupid and forgot to rinse my mouthpiece.  After doing the neg pressure test the night before a dive I noticed that my tongue was tingling a bit and tasted chemically, but having been assured that buddy clean was non hazardous I didn't worry too much.

The next day, during the first dive I noticed more foul taste, and a bit of froth on the mouthpiece, and my tongue was tingling a bit more. Now I know it was crassly lazy and stupid of me (flame away), but I still didn't twig, and did another dive. As I was putting the kit away after that one my tongue began to burn really badly. I nursed my way home from Dorothea by stopping at every McDonalds and buying a vanilla milkshake (I never want to see one ever again), and keeping my mouth cold.

Rob wanted me to go to hospital on the way home, but I didn't have the buddy clean with me, and by the time we got back I felt awful and just wanted to go to sleep to avoid the pain.

Anyway, I managed to strip most of the first third of my tongue of skin and most of my gums. It was nearly a week before I could eat or drink anything that was not cold, and taste anything at all.

When we got home we checked the canister because we thought it might be caustic, but there was not even a dribble of water in there, so I don't think it was that, which really only leaves the buddy clean.

I'm all better now and you can be sure I take EXTRA SPECIAL care to rinse everything thoroughly. Incidentally if I spill neat buddy clean on my hands it also burns a bit. Am I just a sensitive soul :-)??

17/10/03

Been a while since I've done anything to my web page so I thought I'd update this as I was doing the page generally.

I've got probably 50 or so hours now, and although I don't have Mod-3 I am generally using trimix in the unit.  10/50 for the ease of mixing.  I've learnt to have confidence in the unit , once it's in the water, but on the surface??  I honestly hate the damn thing.  I have been extremely close to going back to OC, and to be honest the only thing that has stopped me has been that Rob loves his.  Right now I'm kicking the idea around of switching to a KISS.

Why?  Well mostly around the fact that I just cannot get on with all the clutter at the front.  The counterlungs get in the way of just about everything.  The D rings are in all the wrong places.  The counterlungs keep catching on my shoulder autodump.  I've had quite a few lost dives from handset problems and battery failures.  Why on earth can't there be a display which warns you when the battery is nearing it's limit?  It's not a lot of use firing up the unit on the boat with 15 mins to dive time, to find that batteries that were fine when checked the night before are now nbg!

I guess I was just too used to the ease with which I could get into and out of my twins.  I remember switching to twins with a BP and harness, and it took me about 5 dives to get sorted on the kitting up, and about 20 to get fluent,  on the inspiration I still feel like I'm faffing around a lot.

Anyway, due to work hassle, it's been a lean year for diving anyway.  Maybe a winter of drills and stuff in Dorothea will see me right.  If not, come the spring. I'll be switching to a KISS.!

19/04/04

Well the winter of drills didn't happen....more work hassle:-(

I've dived the unit in the Moray Firth and at Weymouth so far this year, oh and icebreakers of course. I'm no fonder of it than I was last October, but as I still haven't managed to try a KISS I'll be sticking with the Inspiration for the rest of this season.

I did experience one of the major benefits in the Moray Firth tho.  With water at 7 degrees, stops need to be kept to a minimum.  On the first dive I was partnered with an OC diver on twins.  I cleared my deco requirement best part of 10 minutes before he did.  That's a BIG plus in coldwater.

Rob and I are off to Finland in August (see UKRS Finland 2004 ) and this highlighted another bind with the unit.  Common wisdom has it that once you have gone to CC, you should stick to it and not switch back and forth between OC and CC.  That's fine, except when you want to go abroad.  It's costing more to ship the breathers than it is for our own flights, adding something like £250 each to the cost of this trip.  That's without sofnolime.  We have been in touch with some of the Inspiraton divers in Finland and they have kindly offered to keep us supplied with lime to save the shipping cost, otherwise it would have been and extra £30 per 20kg to ship that!