This a second version since the first made the course seem a little too easy (took a few months to be bothered to rewrite it and it is probably full of errors and inconsistencies over what really happened in the course). I have revised the report to truly reflect the difficulty of the course and also written it more from my perspective rather than the team.

Monday 18th June: I arrived in Florida. After been in the UK for a few weeks it was strange driving on the wrong side of the road again J We made the 2h run up from Orlando to Highsprings and arrived at Extreme Exposure. It was good to catch up with Doug (EE’s manager) and meet Paul (who has to be the most helpful man alive) and the "man" (David Rhea) who was to be our instructor. We had some pizza (trying not to drop any on our shirts) and started the lectures. At around 9.30 we stops and made our way to Stacey’s where we would be staying. Anybody wanting to stay in Highsprings should contact Stacey first since she has a great setup for divers (please PM for details).

Tuesday 19th June: Due to jeg lag I had no trouble rising for the early start and in fact had time for an early morning run. We all arrived at 8am at EE for the remainder of the lectures and full disassembly of a demonstration rebreather - this is a RB put together by Halcyon that allows the students to pull a RB down to its component parts and not have to worry about breaking their shiny new one Having owned or dived several other RBs (Tourill, MK15, MK15.5, Inspiration Prism Topaz) I was extremely impressed with the elegance of the design. Upon putting the RB back together we were shown a range of tests to verify that the unit was assembled and functioning correctly (leak tests etc) – pretty standard RB course procedures. We attached everything else necessary to dive the unit (drive hoses to regulators, bolt snaps to switch blocks, hoses for the bailout etc etc). Lastly, we used Datech Rebreather Simulation Software developed by Bernd Aspacher for Reinhard Buchaly and Halcyon to caculate drop in FO2 which would be verified tomorrow using Uwatec Oxy2s. We finished relatively early and loaded up the cars (thank goodness for American cars – you couldn’t fit this lot in a Ford Fiesta) with analysed stages, Rebreathers and rebreather racks and headed off to dinner at Floyds (the "only" restaurant in Highsprings).

Wednesday 20th June: Again an early rise was no problem and we even went out for a short run. By the time we had had breakfast and showered it was time to leave and we headed off to Blue Grotto for the first day of diving. As always David was already there waiting for us. We worked as a team to pack the rebreathers with sorb and then put the packed units into their racks and assemble the hoses, wing, lights etc. Again I was pleasantly surprised with the time to set up based on my previous rebreather experience (especially packing a MK15 scrubber :p ) but its still a major pain compared to open circuit. We would be using the Uwatec’s today to verify FO2 drops. We dropped on OC and switched to RB at 6m then did a few quick circuits of a line that David had laid in openwater part of Blue Grotto. The buoyancy is a real eye opener since its reversed compared to OC. When you breath in you reduce your displacement (fill your lungs and empty the counter lung) and therefore sink so your brain says "you are sinking, add air" which you do and then when you breath out by filling the counter lung you actually become positive in addition to the air you just added and really float up Upon time to ascend we switched back to OC and broke for lunch. I think we were all surprised at how nice the RB was to breath from (despite popular internet speculation and also compared to the RB80 clone I had tried) but buoyancy was a struggle (particularly stationary) and we all felt ungainly in all the equipment (that was to disappear quickly).

We quickly stuffed lunch down and were back in the water (what with debriefs and hour plus dive time we were regularly in the water for 3-4 hours and were thankful of drysuits and p-valves). Now in addition to the switching back and forth between OC and RB we were to practise reaching for valves. This was a real challenge. After many dives in doubles you develop a sixth sense about where the valves are. On the RB80 they are nowhere near where you expect them to be… they are further out to the side and further away from your back. Good technique is essential in reaching them and fundamentals have to be really dialled in. If you only dive in a wetsuit your going to struggle here, if you have sloppy skills you will also struggle. I found the tips David gave me in Cave 1 and 2 very helpful and would have really had problems without this prior knowledge. Had I done those courses in a wetsuit where your technique can be a bit sloppy and you’ll still reach I would’ve struggled. I found David’s signature phrase helpful – slow is smooth and smooth is fast. If you can’t reach, relax, readjust and try again. I had a lot of problems with busy feet in Cave 1 particularly so put a lot of work into fixing that – it helped a great deal with a RB hanging off me. I found it hard to get to the valves on the first few attempts but after a while got some muscle memory. I also didn’t have any demons about the RB playing in my mind and was able to focus on the drills (all critical skills are done in OC). After checking the valves we started swimming again and things started to fail on the RB. I liked the fact that if something goes wrong with the RB you essentially run out of air just like OC. There is a one-way valve failure that you might not be alerted too so it is important to listen/feel OC addition and venting of gas on each breath.

