30-40 dives and rebreather certified?!

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macado

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Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
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Location
Cozumel, MX por el invierno
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I can assure you this post is not a troll; It's really not but I just wanted to find out if what I saw actually happens? :shakehead:

Last weekend I encountered someone attempting to dive with a rebreather during a typical shore diving event however I later learned they were having issues with it and did not end up making the dive.

I came to find out later on that this person whom is supposedly rebreather trained and certified was asking various people how to set his computer because he did not know how, and was asking divers whom were untrained in rebreathers how to use his own gear. Nobody wanted to help him because of the liability, with good reason..

Here's the kicker...He mentioned he purchased the rebreather off eBay and only had about 30-40 TOTAL dives, not total rebreather dives but total lifetime dives.

Firstly, is this even possible to get rebreather training with that little amount of dives? If so, I would really like to know the person who trained him. The guy seemed like a darwin candidate waiting to happen if he was asking people how to set his own computer. (Maybe i'm wrong and he has the knowledge and/or training)

Can someone with enough funds really buy a rebreather on a whim on eBay and get certified and/or teach themselves how to use it? I am shocked that someone would even contemplate taking on such training with less than 100 dives.

Now I'm not the scuba police nor am trying to start thread on the merits of training and I don't really care if people aren't certified but this whole scenario struck me as very odd as I had always assumed rebreathers are not something you just jump right into (well according to the movie Sanctum, they are..)

Feel free to PM and I can provide you more details that I would rather not post publicly on here.
 
Yes, you can buy them off Ebay.............most reputable divers would require certs before selling, but not all are reputable. Also it may be one that has no cert. available. IE not a commercial rebreather. EX: I purchased a French navy DC55 rebreather....no cert for that one.
 
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Most agency standards I am aware of only require 20 prerequisite dives to engage in CCR training. I would still question how well this person might have been trained if at all given your description.
Do you happen to know what make the rebreather was?
 
The rebreather in question was an
Inspiration. I don't really know any other specifics.

After doing more research, I didnt realize that one could take rebreather training with only ~20 dives (according to TDI's outline) . Still seems kind of early in diving career to switch to a rebreather but who am I to argue?
 
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I have around 70 dives but IMO I dont think there is or should be a limit on dives to dive a rebreather. I personally see no reason why someone couldnt start diving a rebreather right from the go. Again I am basing this opinon on someone going to a "reputable" dive shop and getting "excellent training". If you have or train with one of the better diveshops and they are great at what they do no reason why you need a certain amount of time or dives. I get the exposure element and actual dive time but again If your training is good, and you you passed and can do everything than dives don't matter.

In your post I personally thing the individual is completly unsafe and exposing his life and possibly someone else's to great harm. It sounds like he does not even understand the seriousness of the rebreather or just doesn't care.
 
I'll apologize up-front for my ignorance on the subject. I have only rudimentary second-hand knowledge of anything rebreather.

First of all, I guess I'm never suprised at what people can and do buy off of eBay (there is another active thread where some guy is buying a hookah rig that consists of a small electric air compressor, some tubing and a snorkel crammed into it -- but that's the other end of the same spectrum). Setting that aside, I think some of us are reacting to the notion that someone could get rebreather certified on so few dives. I tend to think of them as being part of the tech world and I suspect others do too. I believe that the certifications that require so few dives, however, are limited to RECREATIONAL rebreathers that have computers keeping you within recreational limits -- PADI, for example, requires only 25 dives for this. Recreational limits certainly makes things a bit simpler. For me personally, I don't believe that is enough because there are still too many novel ways you can kill yourself, but I do understand that there are differences such that rebreathers are like starting over again in many ways and perhaps that is part of the rationale. Obviously the agencies calculate this as a reasonable risk (for what that's worth).

As for the person cited by the OP, they clearly had a healthy bank account, but I question whether they had any formal dive training at all. They were being wreckless and downright stupid, but I am not surprised there are people out there like this.
 
Buy an Inspiration off eBay, resuse unknown, untested, outdated, current limited cells, fill both tanks with compressed air [oxygen was probably way too inconvenient to obtain from the LDS] and jump in without any training and away we go! What could possibly go wrong...?

We shall call this man, Diluient Diver!
 
I am not rebreather certified but am on the quest to becoming a rebreather diver. The instructor I have selected requires the student to be Advance Nitrox or Advance Recreational Trimix. I can't imagine a student with 30-40 dives being on a rebreather. Some of the comments are scary, and sounds like that person bought it off of eBay without any training what-so-ever on the unit.
 
I think most divers are not ready for rebreather after 30-40 dives, but I'm sure that some are (I know I fall into the former category).

So, to place limits on number of dives is fairly arbitrary, and rather it should be up to the instructor to determine if the diver is ready. On the other hand, some diving prodigy that is ready for rebreather training after 20 dives is likely going to be at 50 dives within a few weeks anyway :)
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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