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I've never understood why GUE divers wear a wrist compass. I get it in Mexico where you might surface and need to find your way back in the jungle. But other than that it's useless for survey, and you're not finding your way out of a cave with it. Is it just a gimmick?
personally, I've not used it as a primary navigation tool in cave, but have used it to confirm my mental map after passing through twisty bits. haven't done tech side, so cant speak for those cases.
I do use it regularly in lower viz open water, and that's good enough for me to have it as part of standard kit. hate faffing with buttons on the dive computer if i can avoid it.
I thought everyone knew this. It is used primarily as a navigation tool/aid in the Ginnie Springs parking to get to the spring run in periods of extreme low visibility when the entrance is obscured by partying campers and tubers.
Why didn't I think of that? I live here!!Quote:
Originally Posted by macado
I always wear a wrist compass and don't have gue training.
As I'm learning a cave I use it to confirm tunnel directions
I also use it to give a point of reference.
It's useful during semi blow outs.
Why wouldn't you wear a wrist compass, that's a better question.
I use it to help get a general direction and orientation of the cave. Its probably overkill, but I like doing it.
As the de facto GUE ambassador on this board, I would like to hear your arguments against wearing a compass.
If you can make a good point, I'll bring it up at the next meeting at the compound and we might change that rule.
I too would like to hear your arguments about wearing a wrist compass. I have never dove Florida caves, but in Mexico as mdax said, its a good tool to help familiarize yourself with the cave. I'm not GUE either, Just something Ive always done.
The ONLY time I've ever used a compass in a cave was for mapping (dry), it isn't like you have a cave map with you when your diving. I minimally use a compass when I'm openwater diving, it is almost always natural navigation, though it makes sense to have one in openwater for orienting while submerged (when required).Quote:
Originally Posted by Dominic
I won't provide arguments for or against using a compass, that is a personal decision,but I tend to subscribe to minimalism, if you don't need it, don't take it. What I will share is a conversation with a group of GUE divers we had several years ago. Since this wasn't on a public forum,but a casual conversation over picnic table pontificating, they admitted carrying the compass was a compulsion due to being a required kit item,but none said they ever used it for any type of navigation. Their basic point was cave navigation and lines allowed locomotion in that cave, and a compass would be handy if off the line in lights out or silt out, which would render the compass useless. There is a story I recall where a compass did save a team from demise. A group laying line and surveying lost the end of a line that wasn't anchored. They did a reverse shot of their survey data and found the line,but there are a couple factors, having compass shots and clear water.
Great point, Kelly. I used to bring along a compass in caves for this unlikely scenario where I end up lost and any clue could make a difference. Never had to use it for navigation except for mapping and the occasional open water swim to a spring entrance in near reversal conditions. These days, with dive computers including a reasonable digital compass feature, I no longer see a benefit for dragging a standalone compass into a cave on a typical dive.
Maybe it's just the way it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QuwPeH9P7Y
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Having taken GUE-F three times, GUE Tech 1 twice, and GUE Tech 2 once, I have an opinion on this matter.
Going back to the old days before pink camo wings and Jet Fins in a Crayola box of colors when everything was black (including the drysuit if you were a Diving Concepts fan) the only place a diver could see proof that there was a smidge of individuality was the compass. Not only was there no specific manufacturer and model, but it was also the only piece of equipment you could customize with bungee cords of any color. If you wanted orange bungee on your compass, by all things holy, you could have orange. Now, for those who might be thinking that the black, red, or blue DUI TLS350 might be a little splash of personal expression, you don't really see your drysuit much underwater other than the sleeves. So that compass (any of your choice), maybe with some bright bungee cord, was there in easy view if you dared to move your light off your left hand and temporarily hold it in your right to illuminate your last little reminder that you hadn't been completely assimilated by the Borg. You were still an individual.
Did you fail fundies twice? How come?Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
Short version: Workshop with AG (no pass or fail), then failed GUE-F course with Bob Sherwood because he was exceptionally anal in those days, then passed with Ed Hayes at the GUE-F level. Didn't complete Tech 1 (we ran out of gas and time) with AG, then passed Tech 1 & 2 with Bob after he got a girlfriend or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
In case you were interested in my whole journey with the organization, here goes...
