Spokane Fundies Report – July 2007
My desire to improve my diving skills and begin my journey towards more technical diving led me to Spokane last weekend where Rick Inman (a board regular) and Atlantis Aquatics dive shop hosted Spokane’s first GUE Fundamentals Course. I had been wanting to attend a fundies class for quite some time, but it has been difficult for me to plan as I live in Montana and there’s not many options for GUE courses near by. Needless to say, I was excited when I learned that there was going to be one in Spokane – not really my back yard but still a workable distance. I might also add that I am in the restaurant and catering business and the summer is our primary season. Even though a class was being held relatively near by, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to swing it. Well, with some effort, a little bit of luck, and lots of support from my wife all of the cards fell into place and I was registered, official and on the roster. Dreams of perfect trim filled my nights -
The class started on Friday morning. Since I was kind of late getting my act together, I didn’t receive the course materials until Wednesday night. As I anxiously clicked on the link from GUE my bubble instantly burst and I realized how much material there was. I was even more overwhelmed half an hour later when I walked back in the office and the printer was still working away. Since it was only a day before the class, I sent a quick pm to Rick hoping for a little reassurance that it wasn’t necessary to have it all read – Well, no such luck. I believe his exact words were “all read and memorized.” I was pretty sure he was kidding, but we had never met, so just to be safe I did my best and got most of it read (unfortunately, I am not smart enough to retain all of it). Good thing we had a good instructor!
Thursday morning finally came and I left Bozeman at about 7am. I was up late Wednesday night reading the course materials in between gluing my new DIY pockets on my newly purchased drysuit. (Side note – I purchased a cheap drysuit in need of repairs off of ebay – as I’ll soon relate – you get what you pay for) I arrived in Spokane around noon. I met up with Rick at his office. He was hard at work editing some video footage from a recent tech class. The whole way over I was so excited about my drysuit that I couldn’t wait to try it out. I am very ready to leave my clammy, stinky, and cold wet suit to yesterday. Since I hadn’t had any practice in a drysuit I planned to spend the rest of Thursday in the water working out the kinks. I was a little nervous as I really wanted to take the class in my drysuit but I was expecting a very difficult class and I was concerned about my inexperience in a drysuit. Well my worries were completely for naught. After less than 10 minutes in the water I was able to pour a couple of gallons of water out of my suit. I thought there was nothing a new neck seal, some valve work, and about 6 tubes of aquaseal couldn’t fix. Boy was I wrong! I have to admit, I was kind of relieved.
I played around in the water for a little while longer and then decided it was time to head back. Rick and his wonderful wife Pricilla, had very graciously extended an offer to stay with them. Luckily for me one of the other house guests changed their plans at that last minute and my accommodations were upgraded from a tent in the back yard to a very comfy and nicely air conditioned room in the house. The class instructor, Steve White, was also staying with Rick. We made introductions and spent the rest of the evening chatting about diving. I unsuccessfully pried for tidbits and insight into tomorrow’s class; Steve is very skilled in keeping you in suspense.
DAY 1
Friday morning arrived and we headed to Atlantis Aquatics. Before I go any further, I feel it necessary to extend a huge thanks to Randal and gang of Atlantis. They gave us complete run of their class room and allowed us to fill our tanks over the weekend when they were closed; and all for the cost of only a few fills - and most of those on the honor system. I think most of us have seen the all too common “I’m better than you” macho attitude at many dive shops. Let’s just say that that doesn’t exist at Atlantis. The guys were all very helpful and very supportive. Thanks guys! Now, on to the class. Friday was all academic. We learned about GUE and what to expect from the class. We discussed what we needed to learn and be able to demonstrate for a pass. Late in the day we got out our equipment and Steve helped us fine tune our rigs. We discussed weighting, buoyancy, and fit. By the way, if any of you are looking for a v-weight, pm me. I know a master v-weight craftsman. I guarantee your v-weight won’t get confused with anyone else’s on the boat! Once we all had our back plates adjusted correctly we zip-tied our regulators on and starting doing s-drills. Let’s just say doing this drill correctly isn’t a no-brainer even on land. I was a little concerned that I was having trouble remembering all the correct steps when the only other thing I had to do was stand. Wait until I am trying to hold buoyancy, watching my buddies, watching the line, watching the time, etc. and you can see how quickly this can become a disaster.
