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A pretentious Fundies Report
S01E00: Pilot (Pre-Course)
It's January 2020, New Year's resolutions still have not been forgotten. After a dive-wise pretty decent for me 2019 I decide to take the Fundamentals. At that point I'm at around 90 dives, a happy recreational diver, albeit with bp/w and in his own mind comfy with a drysuit (kudos to people diving wet in Switzerland).
January 15 - signed up on a GUE website, course scheduled for mid-March followed by mid-May (since I was supposed to have a holiday trip during Easter break. Yeah, right...). Instructor: Jason Winters, newly certified Swiss GUE instructor.
Materials downloaded, read; worksheets solved. Going diving regularly in my single tank, although I'm to take the course in doubles. It's just two bottles instead of 1, what could go wrong?
---Coronavirus break---
Due to lockdown measures, course cannot take place. Rescheduled for May 23/24 followed by June 13/14.
May 15: My buddy cancels.
May 16: Jason finds a new buddy for me. He's been diving since 1984, teaching for the last 30 years, including CCR/DPV in caves. Also leads Swiss cave diving section of CMAS.
It's good, I think Jason is now under more pressure than I am.
May 17, 10:00: Wait, there will be some swimming test. Swimming pools closed, let me practice in the lake.
May 17, 10:15: OMGThiswateriscold.
May 17, 12:00: Crap, I haven't been actually diving for 3 months now (lockdown, self-isolations, what-not).
May 19, May 20: Two spontaneous dives with good buddies. It's a bit shaky especially on dive one, but in my own mind (since visibility in Zurich lake would not allow videos to prove otherwise anyway) I am looking gorgeous, flat like a pancake, stable like a rock. Could surely start full cave tomorrow with that skillset. Right.
May 22: Wait, there was some reading and worksheets at some point. I redo the reading and worksheets. Granted, there is not that much theory in this course, and hardly any new one.
S01E01: Fly me to the moo... surface
Wake up at 6am, get 2 espressos, pack the rented car (beautiful red Citroen C1, at 100kmh (60mph) one no longer hears the radio) and off we go to the beautiful city of Lucerne. We're meeting at the school of my buddy, where I get to touch scooters and rebreathers. They wouldn't however fit into Citroen C1, so I cannot buy them.
The morning session is dedicated to theory, which we'll fast forward: history of GUE, goals, projects. Croissants. Why buoyancy and trim are important. More croissants.
Then come dry runs of kicks. We both get some small corrections, but in general our kicks are decent, even mine. On the floor though. You know what's great about the floor? SPOILERS: It doesn't allow your knees to drop beneath it.
More croissants.
Equipment. My buddy's gear is perfectly fine, no time spent there.
I get a bigger wing to replace my single-tank one, and a set of doubles. Few D-rings get moved a bit, some straps shortened, some extended, but surprisingly not too much. DS4 prove a bit tricky to configure with a twinset though. In the end I can squeeze in my head between them though, and it feels pleasantly snuggly.
Going for a dive!
It starts raining.
Divespot is fortunately located under a highway bridge. Better roaring trucks than pouring rain above I guess.
Also, gotta cross a street with a twinset. Fortunately, people slow down since steel tanks would dent their cars for sure.
Did I mention I get a tank lamp? I feel so professional. Also, I'm getting lost with drysuit inflator, long hose and the lamp's cable all intertwining on my chest. All the knots are in principle topologically trivial, but experimentally I struggle to confirm it.
I managed to keep my long hose free though.
Plan the dive: 1 hour, 8 meters. Jason will lay a line, and we'll be swimming back and forth using different kicks.
GUE Edge in water and descend. It takes two to tango, and I'm sure my buddy was keeping the team formation, but that didn't help too much since with the new tanks on my back my main focus was to not end up face down in the lakebed (is that even a word?). Succeeded at that, certainly sucked at team diving. Regroup at the bottom, acknowledge existence of my buddy, and off we go!
Frog and modified frog go acceptably apparently. Trim is flat if I think about it, not-so-flat when I don't think about it. Most of the time I don't think about it.
Apparently in the flutter kick my knees manage to go though the water down into the bottom. Strange, it worked on the floor. I don't quite trust Jason nor the severly reduced visiblity behind me, but I can no longer deny when I hit the fist he puts under them. Or maybe he moved it up? #conspiracy
Back kick. I move back. And down. Or up. Including trying to vent my drysuit while feet up to prevent flying to the surface and beyond. Air from the feet above my head does not seem to go out via the valve below me. Fortunately my embarrassment is spared by an arrival of a current. Apparently lakes can have currents. Back kick works great with a current. Back kick does not seem to work against it. My flutter kick does though, and visibility became terrible at that point anyway.
After 50+ mins thumbs up, since the current makes the practice rather pointless at that stage.
I manage to stop at 3 meters as planned, though it's probably more thanks to my buddy's infinite stability than my control since at that point I feel so chewed up that I probably wouldn't even think about looking at my gauges anyway.
Feedback:
I am positively surprised - says Jason in the shelter of a highway bridge. He says it in Swiss German, but I pretend I understand Swiss German. Apparently I did understand correctly this time though. He says that he didn't know what to expect from someone with barely 100 dives and I do not completely suck. At home I'm supposed to practice my flutter kick. I guess my girlfriend will be thrilled to look if I drop them and hinge at the hips.
My buddy seems to be doing a tad better than me, but apparently he also dropped his knee. Once.
He doesn't have to practice his kicks tonight.
Stay tuned for the next episode tomorrow.
