The dark side....

[Vtach]

Well, I finally made the move to the dark side, bought the Sentinel CCR and completed the MOD 1 class last week.  It was definitely quite a change.  The first day was quite exciting with lecture and setup.  The second day we were still pretty excited until actually getting into the water.  It then took me at least 2 dives to get to the point where I unclusterfarked myself and started to feel somewhat confident and almost responsible :o with buoyancy.  After that I started to get things trimmed out and things started to click.  Spent the rest of the classtime learning new skills and honing the rest.  By the end of class I felt confident, yet still humbled by the capabilities (positive AND negative) of these machines.  So with class completed I am finding myself onto a new start and a new learning process. 

I do find myself to be warmer and able to endure longer exposure times.  I do find myself to be less "dry" or dehydrated after a long dive.  It is definitely a much quieter experience and I am getting used to all the noteworthy sounds that the unit makes (ADV and solenoid firing).  I have not really noticed yet whether or not fish tolerate my presence more.  It is also a pretty strange feeling to know that you can spend over an hour underwater using only a few cubic feet of gas.  That is just crazy.  Did I mention you can actually talk while diving?

The Sentinel itself is a brand spanking new unit on the CCR market.  Normally I am pretty hesitant about buying the first model of anything but after seeing the test results in regards to work of breathing and scrubber duration along with the electronics package and monitoring systems, I chose the Sentinel.  It was a difficult choice because there a quite a few good CCR's out there.  This one just had more of what I was looking for.  So far so good, now I need to put some hours on this thing!!  Heading to Mackinac this weekend.