Friday night I went to sleep visualizing the drills in my head. My many years as a competitive mogul skier taught me value and power of visualization and I figured it couldn’t hurt here. As the weekend played out, I don’t think my visualization hurt, but I’m not sure it helped much! Good thing the video had to be erased!
DAY 2
We all met on location on Saturday morning to realize we would be sharing the location with two or three other open water classes. No big deal – lake Cour d’Alene is huge and there’s plenty of room for all right? Well, apparently not, because our practice course was silted up once, twice, actually I think three times by the other classes. Our instructor did his best to kindly ask the other instructor to move their flight plan over a few feet to avoid our rope line, but I am pretty sure that much was lost in the under water communication as they just waved and proceeded on course. Oh well, the bottom is mostly sand and the viz was great so it really wasn’t a big deal. We started the dive with GUE EDGE, the mod “S” drill, and bubble check. We all got pretty good at this sequence as you do it before every dive. The first dive we swam the square working on fining, buoyancy, and communication. When it was time to ascend we attempted to hit our stops at 20 and 10 feet. Dive two was similar to dive one except we added helicopter turns, back kicks, and the basic 5. Because of how hard I heard the back kick to be, prior to the class, I diligently practiced. Well, as I am sure all of you who have taken fundies can relate, I only benefited in reinforcing bad habits. I was a slow learner on that, but by the end of the class I can honestly say I had several good back kicks. I can’t do it every time, and especially when I really need to back up, but I know when I am doing it right and I can now practice it effectively. We again attempted to hit our stops on the ascent but, I am not sure if we did any better than in dive one. The day concluded with more academics and some quite comical video review. (Do I really look that bad? You’re really gonna erase that video right?)
(continued below)
My desire to improve my diving skills and begin my journey towards more technical diving led me to Spokane last weekend where Rick Inman (a board regular) and Atlantis Aquatics dive shop hosted Spokane’s first GUE Fundamentals Course. I had been wanting to attend a fundies class for quite some time, but it has been difficult for me to plan as I live in Montana and there’s not many options for GUE courses near by. Needless to say, I was excited when I learned that there was going to be one in Spokane – not really my back yard but still a workable distance. I might also add that I am in the restaurant and catering business and the summer is our primary season. Even though a class was being held relatively near by, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to swing it. Well, with some effort, a little bit of luck, and lots of support from my wife all of the cards fell into place and I was registered, official and on the roster. Dreams of perfect trim filled my nights -
The class started on Friday morning. Since I was kind of late getting my act together, I didn’t receive the course materials until Wednesday night. As I anxiously clicked on the link from GUE my bubble instantly burst and I realized how much material there was. I was even more overwhelmed half an hour later when I walked back in the office and the printer was still working away. Since it was only a day before the class, I sent a quick pm to Rick hoping for a little reassurance that it wasn’t necessary to have it all read – Well, no such luck. I believe his exact words were “all read and memorized.” I was pretty sure he was kidding, but we had never met, so just to be safe I did my best and got most of it read (unfortunately, I am not smart enough to retain all of it). Good thing we had a good instructor!
Thursday morning finally came and I left Bozeman at about 7am. I was up late Wednesday night reading the course materials in between gluing my new DIY pockets on my newly purchased drysuit. (Side note – I purchased a cheap drysuit in need of repairs off of ebay – as I’ll soon relate – you get what you pay for) I arrived in Spokane around noon. I met up with Rick at his office. He was hard at work editing some video footage from a recent tech class. The whole way over I was so excited about my drysuit that I couldn’t wait to try it out. I am very ready to leave my clammy, stinky, and cold wet suit to yesterday. Since I hadn’t had any practice in a drysuit I planned to spend the rest of Thursday in the water working out the kinks. I was a little nervous as I really wanted to take the class in my drysuit but I was expecting a very difficult class and I was concerned about my inexperience in a drysuit. Well my worries were completely for naught. After less than 10 minutes in the water I was able to pour a couple of gallons of water out of my suit. I thought there was nothing a new neck seal, some valve work, and about 6 tubes of aquaseal couldn’t fix. Boy was I wrong! I have to admit, I was kind of relieved.