The first time I took GUE-F, it was a 3-day workshop taught by Andrew Georgitsis and Michael H. Kane around 1999 - 2000. I thought I had excellent buoyancy control because I grew up at PDIC HQ and had worked as a dive guide in the Caribbean and the Keys. I could hang motionless in the water. No one ever said we had to dive like cave divers. I learned a lot in the course and set about mastering trim, buoyancy, and propulsion with no goal other than to have those skills - especially the backward kick. My boss at a scientific diving organization had enrolled several of us in the course. My friend Lori and I dedicated ourselves to training together. She was the first to figure out the backward kick and taught me. We did a whole dive in reverse to create muscle memory once we got it down.
The summer after 9/11, my boss enrolled us in Tech 1 with Andrew and Mike again. Mike was still interning and not a GUE instructor, yet. We had two groups. After the first day, Andrew was disappointed with the performance with everyone except me because I had practiced my arse off. He gave the groups a choice. They could stay in the course and waste everyone's time, or they could all drop out so I could buddy with Mike and complete Tech 1. Since Mike wasn't an instructor, it would be acceptable for standards for me to buddy with him. Everyone decided to waste my time. But by the 3rd day, Andrew liked what he saw with this other diver named John. He decided to pair us together. After we surfaced from a critical skills dive, Andrew exclaimed, "Right! I'm not depressed anymore! We can have a class now!" He focused on us while Mike set about teaching remedial fundies to the survivors after a guy dropped out. My boss talked his way back into our Tech 1 class which ended up delaying progress until we ran out of gas and time. We did the course at Dutch Springs with experience dives planned for wreck dives off NY/NJ. On our last dive, Andrew decided to dump my boss and just have John and I continue. But we didn't have enough gas left in our tanks... so that was it. Andrew told us to come to Seattle to finish up.
In the meantime, one of the guys who had to take remedial fundies began training with me. He was an NYPD ESU sniper. We didn't like each other much at first, but became great friends as we worked our butts off to get ready to finish Tech 1. We decided to find out how much of the GUE attitude and skills were super special and how much was just tech and cave training. We enrolled in TDI mixed-gas courses and NACD and NSS-CDS cave diving courses in 2001. He decided cave diving wasn't for him after intro, but it became my passion. I took a bunch of tech and cave courses from all the tech and cave agencies aside from GUE. I even did the SDI Solo course in caves with my TDI cave instructor. That was fun. I figured I didn't need GUE anymore. Diving was more fun without it. The company I was working for went out of business when the boss got into hot water with the feds over a Ponzi scheme he was convicted of in his real Wall Street job. We had no idea that anything nefarious was going on in our world of underwater archaeology. We wore board shorts and drysuits and the other guys in the building wore suits. I went back to being a lifeguard beach supervisor and scuba instructor.
Then, I somehow found myself taking the new GUE-F certification course (GUE was teaching it as a course rather than a workshop) with Bob Sherwood. My buddy for the course was an experienced trimix and cave diver. We failed because there was a 3-foot tech window. Bob had placed a double-ender at 25 feet on an upline unknown to us. We didn't hear him say to go up to 25 feet after doing skills at 30 feet. We had to do a time-controlled descent to 30 feet, perform helicopter turns left and right, backward kick, basic 5, valve, and s-drills, deploy a DSMB and do a time-controlled ascent in which was thrown an OOG. During our video eval Bob pointed out that we were indeed within a 3-foot window at 30 feet, but that was 5 feet more than 25, so we failed a tech pass. He had also pulled my bag out of my pocket at 10 feet and I ignored it figuring if I stowed it, we'd blow our timing. Every timed run we were within 3 seconds. That dive Mike was leading, and we surfaced to the second!
I immediately cleaned up the bag at the surface. BZZZ! Thanks for playing. Fail.
The next opportunity to pass came with Ed Hayes. He had been new student in a team that began GUE-F right behind our fundies class with AG in that first workshop. We met them in the hotel as we were leaving and they were arriving. Bob was in Egypt, but gave the okay for Ed to run my evaluation. Ed was chewing out the performance of another team when I swam out to the platforms at Dutch Springs to be evaluated. Hearing his tirade, I borrowed a line from the movie "Real Genius" I had once used on my college lacrosse coach when he was angry. "Ed, I'm only saying this because I care. There are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market today that are just as tasty as the real thing." He grabbed my harness and pulled me nose to nose. "That was funny. That was really f'in funny." I was teamed with some guy I had never met until that moment. We did the evaluation and I passed.
