Why the SF2?

My rebreather experience started basically at the same time my ‘technical’ (other than nitrox if you count that) diving did. As I was starting to look more at twinsets and accelerated decompression I got to do a BSAC ‘Try Rebreather’ day at Vobster (an inland dive site) with some friends of mine.

First off I tried an AP Inspiration. I will say the lovely BSAC instructors ignored me telling them I needed X amount of weight even with a big steel twinset, so I was underweighted when I went in. This resulted in me sucking the loop empty every breath to try to control buoyancy, having the ADV fire and a horrible feeling of being near death. I essentially hated every minute of the dive.

My buddy, who is a persuasive man, then convinced me that it was all fine and I should try a Liberty CCR for a 2nd attempt. Which I did, having first become slightly poorer and BSAC slightly richer. This time my weights were more or less correct, everything functioned and I didn’t think I was going to die. Feeling like death is near was a regular experience when trying rebreathers I later got to learn. All good, I liked it but not enough to really convince me I was ready to leave my twinset and acceleration deco.

Fast forward several years, my persuasive buddy has been diving the Liberty for several years (he really liked it). I’d done a lot of decent diving on my twinset and stage including Scapa Flow, Shetland and a number of things on the south coast. I was (if I say so myself) pretty damn good at the planning and gas switching that came with diving this setup. Then… buddy and I were on a 45+m dive on the south coast, a ship that had been on my wish list for a while. Shortly after boarding, I realised I was the only non rebreather diver on the boat. Then the final humiliation came, the skipper shouted out ‘whos Belemnite?’ I put my hand up - he looked at me then the clipboard. ‘You’ve put 1 hour - is that total dive time?’ Yup, everyone else was doing at least another 30 mins, but my gas planning put me at 35 minutes or so and then the rest coming up. It was clearly time to buy a rebreather.