I played around in the water for a little while longer and then decided it was time to head back. Rick and his wonderful wife Pricilla, had very graciously extended an offer to stay with them. Luckily for me one of the other house guests changed their plans at that last minute and my accommodations were upgraded from a tent in the back yard to a very comfy and nicely air conditioned room in the house. The class instructor, Steve White, was also staying with Rick. We made introductions and spent the rest of the evening chatting about diving. I unsuccessfully pried for tidbits and insight into tomorrow’s class; Steve is very skilled in keeping you in suspense.
DAY 1
Friday morning arrived and we headed to Atlantis Aquatics. Before I go any further, I feel it necessary to extend a huge thanks to Randal and gang of Atlantis. They gave us complete run of their class room and allowed us to fill our tanks over the weekend when they were closed; and all for the cost of only a few fills - and most of those on the honor system. I think most of us have seen the all too common “I’m better than you” macho attitude at many dive shops. Let’s just say that that doesn’t exist at Atlantis. The guys were all very helpful and very supportive. Thanks guys! Now, on to the class. Friday was all academic. We learned about GUE and what to expect from the class. We discussed what we needed to learn and be able to demonstrate for a pass. Late in the day we got out our equipment and Steve helped us fine tune our rigs. We discussed weighting, buoyancy, and fit. By the way, if any of you are looking for a v-weight, pm me. I know a master v-weight craftsman. I guarantee your v-weight won’t get confused with anyone else’s on the boat!
Once we all had our back plates adjusted correctly we zip-tied our regulators on and starting doing s-drills. Let’s just say doing this drill correctly isn’t a no-brainer even on land. I was a little concerned that I was having trouble remembering all the correct steps when the only other thing I had to do was stand. Wait until I am trying to hold buoyancy, watching my buddies, watching the line, watching the time, etc. and you can see how quickly this can become a disaster. Friday night I went to sleep visualizing the drills in my head. My many years as a competitive mogul skier taught me value and power of visualization and I figured it couldn’t hurt here. As the weekend played out, I don’t think my visualization hurt, but I’m not sure it helped much! Good thing the video had to be erased!
DAY 2
We all met on location on Saturday morning to realize we would be sharing the location with two or three other open water classes. No big deal – lake Cour d’Alene is huge and there’s plenty of room for all right? Well, apparently not, because our practice course was silted up once, twice, actually I think three times by the other classes. Our instructor did his best to kindly ask the other instructor to move their flight plan over a few feet to avoid our rope line, but I am pretty sure that much was lost in the under water communication as they just waved and proceeded on course. Oh well, the bottom is mostly sand and the viz was great so it really wasn’t a big deal. We started the dive with GUE EDGE, the mod “S” drill, and bubble check. We all got pretty good at this sequence as you do it before every dive. The first dive we swam the square working on fining, buoyancy, and communication. When it was time to ascend we attempted to hit our stops at 20 and 10 feet. Dive two was similar to dive one except we added helicopter turns, back kicks, and the basic 5. Because of how hard I heard the back kick to be, prior to the class, I diligently practiced. Well, as I am sure all of you who have taken fundies can relate, I only benefited in reinforcing bad habits. I was a slow learner on that, but by the end of the class I can honestly say I had several good back kicks. I can’t do it every time, and especially when I really need to back up, but I know when I am doing it right and I can now practice it effectively. We again attempted to hit our stops on the ascent but, I am not sure if we did any better than in dive one. The day concluded with more academics and some quite comical video review. (Do I really look that bad? You’re really gonna erase that video right?)
(continued below)
