Steverin06
Registered
After reading the thread about Rob Stewart, I feel compelled to share my terrible experience learning CCRs on this forum. I've shared this story on RBW, however I don't think a lot of people that are on the fence about going CCR have read that, or realize just how important it is to choose the correct instructor - hence I'm sharing the story here. Disclaimer: Yes, I am an idiot and I got taken for a ride.
Last August I was in Hawaii for work. I thought it would be an awesome experience to get my feet wet with CCRs in Hawaii and take a MOD 1 class with a rented unit on the weekends. The unit I wanted to try was the Liberty, as after reading the manual I really like how much redundancy the unit offers, among many other things. After a lot of research, I ended up contacting Darren Fox at Ocean Legends in Honolulu as he was one of the very few Liberty instructors in the Pacific. The only other one that I know of just happens to be Masayoshi Kondo - who lives on the same small island of Okinawa as me.
Darren he told me that if I wanted to learn the Liberty that it would be an extra $500 than the prism 2 course that I was also looking at. When I emailed him asking why learning the liberty commanded a 25% price increase over any other CCR MOD 1, his exact quote was “The liberty CCR is more expensive as its a more intense rebreather and needs a lot of focus on electronics package configuration along with skill development circuits so it's a more intense program overall.” Apparently Darren thinks he needs to charge students $500 more to learn the Liberty because their unit is more difficult to learn and the electronics are hard to figure out. More on this later.
So then I told him that I would rather take the prism course because it’s a lot cheaper and I’m not set on buying a rebreather at the moment. I also mentioned that Add Helium has some nice used prisms that I could pick up later relatively cheap. Only then did he offer me a $500 off “military discount” for the liberty course, making the price the same as the prism – but still markedly higher than with Masayoshi Kondo. When I then told him I was still going to pass because his class was still much more expensive than my other options, he then offered the liberty rental for free. Now after weeks of what seems like petty haggling I felt the price of the class was on the same standards of where I could find elsewhere, so I signed up.
After convincing me that add-helium’s certified used units were “junk, because when the electronics fail there’s no warranty and you’ll be out $4500” he then proceeded to tell me that he could save me “$2500-$3000” by offering me a much more expensive “mil-spec” version of the liberty with upgraded sensors, among other things and build the same liberty he has (a highly modified one) for the cost of the stock unit (about $8650). He told me there was only 1 mil spec left at the factory and I had to order soon or it would go to some contract and there wouldn’t be any mil specs available for quite some time. This sounded like a fantastic deal so after much consideration I jumped in and bought what I thought was a mil spec liberty to the exact specifications as Darren’s modified Liberty. Going against Darren’s recommendation, I also ordered the BOV because I’ve read too many positive stories about using one. During the ordering process, one great thing Darren did was work the divesoft to have them add the DSV with the BOV – as apparently divesoft sees their BOV as an “upgrade” - charging the same as everyone else’s BOV, but then only giving you a BOV and no DSV. I thought this was crap and explained why to Darren, who convinced divesoft to let me have both for the $800 “upgrade” cost.
MOD 1 day one, Darren spends a lot of time modifying my unit to his specs. The unit has just the basic STA so it can accommodate a hollis BP and an ISC wing. The only thing I initially noticed that wasn’t like his unit were the tanks – they were the stock white steel tanks. Then trouble happened when I tried to put US spec apex 1st stages on the tanks – they wouldn’t fit because the tanks are EU thread. This is an oversight that I do not understand happened from someone who has been teaching rebreathers for 20 years. This was the first time that I had to argue in person with Darren, because after he tried to get some EU threaded 1st stages shipped next day, I had to remind him that he told me I could have his exact setup for the stock price – so it’s all a moot point because his setup used black aluminum 19s. He conceded and took the tanks off his unit and gave them to me – that was the only solution if I was going to take this class. No way he was going to get new black aluminum 19s shipped next day. I paid for new tanks, but got used tanks because of an oversight that should have never happened.
I only had two weekends, 4 days to knock out MOD 1. As I’m learning my unit I realized that the liberty is incredibly easy to learn and use – and that goes for the electronics as well. The freedom handsets are intuitive, the unit is also incredibly easy to calibrate and accomplish pre dive checks, and Darren spent less time teaching me the Liberty than he did other students other units in this class. So I began to wonder why did I spend an extra $500 for learning the liberty than everyone else? I did not spend a single minute in a classroom environment learning the liberty – it was all hands on in a group setting. While I learn best this way, I started to realize I was not receiving any extra instruction to warrant the price difference. The freedom deco algorithm is a mystery to me, so I asked Darren to explain it in detail with me, his answer: “I don’t know, but it’s awesome - read the manual bro.” A couple of times one of my O2 sensors kept getting excluded during a dive, even when it calibrated fine and dove fine the first of a multi dive day. So when I asked Darren about it, his response “you should recal your unit before every dive.” However that’s not only impossible as the dives were 10 min apart from each other and we were wearing our unit in between dives, but the manual states O2 calibrations should be good for three days. He offered no solution to this problem. Another example: my unit leaves very little room on positive pressure test "stopping point" until the red " fail line", much less than another classmate's liberty. When I mentioned this, he just told me the pressure test displays are more of a recommendation and if the pressure doesn't change "alot," even if it's less than the red line that I'd be good to go. Also, the liberty itself absolutely does not require any more time instructing skill development circuits than any other system. In fact, once again other students on other systems took more of his time. So in essence, I spent an extra $500 than everyone else on MOD 1 for Darren to tell me to read the manual and to watch other students take more if his time on skill circuits. He did spend a lot of time modifying my unit, however he told me he could do that all for the price of the stock unit when he persuaded me to buy a Liberty. This was weeks after I purchased an inflated cost Liberty MOD 1 with the intention of renting his liberty. So when he tried to tell me that he did in fact spend all this time with me, it was really on my Liberty - modifying it because he said he would to make a sell. This is one reason why I feel completely ripped off.
