Redundancy question

[Freedive WI]

I could see a real benifit in using a full face mask for that kind of diving. You could pass out, have the unit reset itself on its own, and recover without a problem. The same could work for a tox hit.

Until that time I would think that a buddy could still get you to the surface to try and complete a rescue. We train all of the time to bring an unconcious freediver to the surface while maintaining a proper airway- although with freediving we keep it closed instead of open.

I mark all bottom mix tanks like they are 1.4 "to the mud". That means that even in the most dire emergancy I never plan on taking my bottom mix passed 1.4. If the bottom is deeper and there is even the slightest chance that I might have to go there, then I mix for it.

For deco tanks, and actually my doubles as well, I mark the sides with the max depth only. I might have a small tag by the neck with the gas markings inside, but the big numbers on the side are the maximum depths that I plan on using each bottle to. The only exception is my 02 bottle. It says "20 OXYGEN" on the side. The reason for this is because a "70 foot" bottle can look an aweful lot like a "20'" bottle if part of the number gets covered. By putting the word OXYGEN on there it makes sure that I can see the difference.

I don't know that I would say that rebreathers "suck". I find them to be facinating machines. Unfortunalty, I have dove with Murphy too many times and don't trust most of the dive gear out on the market right now. SO much of it is total crap in my humble opinion. I have had so many computers, BC's, drysuits, cameras, lights and regulators fail on me that I just can't commit to rebreathers.

I was trained on the Drager unit a while ago, before they had P02 gauges, and found it down right scary to not know exactly what I was breathing. I know all about the math formulas and knowing your breathing rate, but you can still make things fluctuate by working hard on something underwater- like with a hacksaw. not knowing excatly how that effected my deco obligation drove me nuts.

Maybe that's why I eventually found my way into a DIR crowd. I have had all kinds of gear fail and I really like the safety protocals and basic, standardized, gear set-ups that it entails.

Even more so, I like freedivng where there is even less gear than can break on you, but what little there is I have also manged to trash. : Like the time I broke one of my carbon fiber fins on a 60' dive and had to come up on one fin. Or, last month when both my Stinger and my D3 died on the same day! Keeping things simple has worked out much better for me.

Having said this, I want to return to the rebreather questions. I really don't want to turn this thread into a DIR thing- Lord knows that there is enough that has already been written on that.

I am more interested in what kind of extra steps rebreather divers take to meet the same safety standards of OC divers.

Let me ask about scrubber material for a minute. I know that the stuff has a much shorter life span in cold water than warm. Do you have a set protocol ot change it every day that you dive? or do people try and remember when to change it through some type of log book?

With the team that I dive with, we check all of our gases, and our buddies, everytime we make a dive. We don't rely on it being the same as the last time we checked. We check, and sign off on it, ever time we jump back in. Do you have something similar that you do with scrubber material?

Jon