Houston's Premier Scuba and Dive Shop Oceanic Ventures Inc.

(713) 523-3483 (dive)
5808 Newcastle Drive
Houston, TX 77401

Rebreather

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Inner Space

Who would have thought five years ago when we were talking to Nancy about getting Buzz Aldren to come to Grand Cayman for an even sixty that we termed a dive into Inner Space, would still be a successful event going into its fifth year.  Even though Buzz Aldren was unable to make it to the first event, Inner Space has blossomed into the premier rebreather event in the world, hosting as many as rebreather divers from open water to trimix.

 

There were about eight of us from that original event still coming to it every year.  We have come from being CCR open water divers to CCR trimix divers and CCR trimix instructors.  Looking at the participant guide for the first year, most of he people were recreational divers limited to 130 feet.  At this years event, most of the people were Trimix certified limited to 330 feet.  Imagine 2 boats full of Trimix divers all in one place.

 

During this year’s event, Jess Stark, and Harvy Sisco came down to work on their Normoxic Trimix ratings.  Dave Snyder also joined me to finish getting his hours so he can get his Meg Instructor rating. 

 

Our primary destinations were the beautiful walls on the North side of Grand Cayman.  The visibility was down probably due to the early arrival of the summer algae bloom.  This also accounted for a great deal of algae on the walls.  Of course, the reduced visibility made Ghost Mountain more of a mysterious dive because you could not see the pinnacle until you swam towards it suddenly emerging from the mist.

 

On two separate occasions, the hot weather was abated by Robert Hew who brought his favorite treat – Italian Gelato and cookies.  You simply can’t imagine how refreshing cold ice cream is after a long dive.  No wonder Susan always seems to work on the boat Robert is assigned to.

 

Inner Space is a fun event for rebreather divers of all levels.  As Nancy says…Inner Space, deep down you want to be here.

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Deeper than ever!

I can’t believe that I talked Dive Mom into letting me go to the Red Sea for training, Lebanon for a diving expedition and take an Expedition Trimix Instructor Course in Grand Cayman, all but the Lebanon trip within 3 months.  But here I am in sunny Grand Cayman at my home away from home, Cobalt Coast diving with Nancy and the fine folks at DiveTech.

 

In order to participate in the September Expedition, Tom wanted us to complete an Expedition Trimix course.  In talking with Tom, I was able to combine it with an instructor Evaluation clinic so I would be in a position to teach it in the future. There were a number of us in this course – Peri Blum, Georges Galowski, Jeff Jones, Nat Rob, Randy Terrill, and Dave Snyder.

 

Our plate during this course was full and Nancy constantly wondered when we were planning on getting in the water.  We had lectures, presentations and discussions until midnight each evening, discussions continuing at breakfast at 9:00 am and equipment preparation during the day.  We eventually got some water time each afternoon, swimming out to the mini wall along a line we had to lay for some drills and eventually out to the main wall for some more drills – we had to run the line all the way out to the wall and down to 200’

 

The last dive of the course was a 400’ dive using paired safety divers at various depths.  Like one of our previous dives, this one turned into more of a learning experience than we planned for with Tom having a rebreather issue and one of the other divers having another issue.  The problems fell within things a diver at this level is trained to handle but it did show that things can and do go wrong even on carefully planned dives.  Nat and I had a very long deco on this dive so it was a good thing the snack king had in fact brought along some mini snickers bars and a few juice packs.

 

This was an excellent course and one that I learned a lot from that I can take into my other, shallower dives.  I think we all gained a new respect for the sea and what a difference the extra 70 feet can make.  400 feet is a long way down!