Any time we had a problem we bailed out signalled the team and trouble shot / solved the problem. The switch block was rarely very far from David’s fingers! After a while the problems became such that we called the dive. It was extremely nice to have twin 85 cuft bailout since we always had plenty of gas to deal with any issues on OC before going back into the RB. Later in the week there were some failures where it was better to stay in the unit (this would of course conserve gas – but the default action was and would always be bailout first). We were debriefed at the surface. We weren’t working well as a team, some of the fundamentals were weak, we were jittery (bailing out for no reason) and not thinking about problem solving (for example, why go straight for the left valve in a RB failure isn’t the switchblock more likely?). We were also been lazy and not fully turning to see team members from behind (it is surprising how long it takes to turn with all that mass of equipment – again fundies need to be fully dialled in). Futhermore, the loop causes a reduction in your peripheral vision so its tempting to sneak a quick look between your legs which is a lazy solution and results in the counter lung becoming higher than your lungs and a high work of breathing. For the next two dives we were to drop down to 9m do a valve drill and S-drill (with varying degrees of success) swim around the circuit and work on all those things we had just been debriefed on whilst dealing with problems until we were told to ascend or ran out of options and had to ascend. The RB S-drill is a little more involved than OC: since the long hose is clipped off under the loop so the donor has to switch to OC, unclip and deploy the long hose go to back up, wait for an OK then go back to the RB. We were clumsy with the extra step and will need to keep practising for it to become smooth – again slackness in fundamentals was an enemy – these drills need to be muscle memory – donate with right and popping the back up in with the left. At times the donor struggled with unclipping the long hose the OOA diver had to go for the reg whilst it is clipped (which you would do if you had too). Given all the gas and the options you have with the RB, particularly with a stage, it would be pretty unlikely for somebody to go OOA on you – but if they did you would both be on familiar OC until the situation stabilised. At the end of the day we quickly packed up and off to Winn Dixie for a video debrief in the back of David’s truck. I am sure that looked weird bunch of guys watching videos in a supermarket carpark, David had also cut somebody off to get into the carpark and the dude kept circling I joked "I hope he hasn’t got a gun"… anybody who knows David will know we were pretty safe J We then drove back to EE to interrupt Doug and Paul knotting line for the weekend to fill our tank. Then off to dinner at Floyds J

Thursday 21st June: 6.30AM, Gainsville for the swim. Doug from EE guided us there and we realised there are some thin people in America J We all completed the swim within the allotted time and breath-hold swim. After a quick detour via Starbucks for some laxative we were back at Blue Grotto for more of the same but following video debrief from the night before no excuses this time J . We had tightened up as a team and picked up the fundamentals but the valve drills were performed with mixed success (did I say yet how important fundamentals are – even bearing in mind Tech 2 is a prerequisite). By lunchtime David added a stage to the equation and we did a whole bunch of drills switching too and from the stage and back and forth between OC and RB driven by back gas. David now had more working parts to interfere with. We played a balancing act between having more options to solve problems but more chance of responding to issues inappropriately. Stage switched involved going back to OC and switches followed same procedure as OC but instead of putting the a reg in your mouth you plug into the switch block (making sure not to tangle the long hose and light cord) – fundamental skills become really important here since if you don’t tidy up you can create a whole birds nest of hoses and cords. Another long day followed by dinner a Floyds J

The facilities were excellent with covered floating pontoons and benches and a bubbler to move the duckweed to the side (this was to prove an interesting hazard underwater). We dropped to the 6m platform carrying two 80cf stages. The plan was to perform a valve drill and S drill then drop to 9m and plug the stage in to the switchblock. Due to the weed bubbler pushing us around we dropped to the 9m platform and due to a miscommunication missed the S drill. We then did a clumsy stage switch. I forgot to plug the stage hose under the long hose but would remember later and we were slack on our checks of each other since two of us had the long hose tangled (David was plotting how to make best use of this). We continued down a line to a motor bike suspended in mid water. We were in single file and really struggled to keep together as a team as all along our RBs were mysteriously failing with the switchblock turning off and quick disconnects becoming unplugged. I double checked my hoses and found my mistake so signalled the team to hold and got myself sorted we checked as a team and David picked this point for OOA to the guy who still had a tangled hose pandemonium ensued. Obviously it would not be something you would need in a real emergency – lesson learnt. Buoyancy upon switching to OC was also a problem with some loss as you breath out to clear the reg – I got into the habit of adding a little air after the switch and this helped a lot. We had a "thorough" debrief and broke for lunch. After lunch we were to repeat the same dive. Drop down to 6m do a valve drill, drop to 9m do an S drill and drop the bottles off. Then we swam off in wing man (The light in openwater was making single file a challenge – we should’ve moved to this on the last dive) down to the bike and then deeper. Once we reached depth we had numerous failures notably a real light faliure. This made communication difficult so we put him in the middle with the reel. We limped back to 9m and picked up the stage and returned to the surface. We packed up quickly and got back to EE in time to get fills – then it was back to Gainsville for a nice relaxed dinner with David and Paul. We got back late and still had the cars to sort out which meant an even later night.