S01E00: Pilot (Pre-Course)
It's January 2020, New Year's resolutions still have not been forgotten. After a dive-wise pretty decent for me 2019 I decide to take the Fundamentals. At that point I'm at around 90 dives, a happy recreational diver, albeit with bp/w and in his own mind comfy with a drysuit (kudos to people diving wet in Switzerland).
January 15 - signed up on a GUE website, course scheduled for mid-March followed by mid-May (since I was supposed to have a holiday trip during Easter break. Yeah, right...). Instructor: Jason Winters, newly certified Swiss GUE instructor.
Materials downloaded, read; worksheets solved. Going diving regularly in my single tank, although I'm to take the course in doubles. It's just two bottles instead of 1, what could go wrong?
---Coronavirus break---
Due to lockdown measures, course cannot take place. Rescheduled for May 23/24 followed by June 13/14.
May 15: My buddy cancels.
May 16: Jason finds a new buddy for me. He's been diving since 1984, teaching for the last 30 years, including CCR/DPV in caves. Also leads Swiss cave diving section of CMAS.
It's good, I think Jason is now under more pressure than I am.
May 17, 10:00: Wait, there will be some swimming test. Swimming pools closed, let me practice in the lake.
May 17, 10:15: OMGThiswateriscold.
May 17, 12:00: Crap, I haven't been actually diving for 3 months now (lockdown, self-isolations, what-not).
May 19, May 20: Two spontaneous dives with good buddies. It's a bit shaky especially on dive one, but in my own mind (since visibility in Zurich lake would not allow videos to prove otherwise anyway) I am looking gorgeous, flat like a pancake, stable like a rock. Could surely start full cave tomorrow with that skillset. Right.
May 22: Wait, there was some reading and worksheets at some point. I redo the reading and worksheets. Granted, there is not that much theory in this course, and hardly any new one.
S01E01: Fly me to the moo... surface
Wake up at 6am, get 2 espressos, pack the rented car (beautiful red Citroen C1, at 100kmh (60mph) one no longer hears the radio) and off we go to the beautiful city of Lucerne. We're meeting at the school of my buddy, where I get to touch scooters and rebreathers. They wouldn't however fit into Citroen C1, so I cannot buy them.
The morning session is dedicated to theory, which we'll fast forward: history of GUE, goals, projects. Croissants. Why buoyancy and trim are important. More croissants.
Then come dry runs of kicks. We both get some small corrections, but in general our kicks are decent, even mine. On the floor though. You know what's great about the floor? SPOILERS: It doesn't allow your knees to drop beneath it.
More croissants.
Equipment. My buddy's gear is perfectly fine, no time spent there.
I get a bigger wing to replace my single-tank one, and a set of doubles. Few D-rings get moved a bit, some straps shortened, some extended, but surprisingly not too much. DS4 prove a bit tricky to configure with a twinset though. In the end I can squeeze in my head between them though, and it feels pleasantly snuggly.
Going for a dive!
It starts raining.
Divespot is fortunately located under a highway bridge. Better roaring trucks than pouring rain above I guess.
Also, gotta cross a street with a twinset. Fortunately, people slow down since steel tanks would dent their cars for sure.
Did I mention I get a tank lamp? I feel so professional. Also, I'm getting lost with drysuit inflator, long hose and the lamp's cable all intertwining on my chest. All the knots are in principle topologically trivial, but experimentally I struggle to confirm it.
I managed to keep my long hose free though.
Plan the dive: 1 hour, 8 meters. Jason will lay a line, and we'll be swimming back and forth using different kicks.
GUE Edge in water and descend. It takes two to tango, and I'm sure my buddy was keeping the team formation, but that didn't help too much since with the new tanks on my back my main focus was to not end up face down in the lakebed (is that even a word?). Succeeded at that, certainly sucked at team diving. Regroup at the bottom, acknowledge existence of my buddy, and off we go!
Frog and modified frog go acceptably apparently. Trim is flat if I think about it, not-so-flat when I don't think about it. Most of the time I don't think about it.
Apparently in the flutter kick my knees manage to go though the water down into the bottom. Strange, it worked on the floor. I don't quite trust Jason nor the severly reduced visiblity behind me, but I can no longer deny when I hit the fist he puts under them. Or maybe he moved it up? #conspiracy
Back kick. I move back. And down. Or up. Including trying to vent my drysuit while feet up to prevent flying to the surface and beyond. Air from the feet above my head does not seem to go out via the valve below me. Fortunately my embarrassment is spared by an arrival of a current. Apparently lakes can have currents. Back kick works great with a current. Back kick does not seem to work against it. My flutter kick does though, and visibility became terrible at that point anyway.
After 50+ mins thumbs up, since the current makes the practice rather pointless at that stage.
I manage to stop at 3 meters as planned, though it's probably more thanks to my buddy's infinite stability than my control since at that point I feel so chewed up that I probably wouldn't even think about looking at my gauges anyway.
Feedback:
I am positively surprised - says Jason in the shelter of a highway bridge. He says it in Swiss German, but I pretend I understand Swiss German. Apparently I did understand correctly this time though. He says that he didn't know what to expect from someone with barely 100 dives and I do not completely suck. At home I'm supposed to practice my flutter kick. I guess my girlfriend will be thrilled to look if I drop them and hinge at the hips.
My buddy seems to be doing a tad better than me, but apparently he also dropped his knee. Once.
He doesn't have to practice his kicks tonight.
Stay tuned for the next episode tomorrow.