Forever blowing bubbles

Your Guide in Sharm El Sheikh

Forever blowing bubbles

I have been living in Sharm el Sheikh for almost fifteen years now; first as a diving instructor and now as a marketer/writer/whatever.  Throughout these years I have dived many of the Red Sea sites from Dahab down to The Brothers and still find the sport and the scenery awesome.

 I would say that after all of these years and dives immersed in the Red Sea, I am still strictly a single 12lt Alli tank kinda of gal. I have never understood the enthusiasm for Tech – why carry 6 tanks when you can dive with one (shoot me now Tech guys – I am sure it is fantastic), if I had my way I would dive with an eight litre. So Tech and those weird Rebreathers, plus all of that complicated mathematic theory were never an option for me (being blondily challenged). Well that’s what I thought until I was gently persuaded to try a dive on a Rebreather.

Christian Heylen, the manager of PURE (The Professional Underwater Rebreather Explorers) at the Red Sea Diving College is quite obviously a Rebreather enthusiast.  He comes back from dives with different sightings from the bubble making SCUBA divers, which normally include the ‘big stuff’.  He coins his crew as the ‘PURE Red Sea Explorer Team’and they go on exciting exploration dives.  All of these benefits have been drip fed to me to the point that I signed up for an IANTD Rebreather experience.

Did you know that anyone who is medically fit to dive can sign up for a Rebreather experience? I was always under the impression that you had to be a qualified diver with a whole heap of qualifications before you could get started.  This is not the case as long as you are over 12 years of age and passed fit to dive you can try.

IANTD, the training agency who run the ‘Rebreather Experience’ program describe it as ‘a program designed to introduce the diver to the basic concepts of Rebreathers,and to provide a practical confined water and optional OW exposure for swimming with a Rebreather. It is not a Qualification Program.’

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PADI, which is for some a more familiar diving agency, also have a ‘Discover Rebreather’ program. For this experience you need to be 18 years old and a qualified PADI Open water diver or equivalent. Both programs include a confined session and then an optional open water dive.PURE have the six most recent Rebreather models available to choose from; Pathfinder, Megalodon, Evolution Plus, Inspiration Vision, Poseidon Mk6 and Se7en and the Hollis Prism 2.

Without scaring any potential Rebreather try-divers off, I will limit the technical bits and keep it simple; basically diving on a closed circuit unit rather than an open circuit (SCUBA unit) means you do not expel air and therefore do not make any bubbles.  If you are already a SCUBA diver this means the new experience will initially play havoc with your buoyancy, but on the upside it means the fish literally swim open finned (armed) to greet you.

The confined session, where Christian and his team orientate you with the new unit, is completed in the shallow water of the bay.  This is an excellent underwater playground where you can really start to get comfortable with the different breathing techniques and generally the whole feel of the unit.  If you are an experienced diver then PURE also offer a try Rebreather dive as a third dive from the boat.

Diving in the sea rather than a swimming pool also means you can test out the reaction of the fish to your new look.  It’s amazing as they do really swim up to study you. I never knew how much my previous bubbles affected or even disturbed the fish.  This is great when you have a puffer fish or a small wrasse checking you out, but I’m not sure YET of being out in the blue with a large pelagic getting up close and personal.

Ask Christian about this and he says with a smile “The Rebreather allows you as a diver to have closer encounters with fishlife.  The lack of bubbles has an extraordinary effect, combine this with the warmer water temps and you have awesome diving.”

If you get on with the Rebreather and want to test out your new skills then both programs include an optional open water dive.  However PURE want to give you the best experience possible and therefore offer a full boat day with two dives. If you are an experienced diver these dives can be done in Ras Mohamed or Tiran without the session in the bay.  Christian explains “generally people enjoy the second dive even more and finish their two dive day with usually an addictive  experience.”

If you get bitten by the rebreather bug then it’s onwards and downwards with various options for Rebreather open water certificates.  The lack of bubbles is just one of the benefits of Rebreather diving, another is that air consumption concerns are a thing of the past and there are also more safety benefits.

This was an interesting experience and I have to conclude that really I left it for too long.  If you are in Sharm on holiday and have a spare day then I highly recommend giving it a go.  If you are a resident Instructor and like me have only dived open circuit then I would also highly recommend trying it.  It is refreshingly good.

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