Normally Gary is the writer in the family, but I thought for once I would take a stab at it and write about my experiences with learning to dive the Halcyon RB80 Rebreather.

I started diving in March of 1992, because my friend said he could get a buddy discount if I signed up with him. Since I was bored, I decided to join him in the class, just for something to do. Well the first night we got into the pool and I sat down on the bottom of the shallow end and I could breath underwater and see what was around me, I was hooked! So started my diving career, which has led me down many roads and allowed me to meet some very wonderful people all over the world.



In June of 2002, I had an experience quite similar, which re-energized towards diving. Don’t get me wrong, I was having a great time diving and shooting video and teaching, but the drive for new and exciting things was just sitting dormant inside me until I signed up for and took the Global Underwater Explorers DIR Fundamentals course. Diving became a challenge again and the excitement kicked in at 100 miles per hour! I couldn’t get enough! The worst part was waiting the next 6 months before I could get the opportunity to take the RB80 Rebreather course!

Prior to all of this happening, I was very leery about the idea of any rebreathers. I had seen too many accident reports and heard too many horrific things about the dangers of rebreathers. Then to make matters worse, my husband who I think the world of, suddenly wanted to get training on rebreathers. I was so nervous about this I didn’t know what to say or how to act. I envisioned him going off to some location for training and having one of these terrible accidents that seemed to be accepted in the diving community for those that wanted to dive rebreathers.

When Andrew showed up to begin the training for Gary and 3 others on the Halcyon RB80, I watched in amazement as he explained how this rebreather worked and how it was different from other rebreathers. Halcyon and Reinhard Buchaly basically had come up with a unit that made seem quite safe to be diving a semi closed circuit rebreather. I was soon wishing I was in the class. Six months later I got my chance, and this is what it was like for me during the training and how it is for me now as I continue to learn about diving this wonderful unit.

In the months before the class, I went out diving with Gary and another RB80 diver several times, watching them and how the units were for them on these dives. I could see how the RB80 was functioning, and could notice subtle difference in unit performance. I thought this was great and made a mental note of everything I was seeing. I also took the time to practice the skills I had been taught in the DIR Fundamentals class. All of this really paid off when I went through the RB80 course.

The first day of the course, we spent half the day assembling and getting some hands on training with the unit itself. I like this sort of stuff since I am a very mechanically inclined person and it really helped me to understand the function of the RB80. That afternoon we set out to do our first two dives. Due to the weather and ocean conditions, we wound up in a less than perfect spot, but it was an easy entry and calm conditions, which once I put the unit on, I was VERY grateful for.

I was excited to be finally doing what I had wanted to do, especially after watching Gary and Chris dive the RB’s. I was also very focused, because I wanted to make sure I did everything right. Pay that much money for a course, it’s not just pride on the line if I make a mistake! Plus Gary was there and I sure didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of him. The dive was to be a familiarization dive, no failures, with some out of air drills and valve drills at the end. Earlier I had asked Andrew if the RB80 was negatively buoyant, and he said it was neutral, so I had weighted myself for my new 7mm semidry wetsuit. And as soon as I began my descent, I knew I was way too heavy. As I began to rapidly sink towards the bottom in 20 feet of water, I was adjusting my buoyancy as normal since I was on the open circuit regulator built into the mouthpiece of the rebreather. Before switching to semi-closed circuit, I did my modified valve drill to ensure all valves were in the open position and I reached up and switched to the loop.

For the next 17 minutes I went through the most discomfort I think I have ever felt while under water. I was so close to aborting the dive and giving up my pursuit of becoming an RB80 diver, I couldn’t believe it! Every time I would inhale, it was easy, but when I exhaled, my mask would suck to my face so hard I had to grab my nose to keep from hurting my ears. I dove that first 17 minutes with my hand on my nose and my heart sinking from the realization that I might not be able to dive the RB80. I kept thinking to myself that it couldn’t be that bad always and I must be doing something wrong, because I don’t know anyone that could put up with that for any length of time, and there were many people happily diving this unit.

So I stuck it out and remembered Andrew saying the biggest mistake people make, is trying to breathe from the unit the same way they breathe from open circuit. Duh…that’s what I was doing. So I made myself relax and try to breathe as I am sitting here typing this now, and things rapidly got better. And later in the dive when I dropped off a bunch of unnecessary weight, things got even better. So by the end of the second dive, I had at least worked through the breathing issue and was willing to continue with the training.
Day two brought on more challenges. Some were just me learning to deal with the unit and some where brought on by Andrew simulating different failures. The first dive of the day was doing nothing but drills with my buddy, why Andrew watched and Sonya video taped for review later that day. The biggest challenge for me was buoyancy once I switched from open circuit to the loop. I was just absolutely stunned by the difficulty it was presenting me. I have always prided myself on having great buoyancy control, even showed it during the fundamentals course, but this unit was kicking my butt. I could no longer use my lungs for buoyancy adjustment and positioning wasn’t helping much either. So I had a battle during all our drills and the first ascent/descent drills were so ugly I was really embarrassed. Really embarrassed!

