Posts Tagged ‘GUE’

GUE / DIR Scotland Day May 11th 2008

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Argyle Caravan Park, Loch Fyne

I managed to get my teenage daughter out her bed around nine am and drag her into the scuba bus (aka my rusty old pug 406 estate that cost about the same as my primary torch!) to go along to see if I could get a chance to get in the water with John Kendall or Iain Smith and try to remember some of the things I was meant to have learned three weeks previously at my GUE Fundamentals course.

Unfortunately due to my late arrival I managed to get there as Steve, John & Iain where already on a dive and Kat was chilling in the sunshine.

Eventually after surfacing the lads all got out the water, I fettled and tweaked a couple of bolt snaps and knots (with Johns help), set up my doubles (chuckle) and got ready to dive, Iain’s mum turned up and I struggled to not laugh too much at the banter between her and Iain, a right good comedy show with mum giving as good as she got well that is until Iain savaged her dive gear and set up a single tank GUE compliant wing for her complete with long hose, I don’t think she knew what hit her, even her ankle weights and fins where banished…

So as the mayhem was going on around us, Stevie and I agreed to go for a wee guddle…

11/05/2008 Dive: 251

Maximum Depth: 14.1Metres
Water Temp: 9-13oC
Visibility: 3-5 Metres
Dive Time: 43 Minutes

Equipment:

DUI TLS 350 Explorer (DUI Zip Gloves), Halcyon 21w/9A HID, Double (Twins ;-) ) Twelve Eurocylinders, Frog Midnight Wing, Apeks XTX200 Primary and Backup Regulators, Salvo RAT Backup Torch, Scuba Pro JetFins.

Weighting: 3 x 1KG V Weights, 1 x 2.25KG P Weight, 2 KG Tail Weight 1 x 1KG on Waist Harness. Total 8.25 KG

Goal: Practice GUE Skills & Procedures, V Drill and Buoyancy Control, launch DSMB, Have fun!
Unified Team: Stevie Hick dive and myself, myself to lead dive.
Equipment: Head to toe check performed on surface prior to dive (I Forgot to do Bubble checks) Stevie had a one piece harness on, w00t!

Left Pocket (equipment planned to be used on dive): Halcyon 1 Metre Oral Inflate DSMB, Deep-sea Supply Delrin Finger Spool.

Right Pocket (backup / spare equipment): Spare Beaver Atomic Mask, Wet Notes & Shears

Exposure: Maximum Dive based on GUE minimum deco Rules (Explained quickly to Stevie as part of GUE EDGE) planned maximum Depth 12-18 Metres.
Decompression: First stop 50% of max depth, 1 minute stops, 3 metres apart Ascent Rate 9MPM
Gas: EAN28 (Air top off on a EAN32 Fill) – Stevie on Tyre Gas (AKA AIR) All Usable, Minimum Gas 50 Bar.
Environment: Cold, dark and horrible boat moorings!

It only took us two minutes to run through the GUE EDGE on the surface but I have a feeling it was because I missed stuff and Stevie just agreed with whatever old tosh I actually said.

Stevie was diving without a primary light as he has some problems with his torch on the previous dive, this caused me all sorts of mental problems as I was trying to tune into my new found GUE Spidey sense and couldn’t see a torch beam so had to keep looking behind me for Stevie, it’s weird, you just learn how important the torch is, that it’s your voice underwater and then I go diving with Mr. super eloquent and funny but silent, bit strange, hey ho!

We settle into a pattern and just meander around, I am trying some modified frog kicks, being cautious of trying to not go too slow, also I try a few back kicks but don’t quite get them right and end up going backwards and upwards like a milk cart reversing down a one way street.

Anyway we guddle around, Stevie goes for his valves when I’m not looking, I wasn’t expecting that but should expect it cause I’ve dived with the stroke many times now.

I signal to Stevie I am going to try to do my valves (remembering this is why I only got the provisional pass on Fundies and not a full pass), I oscillate my torch in my left hand, purge my backup reg and start to reach back for my right post, whay hey I get it! I manage to shut it down although my buoyancy is over the place and I have to pause to regain composure, I switch over to my backup reg (ooh damn the orders wrong, I think, heck I can’t remember now!) I give in, I try to reach back and turn on my right post but can’t reach it, I signal to the Stroke and he gets it for me, ahhh its nice to be diving with Stevie, I Know I can trust him to sort me out and I think he can trust me to sort him out (not like that!, clean your bloody minds will you!) These shut-downs are doing my head in, I so want to get them off and on.

We bimble around looking at the moorings, chasing crabs, examining up to it after the valve closing lark.

So we get up to around 6 metres and I signal for blobs, we both start off about the same time, I unfurl and assemble my spool to my blob, Stevie already has his assembled in his pocket.

