Rebreather Pro

Bahamas Rebreather Expedition Report

Lost Reel Croc – Friday, July 10 – Bahamian Independence Day (Junkanoo)

The cave is a non-descript water hole on the side of the main north/south highway. There’s a trash heap in the parking lot and the water stinks of sewage. Garbage floats in the brown water and a home-made ladder is tied to a pine tree. It’s not very inviting. We’ve come to this site to investigate a fully articulated crocodile skeleton and its trail of fossilized feces. Given the small passages, hydrogen sulfide, sliding peat avalanches and lack of visibility, Wes trims the team down again to Kenny Broad, Brian Kakuk and myself. Three of us dive our Megalodon rebreathers in order to minimize the percolation and Wes opts for open circuit sidemount gear.
We descend through wispy veils of hydrogen sulfide and dodge branches and tree trunks that choke the entrance. We follow a loose mound of collapsing peat down to a deeper layer that has a little bit of visibility. It is there that we find huge petrified turds. It seems this crocodile had an enormous digestive tract, large enough to pop out something the size of a human baby. After descending to 100 feet, we follow a silty passage to a small alcove, dodging crumbling formations along the way. Brian ties in a line and we cautiously follow to the resting place of the large croc. Bringing up the rear of the pack, I have lost all visibility and can no longer see my displays. Luckily my heads-up light keeps me in contact with pertinent information about my life support. I know we are at the croc site only because I can hear Brian and Kenny yelling measurements and depths. The pace of Wes’s bubbles tells me he is fine too. For twenty minutes, the guys try to document and retrieve a long bone for dating. Wes is off the line attempting to film the event. Once completed, the only way to get Wes out of the murky recess is for Brian to gently pull the camera lens to safety. Wes hangs limp and rides the camera in trust to get back on the line. Our exit is completely silted out, so we follow the line and play “bump and go” to get to our decompression stop. Seventy-eight minutes in complete milk. The dive is a great success.   Jill Heinerth

Jill Heinerth in Car Crash

As some of you may know, Jill and I were in a pretty violent "rollover wreck" yesterday on the Florida  Turnpike.  We are a bit battered and bruised, but okay so far.  We had a van packed full of dive gear and underwater film equipment, including a few rebreathers. Let us all join together and sing the praises of Pelican cases.  Wes Skiles, Tom Morris and Nathan Skiles were traveling with us in another van, and they hurriedly turned around to assist.  It was a bit dicey there while we were rolling upside down and end over end!  I kicked out the windshield to extracate myself, and with the assistance of an ER nurse (in scrubs who was passing by), we got an upside-down Jill right-side-up.
After a checking over by a doctor, Jill continued on to meet the RV Tiburon for a National Geographic film project.  I am picking up the pieces and holding the fort.
Thank you all for your love and support!  Robert McClellan, for Jill Heinerth

