Because many of the dive sites I love require travel, and because a full-blowen technical diving expedition for open circuit diving requires a sometimes prohibitively large volume of helium and pure oxygen, I made the decision some time ago to get into rebreather diving.
Many of the people I dive with have been using them for some time now, and as a result many of the technical trips are targeted at rebreather divers only. This largely left me out in the cold because there was never enough helium and O2 around for me to do many serious dives.
The only question was which rebreather to buy. I flirted briefly with the Inspiration (Yellow Box Of Debt), but it’s harness system didn’t really fit my needs, and you need to get the vision electronics package to really make it cool. This will set you back $10,000, and it still requires a number of modifications to really make the unit sing.
I really like the PRISM Topaz by Steam Machines. It has a really nice radial scrubber, and the fact that you can still read the secondary display even with a total electronics failure is a huge bonus. Ultimately I decided against it though, because I didn’t like the idea of using only the Heads Down Display for my primary instrumentation.
In the end, the ISC Megalodon won out because of its very solid feature set. It has two nice readable displays as well as a Heads Up Display. It is made out of aluminum rather than plastic, and the cylinders are solidly mounted to the unit with Tiger Gear hard mounts. This makes the system extremely modular as you can use any cylinders you like. It is also nice that my dive buddies are using them.
My unit will be ready for me in late February, and I will be taking the training from Leon (ISC CEO) directly.
I’ve ordered my Meg. I had considered the Prism. Your articles have given me one more vote of confidence.
Thanks,
Dan