CCR 2.0 Training Bonaire – A Week of Ups and Downs, Literally.

Returning to where it all began! All checked in ready for a week ahead as some of the Deep Blue Crew get trained or refresh on Rebreathers! We hope you follow along as we share our journey along the way with our thoughts and experiences on our next level of diving!

Day 1:

“Sorry, everyone—I kind of disappeared on the first day, but things have been a bit hectic!

Some of you may recall that John and I completed our first level of training on rebreathers 10 years ago, just to learn more about them as we started getting more inquiries for CCR travel. We ended up really enjoying the benefits, but with our kids just starting college and other demands, it took us a few years to buy our own units. By then, we were quite rusty. We planned to do a refresher, but then life took some unexpected turns, COVID happened, and before we knew it, a decade had gone by! Somewhere along the way, I lost my nerve about the whole thing, and I realized it was time to either sell or do something about it.

For me, a refresher was not an option given the amount of time that had passed, so I decided to retake the full course from scratch. Now, with our son Andrew in his late twenties and actively involved in the family business, we brought him along to get CCR certified too.

While we love our local quarry in Ohio for training, getting away from daily distractions and learning in the warm Caribbean Sea is an amazing option if you can. Bonaire, with its incredible shore diving and beautiful life in shallow, calm, crystal-clear water, is in my opinion the perfect place to learn anything scuba.

So here we are—the gang is back together with our trusted instructor from Silent Diving, Mike Fowler, John, and me. And this time, to add to the fun, Andrew is with us, plus one of our favorite clients, Paul Brock from Yellowstone Divers. CCR 2.0—here we come!” – Cheryl

Day 2:

“They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Today, I can’t decide if that’s true or not…

I remember this same feeling from 10 years ago—the frustration of taking everything I know and love about diving and throwing it out the window, feeling like a complete newbie all over again.

That said, the love I have for diving and the knowledge and experience I’ve gained over the years played a part today too. We spent two hours underwater, and there were moments when I got mechanical messages that I didn’t quite understand, and I wasn’t confident I was responding to them correctly. Then, there was about an hour where everything felt like it completely came together.

There were also moments when I was face-to-face with various marine life, and I thought to myself, “I actually think I like this better than open circuit!” But toward the end of the dive, I got low on one of my air sources. While I didn’t panic, I didn’t handle it as I should have. Yet, thanks to a combination of my training, the skills we had practiced, and my amazing instructor, the dive ended a little earlier than originally planned but without incident.

However, it’s one thing to say, “A good diver is always learning,” and another to feel like a complete rookie out of one’s element after 26 years of diving. I’m 52 years old. Some of my joints are creaking. Some days, I don’t feel as sharp as I once did. I’m not as fit as I could be. Period. Lugging more gear around and learning something so new with so many parts begs the question: Why the hell am I doing this when I don’t need to?!

At the same time, I’m 52 years young. I’ve never backed down from a fight, and I struggled in my twenties to earn my standard open water certification, which has now become second nature. I can do this if I want to. It’s all a mindset. It’s about taking a deep breath and believing in myself, challenging myself, and remembering that one hour in the middle where it all came together was totally worth it. I’ve always felt diving is more of a mental sport than a physical one, and with CCR diving, it most definitely is.

Today, I am a yo-yo diver—both literally, as I sort out my techniques underwater with a completely different style of diving, and emotionally, as I go back and forth between “I think I can” and “I want to,” and then questioning the “why.””-Cheryl on her rebreather course in Bonaire this week

*We believe in having honest conversations and admitting when we need help or don’t completely understand things. Social media shouldn’t be all rainbows and butterflies 100% of the time; we’re not here to sell you on things that we ourselves don’t believe in. This post isn’t to scare anyone out of taking on CCR – in fact, we want to encourage others to embrace the learning curve. Whether you’re a new diver who wants to do it all or a seasoned diver who wants to further their skills, this is such an incredible course. If you have things down pat (like naturally tech-skilled Andrew and John likely are this week), we give you the biggest of kudos, but for those who have found some difficulties along the way in their diving journey, we get it and you’re not alone. We are open and honest about our own journey as you can see by this post. We all struggle at some point, be it with mask clearing or understanding the technicalities behind a rebreather – but we are all in this together and there’s no shame to admit when you’re still growing your knowledge. We are here to encourage you to be open to new learning opportunities and to never give up trying. Just like Cheryl proves to be: be safe, be teachable, and don’t throw the towel in just yet. You’ve got this – it’s a journey, not a destination. You’ll get there in due time.