Saturday 23rd June: Early start again but this time we knew the way J We arrived and got geared up again taking down the rebreathers and stages to the water. This was to be the most difficult day of the course for us all and I will focus on my experience. Today we would be taking the stages as deco bottles and doing simulated deco ascents with no visual reference. I dropped down with the team and we did our valve drill and S drill – I was reasonably happy with mine and was feeling more confident. We dropped off the side of the platform and ran a line out into the middle of the basin. David loaded me up with post failures all of this meant stopping the team and solving the issues but none were serious enough to turn the dive. It felt like I was going at a 100 kilometers per hour on an already rushed schedule. We learned that you always have more options on the RB. For example there is no need to go out of air when you lose your left and right post if you have a full stage (with the RB this was a significant amount of gas). On the ascent David asked me to be in control but since we were pushed for time and it a sink hole I decided not to send the bag. He signaled to shoot the bag so I got one of the other team members to do it. At this point my buddy came to me for gas OOA I donated and he lost buoyancy and extended the long hose I had to follow. I tried to grab his manifold and start him up but he thought I was checking his valves and we continued down. I finally stopped the descent and the opposite happened … we shot up 15 or so meter before I was able to get us under control again. David broke the drill and we came back to the surface for our reeming and planned the last dive. For last dive we would recover the line we had laid and then ascend again in openwater. We had the usual failures on the bottom and then on the ascent it was my turn [my buddies had let on that David had not pinched anything from me in Cave 1 and 2 - he removed my ally 80 Oxygen bottle at the bottom I felt it go but he wouldn’t give it back LOL]. First my left post was failed at 24m meaning I had no drive onto my RB – no problem we ascended to 21m and plugged in the 50% bottle. We shot a bag and continued to have fun with switchblocks coming unplugged and switches turning off. At 12m my mask was asked for by which time the bag had tangled around one of the uplines we spent some time fighting that (woooeeee I got me a marlin) and I eventually got stabilised and got the back up mask out by which time we were at 9m and time to switch to bailout and clear up the 50% bottle. When we reached 6m my right post started bubbling instead of rushing to shut it off I realised that was what I was breathing and now redeployed the OC reg from my 50% - I decided not to plug it into the RB based on the fact that the RB would drop the O2 percentage – then deal with the post which was broken. At this time we should’ve shared my buddies O2 (one of us plugged into the RB and the other OC) to give better deco – it didn’t occur to us till we were debriefed. The last thing David said was "Don’t you want your scout back" Much to everybodies amusement and just to not disappoint me he had knicked one on the dive :D

We got everything out of the water and over lunch David debriefed us for the course. GUE and Halcyon are not keen for people to have rebreathers and make it as difficult as possible to get hold of one. You are required to buy the unit to do the training and vice versa in addition training prerequisites apply (must be Tech 2 – although there is an equivalency caveat, it seem unlikely anyone will get this since I had to get Tech 2 and I hold CCR normoxic trimix ratings, Trimix instructor ratings and GUE cave 2). There are also only two instructors for RB80. It is thus quite difficult to set up a class. In addition they set the bar high because of the places you can get to on RB. The class was challenging and thorough. I wouldn’t like to compare it to other agencies since it has been 5 + years since I took a RB course. Along with the other GUE courses I have taken I find the scenario dive/ in water failure simulation excellent causing authentic learning. It is good to know how you will react to a problem and do the stupid stuff in a controlled environment so that if you have to do it for real you respond correctly rather than reacting inappropriately. David Rhea was in complete control and able to read ahead so that if you did something retarded a regulator was cm’s from your mouth. Most of the time retardations were a direct result of something a student did, for example, turned off the gas they were breathing, and problems always escalated from earlier seemingly insignificant mistakes, slackness (such as not cleaning away before moving on) or poor fundamental skills.

After been in the UK for a few weeks it was strange driving on the wrong side of the road again

Ejem, ejem,

PD. Great story, I´d like to be you.