OK, here goes;
When I chose to "go all in" scuba, I was considering Hall's, because I was invested in a scuba sub project and Hall's had(has?) a scuba sub, but I was also interested in rebreathers and the CD I talked to at Ocean Divers said he could even teach Rebreather Specialty Instructor. At least I got 2 months unlimited diving in writing. Come to find out, he was planning to borrowing a couple Dolphins from the downstairs neighbor, which kind of violates the funky PADI Standards, but they said no for reasons other than Standards.
Not that I was for sure the other reasons, but I got IANTD rebreather trained by the downstairs neighbor; Hyperbarics International. Then I was allowed to rent the rebreather for 4 days, @ $200 per day (+sodasorb), and take it on the OD boats that I had unlimited diving from. I had proven myself to those captains over the previous 7+ weeks, so I was pretty much told to get that tech-y rig off the boat asap, and please sweep the site at the end. I made 16 dives, all but 1 solo; a night dive at Winch/Hole in the Wall, a navigation error at the Benwood perhaps due to metal debris; ended up "practicing" multiple valve drills on the next dive due to the excessive gas usage at the Benwood. Aborted one dive due to quick head ache; mouthpiece got knocked out of mouth before clearing ladder on previous dive.
All dives thoroughly debriefed by Instructor Larry while I sanitized the rig at the end of each day. It doesn't seem real looking back from today; after cleaning up from the last dive Larry whipped out his phone and I'm pretty sure he called Tom. He pretty much interrogated Tom with regards to the Standards for Instructor, especially with regards to competence vs piloting hours, whether either of them should be IT's for rigs they don't dive the minimum annual hours, and I walked a little farther away. After the call ended Larry told me he'd be in touch with me when I returned "home" to Oahu.
My scheduled Oahu landing was 9/12/01.
I took the airline up on delaying my flight, probably twice, and when I finally got back into a few Oahu dive shops, seems Joe Dituri had "just started" a Dolphin Instructor course with the "new" 25 hours min (and the Big Dogs dropped some IT certs?). Deep Ecology had two Dolphins in moth-eaten storage, including the one Wyland used for his certification (and signed!); I could have got 'em for $2G's, sans bottles. Even if I had just
not made that second plane change, I could be fully engulfed in rebreathers.
It now seems like I probably have wild imaginations.
I have only been below 130' three times. Out of 2 camera tries I have one good photo below 130'.