Leejnd
Contributor
I'm not a "tech diver" (so I'm reluctant to even post in this forum - be nice to me! 
). I did attend the opening lecture of a GUE Fundamentals class a couple of years ago, and many of my dive buddies are DIR, so I have some basic exposure to the concepts. I've been wanting to take the course myself, but timing, not to mention some reluctance to replace all my gear, have prevented me so far. I'm PADI aow, and use a back-inflation BCD and a console computer, all stuff I bought before I'd learned about GUE and long hoses and all of that.
I read that pdf, and I couldn't believe how ill-informed and utterly illogical it sounded. Add to that the poor grammar and spelling, and the whole thing came off as if it was written by some self-important schmuck with little formal education and limited diving experience who got promoted via the Peter Principle to a leadership role at this dive op, and is trying to exert some authority in his new high-powered job, in spite of lacking the most basic knowledge of the topic about which he was writing. He was clearly just making sh** up! And presenting it all in this imperious, overbearing way that raised my hackles even beyond the fact that it was all complete bs.
If I was a member of that dive club and I received that, I would have immediately quit and demanded a refund of any monies I'd spent on membership fees. I wouldn't want to belong to a club run by such pretentious, supercilious control freaks who seem to think they have a say in what I do solely because I choose to patronize their business. I'm "welcome to dive outside the club when and with whom I wish"? DUH - who are they to have any say in who I dive with...ever? "However, be aware that our club bears no liability if you are diving outside of our sanctioned club dives." Huh? What liability would they have otherwise? Isn't my liability covered by DAN?
Anyway, being the independent rebel that I am, the whole tone of that absurd letter ticked me off.
Among the more bizarre absurdities of it was the idea that recreational dive buddies with differing gear configs are "at risk". The silliness of that claim has already been pointed out in this thread, but I just wanted to mention that I've buddied with divers with a wide variety of configurations, including DIR divers...and isn't that what the buddy check is supposed to be all about? Isn't that WHY you review your configs before the dive - where's your octo? how do I ditch your weights? etc etc... Have they really not heard of that?
And even I, non-techie that I am, couldn't help but laugh at the irony that THEY are the ones suggesting that one should only buddy with someone with the same gear config. HUH? It's the tech divers that all have the same gear...it's the NON-tech divers that have more varying gear configs than sea gulls swarming around a fishing boat!
Anyway, I too would love to hear the dive op come in here and address this. I'd love to hear why they allowed someone with zero understanding of tech gear write up that letter about the use of tech gear and send it out to their client base.
Has anyone had any luck in actually contacting them about it?
). I did attend the opening lecture of a GUE Fundamentals class a couple of years ago, and many of my dive buddies are DIR, so I have some basic exposure to the concepts. I've been wanting to take the course myself, but timing, not to mention some reluctance to replace all my gear, have prevented me so far. I'm PADI aow, and use a back-inflation BCD and a console computer, all stuff I bought before I'd learned about GUE and long hoses and all of that.I read that pdf, and I couldn't believe how ill-informed and utterly illogical it sounded. Add to that the poor grammar and spelling, and the whole thing came off as if it was written by some self-important schmuck with little formal education and limited diving experience who got promoted via the Peter Principle to a leadership role at this dive op, and is trying to exert some authority in his new high-powered job, in spite of lacking the most basic knowledge of the topic about which he was writing. He was clearly just making sh** up! And presenting it all in this imperious, overbearing way that raised my hackles even beyond the fact that it was all complete bs.
If I was a member of that dive club and I received that, I would have immediately quit and demanded a refund of any monies I'd spent on membership fees. I wouldn't want to belong to a club run by such pretentious, supercilious control freaks who seem to think they have a say in what I do solely because I choose to patronize their business. I'm "welcome to dive outside the club when and with whom I wish"? DUH - who are they to have any say in who I dive with...ever? "However, be aware that our club bears no liability if you are diving outside of our sanctioned club dives." Huh? What liability would they have otherwise? Isn't my liability covered by DAN?
Anyway, being the independent rebel that I am, the whole tone of that absurd letter ticked me off.
Among the more bizarre absurdities of it was the idea that recreational dive buddies with differing gear configs are "at risk". The silliness of that claim has already been pointed out in this thread, but I just wanted to mention that I've buddied with divers with a wide variety of configurations, including DIR divers...and isn't that what the buddy check is supposed to be all about? Isn't that WHY you review your configs before the dive - where's your octo? how do I ditch your weights? etc etc... Have they really not heard of that?
And even I, non-techie that I am, couldn't help but laugh at the irony that THEY are the ones suggesting that one should only buddy with someone with the same gear config. HUH? It's the tech divers that all have the same gear...it's the NON-tech divers that have more varying gear configs than sea gulls swarming around a fishing boat!
Anyway, I too would love to hear the dive op come in here and address this. I'd love to hear why they allowed someone with zero understanding of tech gear write up that letter about the use of tech gear and send it out to their client base.
Has anyone had any luck in actually contacting them about it?