I was done with GUE.
Or, so I thought.
I was training a USMC Force Recon sniper (I attract snipers) named Craig to be a PDIC instructor. He had been a PADI divemaster in Australia and had also become a GUE diver. He wanted to make sure he passed Tech 1 on the first go and knew I had solid skills. He offered to pay for my class to be his buddy because he was going to move to Wyoming and figured finding GUE training buddies in Wyoming wouldn't be easy. We decided to set up a freediving class with Craig and Bob Sherwood as my students to help offset some of Craig's costs. They surprised themselves that they could dive to 100 feet by the end of the course (bottom of Dutch Springs). We left the parking lot of Dutch and drove to Cape Vincent, New York, to begin Tech 1. We passed with flying colors after 5 days of class.
I was now done with GUE.
Or, so I thought.
A guy named Tim wanted to pass Tech 2 on the first go. He was going to medical school and wanted to get it out of the way. He offered to pay for my Tech 2 course to be his buddy. We passed.
I was now done with GUE.
Or, so I thought.
I was offered a free GUE Rebreather course to buddy with a buy for training on the JJ-CCR. I was enrolled in that class when I suffered DCS in 2018 two weeks before the course. That DCS story is a novel in itself, but it cost me the use of my right eye until surgery last week. I returned to freediving after I got my balance back 2.5 years later, and I just returned to recreational diving this past summer. I'm making plans to go CCR, and I'm hoping to return to cave diving after my winter job at Vail Resorts ends in the spring.
But if it wasn't for GUE, I would not have enjoyed nearly 2 decades of cave diving, and the amazing people who love the sport. In hindsight, it is the people that makes cave diving so special.
And you still took a bunch GUE courses over and over again for levels that you already were competently trained and experienced at? And who in his right mind would pay double an already hefty course fee for somebody else to come along so that they could not get flunked out? Students getting axed when they don't bring the right buddy along or after being forced to play some sort of twisted hunger game? Sheesh!Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
Wow, usually people make sure to wright super positive reports about gue classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
If I spend 4 days and a grand and instructor told me I failed because I did the skill correctly at the wrong depth, I'd be pissed. No wonder so many people don't pass if that's how the class is conducted.
If anything it was the instructors fault for not communicating clearly that the skill must performed at what depth.
Soooo, you thought you could get out but kept getting sucked back in enough times that you started to like it. My uncle Red was married 5 times, it sounds very familiar.
The standards didn't allow students to buddy with an instructor so a one-on-one situation with your instructor evaluating you wasn't an option. You needed a buddy or a team that could help or hamper your performance depending on their skills. Both guys who offered to pay my way had wives who were physicians. I guess money was less of an issue than just getting it done so the wives could get their spouses back from obsessive practice.Quote:
Originally Posted by oceancurrent
IMO the standards for passing courses have relaxed since I did GUE-F and Tech 1. I thought our Tech 2 perfomance could have been better but by then Bob was compassionate. :)
I think things have relaxed a bit from what I experienced in the early days. It was almost like being hazed to join a frat. It made me a better instructor, but if I had been looking to just dive caves and trimix, it would have held me back. I dated an NSS-CDS instructor and she had to deprogram me. We were diving at Ginnie one evening and I accidentally knocked my grape Powerade off a picnic table with the cap off. Rich Courtney came bounding over saying, "Trace, just let the Kool-Aid spill out." Both my girlfriend Cristina and Rich had a good laugh about that. I wasn't even that cultic about the agency. They managed to assimilate Michael Menduno, and he coined the term. Bob Sherwood became one of my best friends, but I think I'm excommunicated from the organization and only marginally welcome in EE.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
That's is exactly what my impression of gue has been and still is. It probably relaxed a bit as the bs you're describing is was cutting too much into earnings. The 25' vs 30' instructor basically scammed you and apparently wanted you to fail for some reason to begin with.Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
I don't know why say it made you a better instructor, it's highly unprofessional what you have experienced.
I've heard more stories like these over the years, but never online. I think the issue is that when you take a gue class and don't fawn over it, you'll get attacked.