Day 3:

“Today, I’m going to talk about the dive I didn’t do. If you’ve been following along this week, you’ll know yesterday didn’t go completely to plan for me underwater. If you know me even a little, you’ll know that I spent much of the day analyzing what went wrong and chastising myself for my mistakes.

Even if you know me well, it may come as a surprise that I have an autoimmune disease, as I’ve kept it very secret until now. I was diagnosed in February 2020, and while I was struggling to come to terms with the diagnosis, my business took a massive hit a month later. I’ve always been a tough chick, and I’ve always felt I could take on anything. This knocked me down because sometimes my body fails me. I feel somehow weak because I have a disease that sneaks up out of nowhere, knocks me down, and leaves me vulnerable, and I hate that. I still haven’t made peace with it.

In a nutshell, an autoimmune disease is when the body attacks itself and mistakes healthy cells for invaders. Typically, the body’s response is inflammation, which can happen in joints, organs, or the brain—wherever the body thinks it needs to send attackers to heal something that isn’t actually unwell. Thankfully, in the scheme of things, mine is pretty mild and, for the most part, under control, but stress and sunshine are two things that can trigger a flare-up. Taking a challenging course on a tropical island while still trying to manage my business sounds horribly like complaining about first-world problems, but the reality is that an abundance of stress and sunshine are truly enemies for me. Add to that a night spent replaying my errors and kicking myself rather than sleeping, and I woke up this morning to one of those flares. Lupus fog, as it is called, is perfectly named. When inflamed from an attack, the brain still works, but it’s like trying to think through sludge. Still, I rose this morning ready to seize the day and determined to do better.

If you’ve been around a rebreather at all, you’ll know that the most complex and critical part is the setup. My classmates and my instructor are amazing. There was no problem with me taking my time and moving slowly to make sure I got everything correct, and quite frankly, I wanted to see if I could work through the fog and still get there. But despite their patience and understanding, I still felt peer pressure that I put on myself, feeling like I was lagging behind and holding things up.

I completed the full assembly eventually, but not before making a couple of silly errors (which I did correct) and spending five minutes frozen on a single step, trying to talk myself through it. My system was ready to go. My buddies were ready to go, and officially so was I. But by now, I was in a mental cycle that had started to spiral downward. The emotion of being disappointed in myself yesterday, coupled with my need to get it right this time, along with lack of sleep, feeling angry at my “weakness,” and generally feeling out of sorts, made things just not feel right—even though I had just spent an hour getting ready and having others wait on me in class, no less!

I talked to my hubby and my instructor, who were both super supportive, then made the decision to skip the dive—something I have rarely ever done and found extremely difficult to do now. Even after making that decision, my feelings of conflict over the call overrode any sense of relief as I waved my classmates off on their dive.

However, once that decision was made, I took today to catch up on some urgent emails, scroll through silly videos on Facebook, take a nap, and swim and actually enjoy the resort for a while. As the day went on, I stopped berating myself and decided I was giving myself what I needed far more than diving today. I was allowing my body and mind to rest.

In my twenty years of being an open water instructor, I’ve always stressed the importance to my students of knowing that they can call or cancel a dive at any time, for any reason, and that there is no shame in it. I have told them that sometimes the most important decision you can make is the dive that you don’t do. Reminding myself of that has allowed me to spend a little time regrouping, taking some deep breaths above the water, and simply embracing where I’m at today. Now, this afternoon, I’m already starting to feel so much better than I have in over 24 hours. We will see what the next dive brings, but I know I’m much more ready for it. I honestly don’t know how my journey to become rebreather recertified will end, but now that I’ve had a chance to reflect, I feel that potentially one of the most important dives of my life is the one today that I didn’t do..” – Cheryl

Day 4:

I can do this -Andrew’s perspective

“After years of exploring the underwater world, I’ve decided to take things to the next level and start my rebreather certification course!

I’ve been diving for years, but there’s always more to learn, and rebreathers have always intrigued me with their promise of quieter, longer dives and getting closer to marine life.

It’s a whole new challenge — adjusting to different breathing techniques, learning about the complex system, and getting used to staying super quiet underwater. But honestly? I’m loving every second of it. I was a bit nervous about all the book work before I got here, but now that I’m doing the practical stuff, it’s way less intimidating.

One of the biggest adjustments is getting used to not being able to rise over obstacles – I have to go around them! Definitely a learning curve, but I’m getting the hang of it. Plus, the warmer and moister air from the rebreather keeps me so much warmer during the dive – a nice bonus!

The best part? The marine life interaction! On a dive today, I got so close to a huge tarpon I could have touched it. It didn’t even know I was there until I was right on it and spooked it! The quietness of the rebreather makes such a difference in how close you can get and is definitely a a perk in this marine biologist/travel specialist’s heart.