Last August I was in Hawaii for work. I thought it would be an awesome experience to get my feet wet with CCRs in Hawaii and take a MOD 1 class with a rented unit on the weekends. The unit I wanted to try was the Liberty, as after reading the manual I really like how much redundancy the unit offers, among many other things. After a lot of research, I ended up contacting Darren Fox at Ocean Legends in Honolulu as he was one of the very few Liberty instructors in the Pacific. The only other one that I know of just happens to be Masayoshi Kondo - who lives on the same small island of Okinawa as me.
Darren he told me that if I wanted to learn the Liberty that it would be an extra $500 than the prism 2 course that I was also looking at. When I emailed him asking why learning the liberty commanded a 25% price increase over any other CCR MOD 1, his exact quote was “The liberty CCR is more expensive as its a more intense rebreather and needs a lot of focus on electronics package configuration along with skill development circuits so it's a more intense program overall.” Apparently Darren thinks he needs to charge students $500 more to learn the Liberty because their unit is more difficult to learn and the electronics are hard to figure out. More on this later.
So then I told him that I would rather take the prism course because it’s a lot cheaper and I’m not set on buying a rebreather at the moment. I also mentioned that Add Helium has some nice used prisms that I could pick up later relatively cheap. Only then did he offer me a $500 off “military discount” for the liberty course, making the price the same as the prism – but still markedly higher than with Masayoshi Kondo. When I then told him I was still going to pass because his class was still much more expensive than my other options, he then offered the liberty rental for free. Now after weeks of what seems like petty haggling I felt the price of the class was on the same standards of where I could find elsewhere, so I signed up.
After convincing me that add-helium’s certified used units were “junk, because when the electronics fail there’s no warranty and you’ll be out $4500” he then proceeded to tell me that he could save me “$2500-$3000” by offering me a much more expensive “mil-spec” version of the liberty with upgraded sensors, among other things and build the same liberty he has (a highly modified one) for the cost of the stock unit (about $8650). He told me there was only 1 mil spec left at the factory and I had to order soon or it would go to some contract and there wouldn’t be any mil specs available for quite some time. This sounded like a fantastic deal so after much consideration I jumped in and bought what I thought was a mil spec liberty to the exact specifications as Darren’s modified Liberty. Going against Darren’s recommendation, I also ordered the BOV because I’ve read too many positive stories about using one. During the ordering process, one great thing Darren did was work the divesoft to have them add the DSV with the BOV – as apparently divesoft sees their BOV as an “upgrade” - charging the same as everyone else’s BOV, but then only giving you a BOV and no DSV. I thought this was crap and explained why to Darren, who convinced divesoft to let me have both for the $800 “upgrade” cost.
MOD 1 day one, Darren spends a lot of time modifying my unit to his specs. The unit has just the basic STA so it can accommodate a hollis BP and an ISC wing. The only thing I initially noticed that wasn’t like his unit were the tanks – they were the stock white steel tanks. Then trouble happened when I tried to put US spec apex 1st stages on the tanks – they wouldn’t fit because the tanks are EU thread. This is an oversight that I do not understand happened from someone who has been teaching rebreathers for 20 years. This was the first time that I had to argue in person with Darren, because after he tried to get some EU threaded 1st stages shipped next day, I had to remind him that he told me I could have his exact setup for the stock price – so it’s all a moot point because his setup used black aluminum 19s. He conceded and took the tanks off his unit and gave them to me – that was the only solution if I was going to take this class. No way he was going to get new black aluminum 19s shipped next day. I paid for new tanks, but got used tanks because of an oversight that should have never happened.
I only had two weekends, 4 days to knock out MOD 1. As I’m learning my unit I realized that the liberty is incredibly easy to learn and use – and that goes for the electronics as well. The freedom handsets are intuitive, the unit is also incredibly easy to calibrate and accomplish pre dive checks, and Darren spent less time teaching me the Liberty than he did other students other units in this class. So I began to wonder why did I spend an extra $500 for learning the liberty than everyone else? I did not spend a single minute in a classroom environment learning the liberty – it was all hands on in a group setting. While I learn best this way, I started to realize I was not receiving any extra instruction to warrant the price difference. The freedom deco algorithm is a mystery to me, so I asked Darren to explain it in detail with me, his answer: “I don’t know, but it’s awesome - read the manual bro.” A couple of times one of my O2 sensors kept getting excluded during a dive, even when it calibrated fine and dove fine the first of a multi dive day. So when I asked Darren about it, his response “you should recal your unit before every dive.” However that’s not only impossible as the dives were 10 min apart from each other and we were wearing our unit in between dives, but the manual states O2 calibrations should be good for three days. He offered no solution to this problem. Another example: my unit leaves very little room on positive pressure test "stopping point" until the red " fail line", much less than another classmate's liberty. When I mentioned this, he just told me the pressure test displays are more of a recommendation and if the pressure doesn't change "alot," even if it's less than the red line that I'd be good to go. Also, the liberty itself absolutely does not require any more time instructing skill development circuits than any other system. In fact, once again other students on other systems took more of his time. So in essence, I spent an extra $500 than everyone else on MOD 1 for Darren to tell me to read the manual and to watch other students take more if his time on skill circuits. He did spend a lot of time modifying my unit, however he told me he could do that all for the price of the stock unit when he persuaded me to buy a Liberty. This was weeks after I purchased an inflated cost Liberty MOD 1 with the intention of renting his liberty. So when he tried to tell me that he did in fact spend all this time with me, it was really on my Liberty - modifying it because he said he would to make a sell. This is one reason why I feel completely ripped off.