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Wreck diving in Florida

I have just dropped Pam and Bob off at the airport after returning 4 sets of twins and 14 stage bottles back to Fill Express.  This brings to a close another Technical Wreck diving trip to Florida. 
Pam Radford, Terry deWolf, Kelly Plato, Bob Sloan, Dave Snyder and Geoff Streitel, joined me for this wreck diving weekend.  We started diving on Friday with the Hydro Atlantic and ended on Sunday with the R.B. Johnson.  We had some great dives and and saw some big fish.  Terry saw a bull shark on the R.B. Johnson and we all saw a BIG turtle on the Lowrance.
Of course the trip started with a challenge — Capt. Oliver blew an engine and our plan was put into a bit of a tailspin.  But thanks to a little help from some friends (thanks Oliver and Mark), I was able to do a fast shuffle and set-up the diving with another operator.  Jeff and Suzanne rearranged some of their diving and found us boats and let us pick the dive sites.  They helped make the trip a success; and, their large boats were a treat!
We also set-up a few dives with Capt. Conrad who took our group out to the R. B. Johnson. 
The diving in the Ft Lauderdale area is primarily on artificial reefs — i.e. sunken ships.  Florida has been very aggressive in creating artificial reefs for fishing and diving.  The resulting dive sites are varied both in design and depth.  They offer something to almost every diver.  There are also some natural reefs but I have yet to dive them (too much wreck diving).
Thanks everyone for a fun trip and some great dives!

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Ulterior Motives…

Eric Rebreather HEad on BenchMy visit to Delta P was for more than a tour.  Al had arranged for me to spend some time with Jason, so I could complete a Sentinel Technician Course.  My purpose was to be more familiar with the unit and its components so I could handle the common and not so common field repairs.

 

We started b completely disassembling my unit all the way down to its basic components.  Jason then went through a step-by-step procedure for assembling the unit from the ground up.  Along the way, he explained some of their ideas in designing this rebreather and comparing it to their other, more expensive unit, the Oroborus.

 

Jason was an excellent teacher.  He was patient with me and took the time to show me a more professional way to do things.  At one point he told me, a professional uses the bench rather than manipulating things at chest level.  There is a greater chance of damaging things when you are trying to hold them and work with them rather than keeping them on the bench and using the tools and leverage to your advantage.

 

The Sentinel is a rather simple device with some surprising mechanical twists designed to make it safer for the end user.  They have given divers using their products a great deal of thought and have tried to build a straight forward machine that allows for flexibility and customization in the diver interface but not in the basic operation.  The unit features a custom designed back plate and wing that can be substituted for a more conventional backplate and wing if desired,

 

As I reassembled my unit, I was continually amazed with the design features incorporated into the unit.  It is apparent that the design team build on the success of their other unit and the experience of a number of divers inside and outside of the Company.

 

Of course, I was responsible for re-building my unit, so I hope I was a good student.  I guess I’ll find out in a few weeks.

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Who knew?

Delta P TechnologiesHave you ever been surprised when you finally meet someone you have had an email relationship with?  Well if you have, you would understand my surprise at visiting the Delta P/CCR Technologies offices in England.

 

We have sold the VR3’s in our store since its introduction a long time ago.  I have had a long distance relationship with them for all of those years – mostly by email, telephone and an occasional meeting somewhere in the US.  So when I visited their offices recently, I was surprised at what I found.

 

First of all, they are out in the country.  Well sort of, their office is in an small business park outside of Poole, that is out away from the city, port and hustle of Poole.  When I went upstairs to meet Al and Kevin I found a staff of 7 in the office including Kevin Gurr, the president of the Company, Jason the lead engineer and designer, Freda from customer service, Mandy in charge of production and procurement, Chris in customer service and  billing, Linda, in charge of accounting and of course Al who is the primary client services person and one of the go to people at Delta P.

 

Manufacturing ProcessAfter tea, Jason took me on a tour of the facility.  Our first stop was actually to the building next door where Jason introduced me to Steve, the Production Manager  He is an amazing person; he has 28 years of aircraft parts fabrication experience and heads up the thing that surprised me the most about my visit, the production facility.  Unlike many small scuba manufacturers, Delta P actually builds the cases for their computers as well as the majority of the components for both the Sentinel and Oroborus Rebreathers.  They have two C&C Mills and two C&C lathes along with one off manufacturing machinery and tools.