And today, we did a single dive for two hours straight, with 30 minutes at 100 feet. I’m loving every minute of this new skill!” – Andrew

Day 5:

A good instructor makes all the difference!

10 years ago, I wrote a blog journaling my experience each day as I learned a rebreather. Until this week I had not been on one since which is why I’m retaking the course now. I had honestly anticipated sharing similar observations to how I did a decade ago. but this time my experience seems to be far more about the emotional and mental side of training than the process itself.

In all honesty, the technical side hasn’t changed much. The day to day training, the learning new techniques and struggling with the feeling of being a newbie all over again as I get a handle on the equipment is the same. My experience of the upsides of diving on a rebreather is also the same: the length of time you can dive each day and/or the depth you can go to, the incredible close and personal encounters with marine life and so much more.

The biggest difference this time around is me. Whether it is age or mindset, I’m definitely struggling harder this time around.

Despite going in the water today with a positive attitude and feeling ready, I did have another incident today and at that point I declared to my instructor and my husband I’m done. I quit. This is not for me.

My instructor Mike was once again fabulous. He listened and he understood and he told me it was okay if this wasn’t for me. But after I’d calmed down a bit he told me that he had observed some things underwater where he believed he could adjust the equipment to make it more comfortable for me and to be more responsive to how I dive now that I had the basics under my belt. So before I quit completely if I was willing to do so to get back on the horse before I made any final decisions.

I reluctantly agreed, listened to his tips and tricks while he adjusted my rig with some various tweaks and we went back down just chilling out and playing amongst the various and abundant marine life including a friendly turtle in the shallows. We ended up having an hour dive and everything went brilliantly.

As I write this, I’m still not 100% confident on passing everything. I’m certainly far from comfortable at this stage in the game.

But my thoughts about today is just how absolutely vital it is to find a good instructor. That they can literally make all the difference to a nervous student regardless of the class they are taking or the experience that they have. From their safety, to their future confidence down to the difference if someone will ever go diving again and do so safely, a good instructor is the greatest treasure one can ever find.” -Cheryl

Day 6:

“What a difference a day makes.

24 hours ago I was ready to quit. Now I find myself looking at flights to see if I could stay a few days longer. It finally all came together for me today. The training clicked, the equipment stopped being intimidating and assembly went without a hitch. The dive was absolutely magnificent in every way.

My three fellow classmates, who, of course nailed everything days ago, jumped in the truck and took off for a fun dive on the Hilmer Hooker wreck.

I kept things easy, electing to stay on Buddy’s house reef with my instructor Mike and just enjoyed the marine life which was in abundance. Everything I adore about diving I got to just soak up today. Not wanting to push my luck, we stuck to just over an hour and stayed above 100 feet but I got to truly play on the wall. The amount of fish of all varieties was insane and I got up close in personal with so many that I could’ve reached out and touched them. Coral banded shrimp stared back at me eye to eye through my mask. Honeycomb trunk fish flitted around me for several minutes. I observed an eel hunt slithering between three grouper. And my absolute favorite was a busy little cleaning station. With noone else around, producing no sound and no bubbles, once I got my buoyancy dialed in, I was completely stationary. On a rebreather there is zero rise and fall with your breath, which meant everything went about their day like I wasn’t even there. The best part of all this is I had three hours of no deco time to play with and virtually an unlimited source of air which meant I was able to spend as much time as I wanted with each critter just sitting and watching them do that thing. I spent many moments at peace and felt myself smiling. Today far more of my dive was thinking just how much I absolutely adore the world underwater and how incredible it is to experience it.

I really wish I could extend my stay. I’m pretty sure if I did I would go home a confident and comfortable rebreather diver. Alas duty calls and I need to return home. However a big difference between this time and a decade ago is I already own the equipment. I definitely won’t be letting much time pass by without keeping myself familiar and fresh on it.

This week went nowhere near as planned, but it was so therapeutic. I learned so much about myself. I had to make peace with myself on a lot of things I’ve been avoiding. I challenged myself, but I also learned that sometimes I need to slow down and cut myself some slack. Knowing your limits and saying no is not a weakness, it actually takes great strength.

This is just one of the reasons I love diving. It is so much more than a pastime or sport. What other thing is there in this world that puts you so completely immersed in nature. Something that puts multiple generations and people of various abilities in the center of a beautiful world to share together. I’ve met so many incredible people that have had an impact on my life through diving. Regardless of your level or your experience, this week if nothing else reminded me what an incredible privilege it is to be a scuba diver!”-Cheryl on her time working on CCR 2.0 in Bonaire this week