A New Day for Rebreather Diving

The rebreather market has finally hit a critical mass. In the early days, a few brave manufacturers put everything on the line and with  current knowledge, put the best product out there that they possibly could. When I began instructing CCR, well over a decade ago, we also did the best we could with current knowledge. Thanks to a lot of hard-fought information,  the rebreather market has grown and flourished to the point that it is now a financially viable enterprise. With that viability, comes a new future for divers. We now have enough purchasing power to demand the products and features that we want to see. A responsive manufacturer, will try to meet those demands.
In the early days of CCR diving, we were test-diving, but today we have sophisticated standards and data that prove the efficiency and safety of commercial products. In the past we have chalked up accidents to so called, “human error.” But, in our human-ness, are we not allowed to make mistakes? Is human-error, better thought of as human nature? The tragic loss of many good instructors, qualified divers and experienced professionals attests to the fact that, on a bad day, we get distracted. We make mistakes.
With a growing marketplace, it then seems reasonable that we should ask for more. More safety. More proof. Published data. Proper testing. We can demand that simple diver mistakes should be engineered-out of a life support device. That device should support life on a good day, a bad day and when we are a little out of practice. I’m not advocating irresponsibility on the part of a diver. I am instead suggesting that the diver and manufacturer create a partnership that delivers safer equipment and more incident-free dives.
With this in mind, I recently took a Sentinel rebreather class from Kevin Gurr and was impressed beyond my wildest imagination. I found him to not only be an excellent and responsive instructor but also a brilliant engineer that was truly concerned about making rebreather diving safer. I have learned to be a better diver through his instruction. I have learned to be a better instructor through his mentoring and I have embraced the Sentinel rebreather as my tool for the future. As a creative professional that takes rebreathers to some very hairy places, I found this unit to offer significantly more safety features, but still present an easy user interface. I feel a lot safer shooting pictures and making movies with the Sentinel.
Even if you are not in the market for a new rebreather, I suggest you take a close look at the features and test data for your rebreather. Take an afternoon to learn about how the various CE or ISO certifications are conducted and what they mean to you. Take a moment to research your manufacturer’s website and find out if all the information you need is there. Are there safety notices, test data and information links? Careful review the data regarding canister duration for various depths and be extremely cautious about exceeding any of those limits. If you don’t have a CO2 monitor on your rebreather, you are playing a dangerous chess game. Finally, ask yourself, “is my life support system adequate for my diving practices? Are the inherent risks worth taking?”
Nobody should perish for a simple mistake. We should demand more.

CCR Divers: Hold Your Nose

Pre-breathe – Hold your nose!

Do you ever see your colleagues walking around the boat deck or dive site while pre-breathing on their rig? This is a dangerous practice. Pre-breathing should be conducted in a safe place while watching  your displays.

Did you know that it is important to either pinch your nose or wear a mask while you complete your pre-breathe sequence? If you fail to pinch your nose, and you have a carbon dioxide issue like channeling, a bad mushroom valve or absent canister, then your body will compensate for the rising PCO2 by sneaking in some fresh air through the nose. You may not even notice, but it negates the main safety purpose for the pre-breathe sequence. So, find a safe and relaxed spot to complete your pre-breathe. Watch and compare your displays and then after you pass the test, you can enter the water safely.

Diving Eagles Nest with Richie and Kevin on the Sentinel CCR

Richie Kohler, Kevin Gurr and I dropped in to Eagle's Nest over the weekend and enjoyed some great visibility for photography. Richie and I have graduated, and are now set loose to stack up hours on our new Sentinels while we prepare to teach this unit in the near future. We were both completely impressed with the technology, and absolutely salivating over the new CO2 monitor on the Expedition unit. - Jill Heinerth

Report from Sentinel CCR Class

Kevin Gurr, Richie Kohler and Gregg Stanton and I hit Blue Grotto today for some more training. It is a wonderful thing to be back on a learning curve. Despite getting lots of new information and viewpoints, it is good to be under the performance pressure of being evaluated. It should make me a better instructor, recalling what it feels like to be a student.
I have to say that I am incredibly impressed with the Sentinel rebreather. Quite simply, it is true life support with a high degree of background security and a simple user interface. In other words, there are a whole lot of features working in the background and protecting you from human error, but diving it is very easy. Today I was taking shots of the guys and think it will be a great tool for photography that normally robs quite a bit of my attention. I'll report more as I finish my class!  Photo: L-R: Greg Stanton, Kevin Gurr, Richie Kohler

Sentinel CCR First Impression

The Sentinel CCR Rebreather: It's quite an amazing rebreather. The biggest key is the levels of safety afforded to the diver. Couple that with their new CO2 monitor (on the expedition model) and there is really nothing similar on the market.

Richie Kohler and Jill Heinerth Packin'

Sentinel CCR class is going well when you have Richie Kohler doing the heavy lifting!

Sentinel Update

Kevin Gurr, Richie Kohler, Greg Stanton and Jill Heinerth in the water with the rig today!