 

My assumption was that they had the components built to their specifications and then assembled the products.  In talking to Jason and Kevin., having your own production facility is the only way to control the quality of your product.  The production facility was impressive.  The operators were all hired away from the aircraft industry and had 10 to 15 years of experience in that industry prior to joining Delta P.

 

It was interesting to see all of the parts, both aluminium and plastic.  The plastic parts on the rebreathers are not injection molded plastics but rather milled from Delrin stock.  Some of the operations take 48 to 72 hours to complete – isn’t automation wonderful?

 

Steve is passionate about his work and he is proud of the products they build.  The milling is precise, the finished parts are clean and free of manufacturing debris.  All of the employees in the production unit, are very proud of their work and volunteered to show me what they were doing, how it was being done and what the finished product would look like.

 

Our next stop on the tour was the shipping department and then on to the assembly room.  Here I met Richard who was assembling Sentinel sub-assembly parts preparing for the next build cycle for the Sentinel rebreathers and the upcoming ISO 9001 compliance audit.  Here were Poseidon regulators being fitted with adapters for the hoses, manifold blocks with hoses being attached and heads assembled in the electrical shop (our next shop).  They currently have three assembly stations but have plans on adding more to help meet the demand for the new Sentinel rebreather.  According to Kevin, they have over 100 on order at this time.

 

After tea, they drink a lot of tea here, my tour continued on to the electrical department, currently housed in a temporary building next to the main building.  There are 4 people working here assembling both the Sentinel rebreather heads and the dive computers.  Additionally, they handle repairs and health checksfor customer computers and rebreather heads.  Besides the things you would normally expect in an electrical assembly department (wire, solder, soldering irons, parts, etc) there were two different pressure pots.  One unit is for testing the rebreather components and the other is for the VR3 and VR2 computers.  Before they leave the electrical department, every component is pressure tested.

 

My tour was a complete surprise and impressed me at the same time.  Here is a Company that has invested heavily in manufacturing and technology in order to build a product that they are proud selling and diving.  Since most of the staff are divers, they carry the passion they have for their sport into their jobs.

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Who said a Taxi driver knows the way?

Eric Underwater on his Sentinel RebreatherIt all ended with a series of Ian, can you ask him to turn around?  The dive shop and the hotel are in the other direction; we just passed them. And later, I don’t think he knows where the airport is… just keep going, I think I see the sign up ahead.  Of course these two events were broken up by lunch and a lie by the pool all after getting off the boat and experiencing more of the Egyptian governmental efficiency – he wanted to know if I had any cigarettes, when I explained that I did not smoke he wanted to know if I had a lighter.  Since I did not smoke, I had no lighter so everyone needs to bring all of their luggage in.  This was followed by some more arguing between the officials and our driver, the luggage being x-rayed by an operator who was talking to another official and who did not even bother to look at the monitor, re-loading the van, more yelling and off for “the hotel.”

 

 

It was a full week.  The routine was assembly and diving during the day, lectures at night, and a written test in my spare time.  All-n-all it was an interesting week.  The diving was less than spectacular, the scenery was a little bland (except for the Russians) but the company was fun and the Rebreather was interesting.

 

Kevin noted that while we had a number of issues with the units, at the end of the week all twenty of the units were still divable — albeit the units had a variety of failures from secondary handsets staying on or not working, temperature monitors (TPM) not functioning, and high pressure sensors either failing or giving erratic results.  He had been on tests of other units where the failure rate was 50% to 100% before the week was out.

 

My own personal unit had a secondary handset failure, a non-functioning TPM and an oxygen sensor that went in and out and gave erratic reading when it was functioning.  I am planning on visiting the factory and taking a technician course so I hope to learn more about these failures.