Trip/Class Report - KISS CCR with Mel Clark - Silent Scuba

[Dmitchell]

Hi all,

I'm back home and still recovering and digesting all the hard work and information pounded into my head last week.

My friend Patty and I flew to Seattle on Sunday and were met by Curt at the airport. We were quickly swept away up to Mill Creek to start the course with Mel.

Sunday consisted of some lecture and basics on the unit followed by a few hours in the pool. In the pool, we learned the basic drills for dealing with hypoxia, hyperoxia, hypercapnia, floods and a few other emergencies. Mel had us initially doing the drills in the shallows the progressed to the deep end followed by swimming while doing the drills.

After the pool session, we headed back to Mel & Curts for more lecture and then to tear down the units and prep them for the next days diving.

Monday, We awoke to the smell of Curt cooking breakfast and afterwards went out to the garage and finished preping the rebreathers and our other gear. Mel checked the traffic and decided on a hour of lessons before we headed out to Alki.

Once at Alki, Mel gave us the site briefing and we got our gear all setup and predive checks complete. We headed to the water, checked our weighting and started the first dive. We stayed shallow and I found that flying the unit wasn't all that difficult. Mel would tell us what setpoint she wanted us at and we would have to adjust the PO2 to get there. After 15-20 minutes to get comfortable with the units, we started the drills that we had done in the pool all over again.

This was pretty much the routine for the next few days. Dive, go home, lecture, sleep, dive....

We finished up with the course on Thursday afternoon and both of us passed the written exams with 100%.

The course was alot of hard work but with a little determination and a thorough understanding of what the rebreather is, how it works and it's limitations, I wouldn't say that it was all that hard. I never wondered "why am I doing this".

Mel is a fantastic instructor. She not only teaches the course, (she wrote the TDI KISS manual) but she makes sure that you know every little detail about the rebreather. Little things like where o-rings you might not notice are and problems she has seen with the units and how to either avoid them or fix them. I'm perfectly comfortable with totally tearing down my rebreather and reassembling it from scratch, heck I could almost do it blindfolded.

Mel and Curt are very gracious hosts and actually prefer to have the students stay at the house. They have several extra bedrooms that that are right off Mel's classroom. This works very well because it allows Mel to teach from early morning until 7 or 8 at night without interuption. Curt pops in an out with Meals for everyone and the lessons just keep on going. We were really busy and having to run out for food or stay outside of the house would have been disruptive.

All in all, it was a alot of fun, alot of hours and yes, I would do it again.

My rebreather is sitting on my workbench, sorb will be delivered tomorrow and I'm ready to dive!

Thanks Mel and Curt for a great time and an excellent class!


As a side note, As I always do when in Seattle, I had the chance to hang with my friend Kevin (KJC) on Thurs and Friday afternoons and had a great time.

I also had a chance to meet Valerie, Georgia and Scubabob. - Sorry I wasn't more talkative but I was pretty tired!

Dave

[Joshua Smith]

Great report, Dave! I hope to be joining you on the dark side next year. Have fun with your new toy, and dive safe!

[girldiver]

Dave,

Thanks for the report...I've heard great things about Mel.

Looking forward to meeting her someday soon!

Have a great time, um, NOT blowing bubbles!

[Zen Diver]

I also had a chance to meet Valerie, Georgia and Scubabob. - Sorry I wasn't more talkative but I was pretty tired!

Dave

No problem Dave, I know you had a lot on the go that day. Congrats on the rebreather!

-Valerie