I got a chance to play with this new toy at the 1998 IANTD conference. After a few simple instructions such as press this and don't touch that, I put my head under and I was off.
The first thing I noticed was how little breathing resistance there was. Taking this as a challenge, I tried doing somersaults and rolls to see If I could beat it, but the Inspiration could not be fooled.
I then tried swimming harder. There was a brief dip in the reading from the O2 monitor, but still no change to the breathing resistance. My final assault was to swim as hard as I could against the side of the pool. My heart rate and breathing rate went up. The water behind me went frothy, the gas I was breathing became noticeably warm, but the Inspiration was still one of the easiest breaths I have had. I am looking forward to a chance to try one in the sea.
Many thanks to Phil Bullen for the use of his photograph of me.