I was grateful for the third dive of the day that was nothing more than an experience dive, with no skills and no failures! I actually proved to myself that I could take the RB and dive it and maintain myself in a somewhat controlled and comfortable manner. Unfortunately at the time I started to develop a nasty stomach virus that plagued me for the next week, and it took everything I could muster to keep from dropping out of the course. I’ve never been a quitter and I wasn’t about to start now. In the end I lost nearly 15 pounds which I would never complain about and it took another week before I could even eat a reasonable sized meal again. And for someone that loves to eat food, this was a strange experience.

And of course my fin switch also makes me laugh when I think about it. For years I have dove with and loved my Mares Avanti Quatros, but just before the course I switched to Jet fins to get used to them. (I had to look DIR like the rest of them) I couldn’t master all the kicks with the quatros anyway, so I knew I was going to have to make the switch sooner or later. Of course I was looking for any excuse I could find to explain my horrible problems with buoyancy and balancing the RB80. So I wore my Quatros on the first dive on the second (or maybe third) day. It was hysterical! We dropped down to 20 feet and I instantly knew I had made a mistake. Of course Andrew wanted to make sure I was aware of that and he gently held my fins together and I instantly did almost a complete somersault going headfirst. I suffered through the rest of that dive and tossed the Quatros in the back of my truck as soon as we got out of the water. I haven’t had them on my feet since then.

The next few days seemed to all blend together. My buddy Doug can probably remember the sequence of events better than me. I do remember the skills and the failures that Andrew would have us do time and time again. Poor Doug had to put up with my horrible looking ascent/descent drills. If I were being judged on cool points, I would have been a minus 10. Of course at one point I started jumping on Doug for making mistakes that were causing me to look bad. Yeah right! Sorry Doug! Frustration was making me blame anything or anyone else but myself. Of course it never helped that Andrew was always quick to state that buoyancy problems are caused by the diver and not by the equipment. He almost had me buying that, but not completely. I had to harass him a few days after the course when over a few beers he actually admitted it was my brand new wetsuit causing me the difficulties.

Over the remainder of the course it was sheer will power and the knowledge that I had spent so much money to take the course and it would be months or more before I would get the opportunity to take the course again that kept me going. And I have to credit Gary with holding me up during this time. He was battling a nasty upper respiratory infection that Sonya brought with her from the states (thanks Sonya!), but still found the strength to keep me going. At one point I was so miserable (I think the fourth day), he told me I didn’t have to do it, that nothing was worth being that miserable…what a wonderful man! I managed to get myself through the rest of the course with his love and support. I know this sounds girly and mushy, but sorry guys I have to give him credit for what he did!

I think the coolest dive was the final one I did with Andrew and Sonya. It wasn’t required for the course, we had completed all of those, but it was to go out and get more experience. Plus I know Andrew wanted to get away from the double 80’s and strap on his rebreather as well. I was exhausted and really didn’t want to dive anymore, but decided to get off my butt and go make the dive. Andrew promised there were no more skills! Things went well, Sonya had a blast taking pictures with her still camera, Andrew played around on his RB, and I got to experience more control. It’s hard for me to explain, but as the dive progressed I felt much more in-tune with diving the RB80. It was the smartest thing I could have done, plus I wound up with some neat pictures that Sonya took of Andrew and I diving side by side and his impromptu out of air photo shoot that caught both Sonya and I off guard.

I find that the more I dive the RB80, the better my buoyancy control gets, the more I can feel how it operates during the dive, the more I love diving in silence with the gas extension and warmth of the moist air. Gary and I did a night dive with the RB’s and it was so fantastic! There were absolutely no other divers in the water for as far as we could see, and it was completely silent. The periodic discharge from the rebreather and sound of the injectors firing was a gentle reminder of what I was doing. At the point that we turned the dive to head back, I had the reef on my left and I was at 45 feet. I looked up and saw the silhouette of the reef and the beautiful blue water above it. As I scanned to the right, I saw the stark white sand below us at 70 feet. What a sight and what a feeling. I have done 100’s of night dives on open circuit, this was my first on a rebreather, and it was incredible!

I feel like an addict now that just can’t seem to get enough. The terrible winter weather has been frustrating, because I want to dive the rebreather every chance I get. I am looking forward to the calmer weather that will allow me to do several dives a week instead of just one. Every dive I make with the rebreather I learn something new about the unit itself or my ability with the unit. The excitement of diving has been brought back to me tenfold by the Halcyon RB80 and the training from GUE.