ROATAN HONDURAS

REBREATHER FRIENDLY

I have been going to CoCo View resort on Roatan which is one of the Bay Islands of Honduras since 1991. Over the last 11 years I have spent over 250 hours in those waters and still long for more. This year I took my little RGU rig down with me. Prior to the trip, I inquired about using a rebreather. They said no problem but they did not have sorb.I figured that I could get oxygen somewhere down there. What a pleasant surprise awaited me when I arrived. CoCo View uses oxygen to enrich the air going into their compressor for nitrox. They set me up with a oxygen tank of my own on the dock with a CGA 540 fitting on it. In minutes I was able to attach the whip I made up and filled my tank through the gauge port.

Two years before a group of Drager divers had been there with their rebreathers but none since. The small size, light weight, and simplicity of my system was not lost on the dive masters. Not one discouraging word was heard the whole week although there was sometimes a small crowd when I went out or came in. That may have been partially because I have known the divemasters for years and they see stuff I build all the time. The only comment was that it was more important than ever for me to keep boat dives to one hour or less. I had already planned to just use the system shore diving so I would not abuse their hospitality.

Tony at the bow of the ship.

I walked the 30 yards to the beach and out into the water heading for the reef and wreck of the Prince Albert with my dive buddy Tony who was on OC and making lots of bubbles. He had tried this system in the pool but still had WOB concerns. The silence of the rebreather was deafening. The display worked perfectly. The air dilution system worked perfectly. A quick ten minute swim out to the wreck along the bottom venting in air for the nitrogen needed below 20 feet. It was great fun to be in fantastic water and have all systems go. The bottom of the wreck is at about 60 feet and manual control of the PPO to .8 was easy.

Fish that I normally could not get close to ignored me. Usually grey angels get in the way of a photographer but French Angels stay a respectful distance. This 18 inch beauty came within a foot of me almost as if it was posing. I took picture after picture and it was totally unconcerned.


We were in and out of the wreck and the gear worked perfectly until I screwed up about an hour and 20 minutes into the dive. The counterlung was bigger than the standard RGU so it hung lower. This made the hoses just a little short. As I came out from under the keel of the wreck photographing a moray eel I jerked my head up and the mouthpiece came out of my mouth in a burst of bubbles. I started laughing and more bubbles came up. Tony came shooting down to hand me his second, but I just put the dilution air 2 mouthpiece in and swam to the surface.

I swam in on the dilution tank of air. How bad was the problem? Was the loop lost?

At the beach I took the scrubber out and found that the water trap had done its job. The scrubber was dry and I could have still used the unit even though a half cup of water had gone down the hose. That made me feel good about my modifications to the RGU and I enjoyed diving it on shore dives the rest of the week.

The best bonus came at the end of the week. While the other divers had to quit Friday by noon to dump the nitrogen they had accumulated all week before flying out in the morning, I went back in the shallow water along the edge of the reef for a couple of extra hours of diving the rig as a pure oxygen rebreather, venting more nitrogen than the rest and having a ball. On the way out, I encountered a huge spotted eagle ray.


Life is good, life underwater at CoCo View is especially good. The downside was that I really had to move to get packed in time that night for baggage pickup. Those two extra hours were worth it. This summer when I go back, I will be taking a couple of rebreathers for testing and diving. You can find more information on CoCo View on my links page or by clicking here . Some of my better pictures are available by clicking here.

See ya one day diving in a true world of silence without bubbles in Roatan.

Tom