GUE Tech I

Humble pie...by the ton! Took the dir tek I from Aug. 12th-16th. None of us passed. I thought I was a 'good' diver. Now I know what a good diver really is. #1 Take the fundamentals class first. Do 25 or so dives till you 'get it right.' Think. Environment;whats my depth? Where am I? What time into the dive is it? Whats my deco?Whats rock bottom time? Turn dive time? Equipment? Hows my gear? Stowed neatly? Whats my psi? Team,wheres my buddie? Is he ok? This all while maintaining perfect trim and bouyancy and practicing S drills,valve drills, out of air emergencies,running line,deploying lift bags. Whew, I'm still thinking it! 1 min. at 10 feet off the bottom. Deco stops 30' for 1 min.,20 feet for 2 min., 10feet for 3 minutes (blew these),while doing the skills! But it was great! Andrew and Dan were right on the mark with their teaching. I have a lot to work on. I did get a lot better and went from wearing 30+ lbs. while dry to wearing a 6lb. back plate in the pond and 16 lbs in the ocean!
The fact that I have nearly 600 ocean dives was secondary (thirdary?) The Gue guys said they often have instructors with thousands of dives who can not do it. Its easy to get sedentary in our skills. They gave me a wake up call and next time I'll be prepared. Environment, Equipment, Team! Argggh,Wake me up!

... it would have been better if you would have had the fundamentals class... but you most likely would not have completed the Tech 1 in the alloted 5 days even at that (notice I didn't use the word fail )

From my POV the Tech 1 class is orders of magnitude more difficult than the fundamentals class... I'm glad you are still smiling... you are still smiling aren't you?

One thing you didn't mention... do you have a regular buddy who took the class with you... or were you able to get connected with a buddy during the class that you can continue to dive with?

Is there a scheduled continuation of the class... for another attempt at passing? Did you guys make it to the 120' trimix dives?

Joe R.

Nice report. I just finished the DIR-F class the day before. I look at it as now I know what I need to do to become a better diver and pratcie,pratice,pratice.

If you wanna dive anytime, please PM me. I am thinking of going next weekend.

Eric

Joe R. Like Uncle Pug mentioned, I hope you're still smiling.

Going through the questions that you said should be running through your mind it sounds like the same questions that every diver should be thinking about. I know I'm not as good at that as I should be but many of the DIRF threads are getting me to think more about that stuff when I dive.

You mentioned that no one passed. Does this mean its over or do you get to keep working on it until you obtain the certification that you are after?

Joe R. once bubbled...
Humble pie...by the ton! Took the dir tek I from Aug. 12th-16th. None of us passed. I thought I was a 'good' diver. Now I know what a good diver really is. //snip//
The fact that I have nearly 600 ocean dives was secondary (thirdary?) The Gue guys said they often have instructors with thousands of dives who can not do it. Its easy to get sedentary in our skills. They gave me a wake up call and next time I'll be prepared. Environment, Equipment, Team! Argggh,Wake me up!

Click to expand...

Hello Joe;

I wish you all the best and a heads up for next time.

At least you know that with basically any other agency, you would have passed. Even if you would have REALLY sucked (what I don't believe that you did at all!) and if you had, a "well-meaning" instructor would have said: "Well, you will practice later and you are a good guy anyway here is the c-card". There are many of those out there and there is probably nothing really wrong with it who would have passsed your group.

One of our guys (NYC Tech 1, week earlier) was told by Andrew by the end of the second day that there is absolutely no way that he could pass this time.

But instead of quitting, he continued to participate and trying to learn as much as possible from the rest of the class. The skill that you learn are way more important than just the certification.

That's at least how I see it.

Our buddy realized that he is at least a year away from passing, but I think with his willingness to learn, he may be much earlier able to pass.

We had many difficulties in our group that ate a lot of the time and AG couldn't complete the classroom the way he would have preferred and, although we did get on the boat, we knew that some failed and some have to take the last two days to pass.

So, Bill and I will go to Seattle for two days and finish our requirements towards the end of September. Trace will go at a later date and the rest have to retake the entire course sometimes next year.

At least you know one thing: If AG passes you... then you know you know your crap! :doctor:

However, since you guys are the "Boston-Tech-Party" maybe we all can organize some training and fun dives together, ... maybe meeting in Connecticut, half way or so?

BTW, did you guys ever dove Candlewood lake? Discovered buildings etc?

Let me know

Udo

Thanks for all the encouraging pointers. I have two buddies that I am continuing to practice these skills with. We even used a line for a 60' lobster dive! Certainly made it easy to get back to our anchore but it really is a little overkill in this area. I got my xl jet fins,springs which added to my trim (and frog kick). I figure it'll be next year before I 'try again'. They just found the side wheeler Portland off our coast. I'm sure they'll have it surrounded by electrified uw fencing and attack dolphins by the time I get to 'that' depth.
No, none of us got to the helium dives (yet). We plan on using what we have on shallow dives. (maybe we could just fill a couple of water bed mattresses and let them go at night with cyalume sticks and...)