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Hi Rich :^) >That's an understatement. However, I am becoming increasingly convinced >that tons of experience on open-circuit scuba is not necessarily a >beneficial prerequisite to rebreather diving. In fact, such experience >may be harmful in 1) providing undue overconfidence, and 2) establishing >habits which need to be deprogrammed. I'm *very* curious, which habits need to be deprogrammed? One of the biggest differences that I can think of is that you can no longer use breath control to affect bouyancy changes because of the counterlung. A second difference is that sawtooth profiles that require you to add/dump gas to maintain neutral bouyancy will use up your diluent too quickly I'm sure there are differences, but any diver that's been around and has progressed from standard openwater dives to more difficult and technical dives has had to modify and relearn things continuously. I think the ability to adapt is probably the most important ability in this case and most of the more experienced divers around have shown this ability. As far as confidence, you're obviously right. I approach each and every dive as if my life depended on it, mostly because it does. I have seen too casual an attitude among two groups of divers, those with very few dives (<100) and somewhere in a mid-range that probably happens somewhere after the 2nd year of diving, which really depends on how many dives you do... >While it is true that the amount of training required by a non-diver to >become a qualified rebreather diver is much greater than the amount of >training for a non-diver to become a qualified (not certified) scuba >diver; it is NOT necessarily true that the amount of training required by >a non-diver to become a qualified rebreather diver is much greater than >the amount of training required by an experience trimix diver to become a >qualified rebreather diver. I would like to discuss this point with you. What you're saying is that not many skills translate from OC to CC. Let me attempt to make some points. Well trained and proficient divers already have experience with and knowledge of diving in general, much of which can be translated to rebreather diving with appropriate modifications. They will have discipline, patience, knowledge of appropriate physics and physiology, good emergency plans, be able to adapt quickly and have experience with a variety of OC scuba (especially exposure suits which can take quite a while to get used to), and, hopefully know how they react to situations underwater. The rebreather diver still needs to have all of these qualities and abilities and have a knowledge of OC scuba and be proficient in its use (in case of an OC bailout either with on board gas or with appropriately placed stage bottles). So, I think that indeed, being a proficient OC scuba diver is actually a prerequisite to becoming a rebreather diver. >Some of the qualities a prospective rebreather diver should have are: Lets just go over your points... >1) Enormous discipline >2) Humility >3) Solid comprehension of gas physics >4) More discipline >5) Patience >6) Good mechanical abilities (and brain) >7) Yet more discipline Everything you've listed is also a quality of a good OC scuba diver, you are obviously attempting to emphasis discipline, but, there *are* plenty of OC divers that meet your definition. >I'd be very interested if any of the other rebreather divers on this list >have different viewpoints. I hope you don't mind an opinion from a non-rebreather diver. I know you won't, you're one of the most polite people in the scuba world I've ever met, even if we've only met by email and it's email like yours that provokes thoughtful and provocative conversation rather than (the all to common lately) flamefests. In closing, I appeal to *all* people on this list, please stop the rampant flaming, it really doesn't do any of us justice... Happy diving :^) -Carl-
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