I guess that's a joke.Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
You cant pass judgment until you hear both sides of the story. To claim its highly unprofessional without knowing Bob?s side is dumb.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If this was a cds instructor instead of a gue guy, you'd be all over this, Richard. People need to stop putting everything gue on a pedestal. It's just scuba diving... there is no special sauce or magic trim tricks.Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
What Trace writes is much more inline with my real-world experience than the 200 fundi class reports written by freshly backed super tec-divers.
Nevermind. Theres no point in trying to explain my point further.
There is some interesting history. Cultish- perhaps elevated to that level by some of the more extreme zealots. I remember being called on a couple occasions to guide at a couple sites that were guide only. The person on the other end would ask was I a GUE/DIR diver. When the answer was no, I dove Hogarthian, the answer was not interested. This didn't offend me, it meant you lost the opportunity to see a great cave. I recall cave diving in the era where it was a gear configuration free for all, which meant butt mounting the primary or stuffing the long hose versus breathing off it, was acceptable. These were safe, and used on many occasions, but the label of stroke would be attached , which was a frequent comment on the Tech-diver list. Sometimes a candid picture would appear on Jeff's (last name forgotten site) of someone walking to the water with this configuration. I became a fan of the Hogarthian system which preached minimalism and streamlining , and DIR developed a little after that. The one thing I liked about Hogarthian versus DIR was that the system could be improved and innovation developed by anybody,but DIR change was limited to only a select very few. So how does this related to the compass. GUE divers have this as a required kit item, even thought they many never use it, Hogarthian would say if you don't need it, leave it behind. The question is having or not having a compass not safe, that can be only answered by the individual. made 1400 cave dives only using a compass for surveying,but then again I did get a called a stroke on a few occasions :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
I agree with this. The Hogarthian approach is great and makes a lot of sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop
I even think the early DIR videos with George like the DIR 3 video were great and made a lot of sense. I watched the DIR 3 video again recently (it's still online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD4K0SzZijI) and it's so much better than all the marketing horseshiet on youtube and facebook these days. It's like they were actually trying to explain their logic instead of sales people regurgitating stuff they've been told.
The issue is when a few people take a good idea or philosophy (not only in diving) and make a business/religion out of it who's real aim is to make as much money as possible from it.
I met Bill Main at Ginnie when he was testing a triangular wing. He told me about his time trials testing the design. It wasn't performing as one would expect, he said. He transitioned from the faults with the wing to what he discovered about the drag of a single hose in the breeze. Then he came over to the table where I had my gear and went over the finer points of DIR vs. his philosophy, the pros and cons, the compromises, and what he liked and didn't like about some of my stuff. Priceless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Jessop
He became one of my best friends. We did a TV pilot together. His side would be he never failed anyone, he just asked us if we thought we met GUE standards in a way that suggested our answer wasn't supposed to be yes. Also, he knew I could be even better than the standards and rode my arse until I was. It made me a better instructor. I became a tech and cave instructor because of the KSA's I developed after meeting the higher bar he set.Quote:
Originally Posted by rddvet
Sounds like he also knew he could get another 2 grand out of you guys for another fundi class.Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
:-D, sorry, can't help it.
See bent?s response below. My comment wasnt meant to be derrogatory to you or even specificcaly about you. As you can see bent has a hard on for anything gue. I think anyone that knows anything about bob sherwood knows he?s not failing people to make more money. Comments like bents are part of the reason why the attitudes towards gue persist. I wont deny that some bad attitudes and bad seeds within gue created the distaste for gue many years ago. But things have changedQuote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
I?m sure the next thing bent will go to is that I?m just a die hard gue?er and thats where my comments arise from. But in actuality I?m more like you. I wholeheartedly agree with many of the principles of gue. But theres some I dont fully care for or agree with. I chose to add gue training to push my skills to the best they can be. But I would actually consider myself ?gue lite?.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Evaluations were free. If someone didn't pass, he or she just showed up at the end of a GUE-F course Bob was teaching and did the dog & pony show of fundies skills until he or she passed at the rec or tech level sought.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
I'm pretty sure nobody has changed their opinion on gue or whatever else because I posted about it on here. There are only about 8 people on here reading anyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by rddvet
Letting someone fail a class because a skill was done at slightly different depth is BS, doesn't matter what agency or who the instructor is. Find me one person who wouldn'd think that's bs. Well, other than Trace.
