What a fun day!
I haven't been to Blue Grotto since I took my Nitrox course there eons ago (over a decade). The improvement to the facility are amazing. New spacious shop, big fill station, big rental shop. New pool for confined water training, cabanas for overnight stays. Eight covered pavilions for groups with plenty of picnic tables for each group. Stairs, ramps, benches near the water with tank bungees, new floating & underwater platforms and lighting for night diving (upon special request). Even a field of solar panels and a hydroponics garden that was growing lettuce, herbs, etc. If I lived closer, I'd certainly come here more often. That said, the facility limits number of divers to 140 per day. Many weekend days, divers get turned away (no worries, Devil's Den is across the Highway). So if you want to go on a weekend, you'd better make reservations in advance.
We were warmly greeting by the Depth Perception Owner and their team. They had students of several levels there too. And seeing them in the water, they were squared away. I won't hesitate to refer students to them. Also in full force all the way from Germany, were the Scuba Force team who engineered and manufacture the SF2 Rebreather.
All day long, any certified diver who wanted to try a rebreather got a personal explanation of the unit from one of the pros and then got to go test it out.
And boy, did I like that unit. I've tried several rebreathers, even certified on a couple, but this was the most streamlined, lightest unit, I've gotten to dive. Contrary to all the others with counterlungs on the chest, shoulders, or in the back, the SF2 has it in the bottom, making it very streamlined like diving an AL80 with a couple of small pony's on the sides. The counterlung compresses if you are totally upright, but DUH we dive horizontally. Also unlike the other's I've tried where I had to monkey with adding weights in various places, the SF2 trims out very nicely from the get go. SCUBA SANTA :xmas_2:ARE YOU LISTENING?
Thanks Tom for inviting us to this event.
Here is a link to some photos I took :
https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/116236458654385074776/albums/6142214348203527025