We both orally inflate and play the maypole dancing game, trying not to tie each other up.

Up we go and on the surface wind in our blobs (well it’s not quite that smooth, I end up winding my blob down to me as I hadn’t inflated it enough so I give it a good blow this time, fwar fwar!)

We surface swim back to the slip and come out the water feeling triumphant, or at least I feel great that Iain and John didn’t witness any of that!

So out we get, have a gab, Eventually Iain, John and Iain’s mum surface, there is no shouting only laughter and smiles, looks like Iain’s mum enjoyed being assimilated into the collective too.

I pack my gear, Derek and Anne turn up on the Posh RHIB and we have a wee gab, I say my goodbyes, Taylor and I head off to M&S for some nice tasty food and I drop Taylor off at my ex wife’s, A nice wee day out but I tell you this, I need to get shut-downs sorted because I am so fed up of doing boring featureless dives at training sites, I crave a nice piece of ferrous oxide, all I would be doing is tempting fate and hoping nothing goes wrong, if something did I wouldn’t be able to sort it….

Tune in next time for more adventures of a GUE Newbie……

John Kendall http://www.guetraining.com/

Conger Alley Scottish Forum http://www.congeralley.com

Thanks to Iain for organising and Taylor for being a great daughter :)

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GUE Fundamentals Vobster Quay 18-21st April 2008

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

Fundies as this course is known has been written up and reported on many times now, you can read about it on many websites including yorkshire-divers and direxplorers.

Fundies is well documented and its easy to see what it consists of over at GUE.com

What are the biggest differences between GUE and other diver training agencies?

Well most of you will know about these but some of my friends may not even have heard of GUE, so here are the headlines…

  • Dive in teams of three not Buddy teams of two.
  • Air is not a GUE Diving gas.
  • Smokers may not hold GUE Certification.
  • Mandated equipment configuration.

So here we go….this is my own abridged blog from my experience.

April 18-21st GUE Fundamentals Location: Somerset (Vobster Quay) Instructor: Clare Gledhill

This is not a Macho course, its a fun training course which has high standards to gain accreditation.

You are shown new ways of doing skills that you can learn via other agencies or via other methods, sometimes I think Tech courses are written up as if they are all macho i.e “I was given an out of gas and a primary light failure, life depends on blah blah” well in my opinion Fundies is nothing like that, here is just one small example..

During other training I have had my gas turned off and my mask taken off me unexpectedly when doing dives.

During GUE Fundamentals the instructor or support diver didn’t touch any of my life support kit ever, they pointed at me and gave me they signal to donate gas or to turn my torch off and even when having to do the no mask swim, I took my mask off myself, my buddy led me by holding onto to me (real technical divers call this touch contact) and the instructor stayed close by us in case anything should go wrong, so you see the emphasis is on fundamentals and safety.

Is that what I thought before I went along, no way, I was scared senseless of being beasted by these underwater dive God’s.

I learned lots that weekend thanks to Alistair and Clare and the one thing above all else I learned was that
The most important piece of kit a GUE diver takes in the water is his buddies or in GUE speak, “the team”.

So what did we do….

  • Pool session incorporating a swim test and back kick, helicopter turn instruction
  • Four training dives
  • Approx ten hours of lectures
  • Approx five hours of academic exercises
  • Approx 3 hours of video review & feedback
  • Experience Dive
  • Debrief

Skill Demonstrations

I met Jim, Mack, Dave, Alistair and Clare thanks to everybody for making this a brilliant course, well ran and good friendly people even the Vobster Underwater Wraith*…..

We learned that rule six may be to look good at all times but rule seven is never to look structured in a council swimming pool.

Post dive video assessments are brilliant, they really do show you when you got it right and when you got it oh ever so badly wrong.

I found it hard to maintain the high standard of buoyancy control and I found it impossible to perform the valve drill, it probably wasn’t a good a idea in retrospect turning up to a training course wearing a drysuit with drygloves that I had only used for two little fun dives, however at least the suit and me got a good work out.

After Dave and I completed our experience dive we even had a chance to have one extra chill out dive with no fear of the VUW coming near us.

So in all I managed a Total of six FUNDIvES and well to be honest, I managed to scrape a Provisional pass (Not needing any further instruction just lots of practice & a re-evaluation dive).

I basically failed to maintain the correct levels of buoyancy and I also failed miserable to do my Valve Shutdown drills, lets face it in all honesty who else is mad enough to go on a training course wearing a suit they have only just got and only managed to dive twice prior to the course…….

Return from the experience

The Backick is interesting and will be a nice skill to master and I have started putting it into practice although I have found I tend to go upwards and backwards causing a silt cloud.

*Vobster Underwater Wraith – is some sort of ghost like diver that has a red overlay on a DUI suit and sweeps in unseen and unfelt to switch off primary lights.

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