Bill’s Reals Blog - Scuba, Travel & Gadgets

This is about 10 years old but it’s pretty cool.

Check out that underwater housing that Bruce Mozert made back in the 1930s, which at the time was one of few in existance. For the next few decades he used it to take some amazing underwater pictures in Silver Springs Florida. Check out the Smithsonian’s site for a collection of them.

Here is an article about his life.

Bluespotted Jawfish from rick colman on Vimeo.

Introduced at the beginning of the year, this Liquid Image underwater mask with built-in digital camera is now available in Japan for approx $120. No idea if or when this might be coming to other countries.

It features a 3 or 5 Mp CMOS sensor, LCD screen, 16MB of memory, MicroSD card slot (up to 2GB), a USB port, takes 2560×1920 resolution images, and records VGA resolution video at 25fps.

Here is a video of it in action:

Works to a rated depth of 30 meters or 100 feet.

Here is the Google Translated Product page

I just saw this on Rebreather World and it’s called the Open Revolution rebreather. Typically, rebreathers range from $5,000 to as much as $20,000, it’s a niche market with boutique manufactures. However, the Open Revolution is looking to upend that model and come to market with a manual closed circuit rebreather (mCCR) that will retail for approx $1500 USD.

For your $1500 you get an injection-molded mCCR with back-mounted counter-lungs, integrated diver alarm system in a heads up display (HUD), integrated carry handle, harness and first-stage regulators.

The catch? It’s not on the market, it’s unproven, currently has no CE rating and is being manufactured by a 3rd party company.

Link to RBW

It’s just a concept car, there is no plans to produce this vehicle. But this is pretty cool. The regulators are Scuba Pro G250s which means that they didn’t skimp on the details. Its  brainchild of concept car designer, Founder and CEO of Rinspeed Inc

The petrol engine with three electric motors, one to power the rear wheels and two for the specially designed propellers. They are capable of taking it to 75mph on land, a more sedate 4mph while cruising in “boat” mode and a positively tranquil 2mph while underwater.

Once under water, its occupants breath air coming from an integrated tank of compressed air similar to that used by scuba divers. The vehicle can stay under water “until you run out of air or battery power,” which is about two hours.

It’s an ad for HowStuffWorks.com. The cat looks miserable but then again that’s how most cats look most of the time, so who knows. I’d really like to see how they got the cat into that contraption.

This video answers the question

To whom it make concern, please consider me a “stroke” for this day forward.

About 7 years ago, I got into Tech Diving/Cave diving. I remember it vividly because my psycho-ex-wife tried to throw all my dive gear away the day before I started taking my nitrox course. I quickly got hooked up with DIR/GUE and progressed thru Cave 2, Tech 2 and other courses.

Let me say that I’m interested in all diving equipment/techniques, be it DIR, monkey diving, cave diving ,wreck diving or rebreather diving and I frankly don’t believe the GUE mindset of rebreathers killing you if you so much as touch one. Also, I’m a geek, no’f said

I was always interesting in rebreathers but thought they were voodoo. Something that didn’t have a mission in my diving. However, I kept my eye on them and recently thought that the risks were far outweighed by the benefits of them.

Basically, my dives were deep and for “big dives” I was humping a heavy set of doubles and a bunch of stages for one dive. Also, I starting to do exploration dives where you really don’t know where you might end of up and need some flexibility. I felt a CCR was a great tool for these requirements, with the added feature that I would be silent to marine life and have a huge gas supply at almost any depth.

I then went thought the selection process which I can only describe as trying to find out which brand of car you like best. Coming from a DIR/HOG mindset, I didn’t want anything on my chest to clutter it up, which only left back mount counter lungs.

Next, I took part in a rebreather experience course and tried both a manual and electronic rebreather. I really liked the manual ccr and didn’t really care for the electronic version, as I felt like I was merely a passenger in a car and I really prefer to drive. During this time I did a bunch of reading, asked a lot of questions and settled on a KISS or a rEvo.

In the end, it came down to cost. I was offered a very good deal on a KISS and that, as they say, was it.

I liked the rebreather experience course that Robin Jacoway of Deepoutdoors, taught and I wanted to train in the area that I would be doing my diving. Deepoutdoors is in Poway, CA which is only 20 mins from my house and we have a plethora of dive spots that are great for training.

Day 1:
The class was Robin’s first KISS class and was team taught with Dan Crowell. There were 3 KISS divers and 1 rEvo student. We went thru the academics, and built our units, it was a long day. But I was like a kid in a candy store, I get to really do something with my rebreather.

Day 2:
Pool rebreather diving. Buoyancy wasn’t bad, DIR slams buoyancy into you, so adjusting to the lack of lung volume affecting my trim wasn’t a big deal, but it did take some time to dial it in. Then it was back to Deepoutdoors to strip, clean and prep our units for the next day. Oh and go through more class room material. Since it was Sunday, Nate and I volunteered to get cylinders filled for the class at the dive shop Nate works at. We loaded up my truck with a gazillion rebreather and bailout bottles and then spent the next 2 hours waiting for the shop manager to get back and open up the shop.

Day 3:
Open water beach diving @ Marine Room. We kicked out to horrible vis and a leaky manifold on my KISS unit, so my dive was only about 30 mins before I had to head in. We had planned on doing two beach dives but Robin scrubbed the second due to the poor conditions. Then it was back to Deepoutdoors to strip, clean and prep our units for the next day. This was also the start my nightly rebuilt project as each night something new would fail the negative test.

Day 4: Open water boat dives. Motored out to the artificial reef, Yukon, off the coast of San Diego. We were practicing our skills a little deeper and did three dives on the Yukon with no major issues. I did have my DSV o-ring go out on the last dive but this happened as we were practicing our bailout ascent so it didn’t ruin the dive but did make it more realistic. Then it was back to Deepoutdoors to strip, clean and prep our units for the next day. Oh and repair my DSV/BOV.

Day 5: Back on the Yukon for out two last dives. These dives were going to be deeper and longer while we practiced our skills and adjusted to the unit. This is the first dive where I really started to pay attention to anything besides my PPO2 and I got real close to all the fish and listened to the the silence. Theses were fun dives and allowed time to fine tune our oxygen addition, minimum loop volume and learning the muscle memory of where everything is on the rig.

Then it was back to Deepoutdoors to take the written tests and then Robin informed us that we passed. We are now manual rebreather operators.

As I’m quickly learning, when you are a rebreather owner, you’re actually a hobbyist inbetween modifications.

This video is interesting as it shows some KISS modifications and aftermarket parts that make life easier for it’s owners. Ali Falcone displays some of the modifications that her husband John has fabricated for his KISS rebreather.