The rebreather came from the South West?

[dave-diving]

Ah....history. It gets better when more info gets added....

Peter moved down from Cheshire where he closed his engineering shop so not strictly SW but we can forgive that emmit. Certainly the development work happened in the SW for Pete's PRISM and Stuart Clough's Kracken Rebreather. Carmellan, or more accurately, Carmellan Research was the company Stuart and Neil Cave ran not the name of the rebreather. Rob was one of the test pilots we used at DDRC in the late 80's and early 90's who had a desire to get the rebreather into cave systems...Bill Stone and Bill Hamilton were also involved in the project.

I have to admit that while I was at Plymouth Poly Dive Centre back in the 1980's I was dismissive of Nitrox but it was due to certain people bringing in cylinders for filling at the centre and not telling me they had put oxygen in for me to do them a top off.....and they thought I didn't know. It was my life they unwittingly put at risk and this caused me to be dismissive of the whole approach at the time. I will apologise now if you didn't quite get the nitrox fill you wanted or expected but the compressor was oil lubed.

Went off and qualified with Dick Rutkowski in 1990 through IAND and later with Kevin Gurr where I traded his Advanced Instructor assessment for my Tech. Nitrox. Billy Deans as my Divemaster/boathandler and Kevin as the assessed instructor on a BSAC course in 1991, bet that one has been kept quiet.

Joined TDI as an Instructor when Dave K. ran it in 1994 but I later took it off the guys in Fort William in 98/99 so TDI came back to the SW for 5 years.

PSAI is the next chapter but it is an American agency, not hatched in SW, and was actually a forerunner Tech agency, pre dated IAND.

I had to laugh about the as a means to further science and discovery. They never saw it as a money making venture bit....Not the Bret Gillam I know, he was in it for the income right up until he sold it in 2004/5. I have the photo's of his homes in Maine to prove it Bret loved the glamour life as it fed his huge ego and was certainly in it for money and there are a few stories that are best left untold regarding that. Still kinda liked Bret though as you knew where you were with him.

Still getting wet and missed the tosser dive due to an overseas trip.
Dave