How I got started into rebreathers
I had
been diving for years and was always looking for something that bit different
as I had dived all the popular places around the area and living in Townsville
on the edge of the Coral Sea have been diving in some magical spots.
But you know how it is, the grass is always greener somewhere and I was
like most other divers eager to find that elusive spot or wait for that
next model regulator to hit the shop floor.
I was
told of a guy who was invited to come to Townsville and talk on rebreathers
by Collin Hodson proprietor of The Dive Bell, a commercial training facility
in Townsville.
My first
introduction to rebreathers was by Peter Ready who came to Townsville in
1995 to display his latest invention, the Prisim rebreather.
I can
remember the training room was totally packed out with no standing room
left and everyone taken by Peter's sometimes humorous talk on his
rich history with rebreathers.
At this
stage his Prisim rebreather was still in development and was quite different
from the prisim we see today however the seed was sown and I just couldn't
help myself.
I was
so taken by this device that I looked at ways to start building my own
rebreather and did a lot of research on the net to find out as much as
I could.
In 1998
an instructor from Darwin Rick Weiss was doing a level two diving certification
with the Dive Bell.
He offered
to teach anyone who was interested in the Dolphin/Atlantis SCR rebreather
as he had both his units with him and was certified to train people on
these units.
Of cause
I jumped at the chance to learn more about these units and enjoyed the
concept so much during the course that I ordered one from Dreager.
It arrived
and within 12 hours I had it in the water at Lake Eacham a crater lake
on the Caines table lands, about 4 hours north of Townsville.
It didn't
have a tank at the time as I had ordered it with a 5 litre tank and not
the standard 4 litre tank. So I had to dive the Dolphin with a 7 litre
tank slung across the back of the shell.
Me being
me, the engineer in me started to look at ways I could improve this design.
And
as they say the rest is history ;-))
