I read this and said what? (btw, this is not a personal critique, just a financial consideration) :
"I took Fundies twice for 2 reasons:
1) I wanted to in order to get the most out of it, since I was really unprepared and distracted the first time around, and also it was not my type of teaching style
2) more than 6 months had passed before I got around to it, so my provisional expired."
This within 50-99 dives on top of whatever original OW training one may have had. In my region fundies would be between $1k-$2k so that's 2-4k worth of training within 100 dives and we're not even technical yet. I know for some financial considerations are not a factor but...
People post this kind of thing about GUE/UTD and no one bats an eye but someone needs to be aware of the optics for the majority of people struggling to enjoy a pastime on a limited budget.
First, I'd like to say that I don't really care if someone wants to or doesn't want to take Fundies. I think its good training but the vast majority of divers enjoy the sport without ever taking or even maybe hearing about GUE/Fundies.
Having said that, I thought I'd offer a couple of thoughts..
- People get hung up on this pass/provisional thing. For the vast majority of people, the value in this class is not getting a pass. A recreational pass gets you absolutely NADA, nothing, zilch. Well, maybe a brief ego trip. Other than that, the value is what you learn and what you take away as things to work on. In the case of the poster you were responding to, I can understand why that person wanted to go back - the first time through, things didn't sink in because the person was distracted. I would say that the majority of people should be able to go to fundies once and that would be enough. They might walk out of the class with more practice/effort required to reach their personal goals but they should have enough information to reach their goals outside of class/additional instruction.
- I don't know where the "left coast of Canada" is but I know that in BC, there are at least two instructors. Alan with IDC I think charges $700 in tuition for the class. GUE takes an additional $75 for registration. Of course, there are other expenses with taking any class. For example, in my open water class, I had to pay money to stay at a motel over the weekend for my open water check out dives.
- BTW, people sometimes add the costs of new/replacement gear as part of the class costs. I guess that is valid although personally, I kind of look at like gear costs are not part of the class. They are part of the costs of the diving you want to do. As an example, when I took tech 1, I had a to get a deco bottle. I need the bottle because of the dives I want to do not because of tech 1. Anyone who is taking fundies because they want to dive in "that way" is not incurring gear costs because of fundies. They are incurring costs because they want to dive that way. Anyway, whether I am making sense or not, if you don't want to pay for the gear for whatever reason, some instructors rent the gear that is required or the class.
The net point I am trying to make above is this... there is no reason that Fundies, especially when there is a local instructor need to get beyond $1000. Even if you don't already own all the required gear.
Now, $1000 is still a lot of money for just about all people. But for me, I would rather have used regs, used tanks, jetfins bought through ebay, rental backplate, etc. and save the money for quality training be it fundies or something else. Every month, we see at least several report in scubaboard where some diver gets into some bad incident. Frequently, the diver's lack of training/lack of skill is at the very least a contributing factor if not the primary cause. People don't bat an eye when some open water diver is being sold a $1000 titanium regulator or some $1200 air integrated wireless computer. For me, the money is better spent buying instruction from a quality instructor.
