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Greetings!
Glad to see the formation of this mailing list, and it's looking
good so far (it's also the most email I've had in a very long time). I
guess I'd have to say that my interest in technical diving would be in the
use of oxygen or oxy-helium rebreathers, for a couple of reasons.
The first one that comes to my mind is scientific - I'm sure you
all know how much the bubble trail - so characteristic of open-circuit
scuba - can scare away many underwater inhabitants. Especially when species
which acclimatize to humans only slowly are being observed. I'm
corresponding with someone from Toronto who spends a lot of time diving in
Maui (lucky!), and has been monitoring (videotape) sea turtles for the
incidence of facial tumors (I have the clinical name here somewhere on
file). Seems that the turtles don't take to humans all that easily, so
watching them is difficult. It's hard to figure out what these animals eat
(food would be a possible source of contaminant) if they can't be watched
undisturbed, short of checking gut content. Anyways...
The second reason, of course is the longer bottom time at depth.
Being able to stay down longer means a longer observation time, and THAT
could make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful
behavioural study.
I'd also think that a rebreather would be a bit more comfortable
than a conventional scuba setup. I'd expect that the air would be a fair
bit moister because of the recirculation, and perhaps warmer for the same
reason.
I admit that I don't know all that much about the close-circuit
gear, aside from what's in the NOAA manual of days gone by (haven't got the
new edition yet). I also know that it's pretty expensive. Beyond that, it
seems like the training required to safety and effectively use a CCS unit
is hard to find. I'm not particularly worried about the financial aspect;
this is what I intend to do with my life. The only thing is to FIND the
training, the equipment (and the money to afford both, of course). Anyone
out there doing this stuff? Let's hear about it!
Cheers,
Pete
_________
/ | Pete St. Onge (pstonge@tr*.ca* | aka "CMDR Keener")
/ /| Catharine Parr Traill College, Trent University,
/ / | Environmental and Resource Sciences
/ / | Peterborough Ontario CANADA K9J 7B8
_/______| NAUI AOW, RESCUE
________|______________________________________________________________________
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