My meager attempt at a trip report, in the spirit of recent complaining about not enough trip reports posted here. I posted this on the GUE forum and got not a single response, which reinforces the point about not getting enough, well, reinforcement.
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DIR in Jersey? Yes, it can be done!
A Fundies-trained friend (who will doubtless see this post and comment soon) and I headed out this weekend to break our quarry rut. Seas were calm by local standards (2-3ft swells headed out, picking up to ~4ft whitecaps on the way in). Vis was pretty good (15-20ft on the first dive, dropping to a little under 10ft by the second dive). Best of all, the waters were warm, warm, warm (67F!).
Now, I know Jersey has a reputation for being hostile to anything smelling of George Irvine, and for having risky shenanigans be the order of the day. But what we experienced was simply good hospitality. We didn't rub our diving philosophy in anyone's faces, and they didn't get in ours. My teammate even had blue H's all over his webbing, and no one commented.
We just tried to be respectful of our boatmates' experience, and received the same in return. Honestly, aside from the endemic solo diving, there wasn't really anything to complain about, safety-wise. I know, that's a little bit like the old joke, "Aside from the intermission Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you like the play?" Nevertheless, everyone used appropriate gas management, redundant gas supplies, reasonable gas choices (as best I could tell, everyone had 32% for a 90ft dive), and appropriate ascent strategies (most everyone left the bottom at about the same time, and most everyone arrived at the surface at about the same time; we did stops starting at 50ft, and their ascent rates tended to be continuous but extremely slow, so overall the profiles weren't much different).
All-in-all, we had a lot of fun, got in some good diving, and were able to dive the way that we have found to be safe and comfortable and no one gave us any criticism at all about it.
So stop being afraid of Jersey and drop me a line and come dive some time ;-)
Best wishes,
Ari
P.S. While I have plenty of respect for experience, the weekend only served to strengthen my love for the GUE system. I was friends with my teammate but had never dove with him before. There was not a single hiccup, as our hand signals, gas management, general attitude towards diving/safety, and so forth were all entirely aligned. It was an impressive testament to the value of standardization, and the experience was vastly more relaxing than my last dives in the North Atlantic.
~~
DIR in Jersey? Yes, it can be done!
A Fundies-trained friend (who will doubtless see this post and comment soon) and I headed out this weekend to break our quarry rut. Seas were calm by local standards (2-3ft swells headed out, picking up to ~4ft whitecaps on the way in). Vis was pretty good (15-20ft on the first dive, dropping to a little under 10ft by the second dive). Best of all, the waters were warm, warm, warm (67F!).
Now, I know Jersey has a reputation for being hostile to anything smelling of George Irvine, and for having risky shenanigans be the order of the day. But what we experienced was simply good hospitality. We didn't rub our diving philosophy in anyone's faces, and they didn't get in ours. My teammate even had blue H's all over his webbing, and no one commented.
We just tried to be respectful of our boatmates' experience, and received the same in return. Honestly, aside from the endemic solo diving, there wasn't really anything to complain about, safety-wise. I know, that's a little bit like the old joke, "Aside from the intermission Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you like the play?" Nevertheless, everyone used appropriate gas management, redundant gas supplies, reasonable gas choices (as best I could tell, everyone had 32% for a 90ft dive), and appropriate ascent strategies (most everyone left the bottom at about the same time, and most everyone arrived at the surface at about the same time; we did stops starting at 50ft, and their ascent rates tended to be continuous but extremely slow, so overall the profiles weren't much different).
All-in-all, we had a lot of fun, got in some good diving, and were able to dive the way that we have found to be safe and comfortable and no one gave us any criticism at all about it.
So stop being afraid of Jersey and drop me a line and come dive some time ;-)
Best wishes,
Ari
P.S. While I have plenty of respect for experience, the weekend only served to strengthen my love for the GUE system. I was friends with my teammate but had never dove with him before. There was not a single hiccup, as our hand signals, gas management, general attitude towards diving/safety, and so forth were all entirely aligned. It was an impressive testament to the value of standardization, and the experience was vastly more relaxing than my last dives in the North Atlantic.