BTW: I also dont like iantd, ise, ssi, xdeep, Ford, hollis, Elon Musk, facebook and corona virus. It just looks as if I dislike gue more because it comes up more and people get more angry. I just took the ccr class with an ex gue but still full on DIR guy and I got along with him just fine (of course I had to tune out alot :)).
Quote:
Originally Posted by rddvet
My Tech 2 buddy who was in medical school liked to drink 1/2 diet Coke and 1/2 regular Coke at restaurants or when getting fountain drinks. He ordered that concoction at the Springs Diner when diving with BAUE divers. They were going to the Ballroom at Ginnie, and they wouldn't let him dive because he consumed a diuretic. He was shocked. "For a 50-foot dive?"
I think the way the organization is viewed depends on the instructors and the leadership in a particular area. I've compared it to Christianity. JJ was like Jesus and the WKPP was like the 12 apostles and the earliest church community. GI3 was like John the Baptist crying out in the Internet wilderness. Andrew Georgitsis was like the Apostle Paul traveling around teaching teams that formed their own churches. So one's experience depended upon the interactions with GUE divers, instructors, and those who created teams like Foxturd and groups like BAUE. I had extremely positive experiences with JJ, Mark Messersmith, and David Rhea. Casey McKinlay taught me to scooter his XK-1 and that was one of the best experiences in my life with Casey and John Rose. Of course, they were WKPP and it wasn't an official class. I had extremely negative experiences with northeast GUE divers but not with Bob Sherwood and Ed Hayes. I love those guys. I've had mostly negative experiences with California GUE divers with the exception of Karim Hamza.
Oh, I thought the way they did things was definitely BS. The only time I passed on a free experience was when I undid the trailer hitch for a girl at a hotel in Fayetteville, NC, who was a hooker and offered me a freebie for being a gentleman. She had asked other men to help her but no one did. I'll always remember her room number: 1069. But I figured it's a PITA to hook up a drysuit P-valve without gonorrhea or herpes. I just ordered pizza and watched hockey. She was cute, though, in a trashy heroine skinny sort of way.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
Thats it. You?re getting an xdeep stealth and a gift certificate to ee for christmasQuote:
Originally Posted by bent
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Accurate description of Bill. I remember on a dive with Bill he showed me a low profile Dring he "discovered" and like it for how well it was streamlined. "Discovered" because he noticed it on someone's gear and had to try it and test it. What I liked was the basic system design was always open to innovation and upgrade, and greatly appreciated modifications with feedback.Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
At this point, I can't ever be seen in public with anything xdeep. I already told my buddies, if they find me dead with xdeep gear, it was murder and they need to call the cops.Quote:
Originally Posted by rddvet
I worked for XDeep once but all my gear is Halcyon, ScubaPro, and Dive Rite.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
What do you mean? You worked for the US distributer or do they have branch office in the US?Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
You obviously have failed bible study numerous times. I don't recall John the Baptist being described as a giant inflamed arsehole.Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
Funny.... There was a parody organization on the internet (around the tech-diver list era) called the Greater Organization of Divers (G.O.D)- guess who proclaimed themselves as the most anointed member?Quote:
Originally Posted by TraceMalin
I worked the booth for XDeep with Sebastian Jastrzebski at the cave conference in Marianna.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
I would imagine John the Baptist's delivery wasn't always received well by many 1st-century Palestinian Jews.Quote:
Originally Posted by OFG-1
I can’t tell if you’re sincere or just trolling. So I’m going to assume good faith. But a universal idea in cave diving is that you “dive the cave, not the line.” The line is only a navigational aid, and an emergency piece of kit to get you out of the cave in a loss of visibility. But you should always have a compass on you, easily accessible, and reference it on the fly on your way in, and on your way out, at every navigational decision at a minimum and more often perhaps. That way you know what the cave is doing. And if the cave starts doing something you don’t think it should be doing, you might stop and verify that you didn’t accidentally miss a blind tee or a visual jump or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fastest1
What's a blind tee?Quote:
Originally Posted by WFLS
Usually a tee buried in the sand. But also could be a tee in low visibility. Or a tee on a tie off where you only saw two lines. Usually not reinforced with line arrows.Quote:
Originally Posted by bent
For just cave diving, not actual exploration, a compass really serves no purpose at all and I would dare to say that those who claim they use them are actually really not, or only extremely rarely, especially in a silt out what use use compass then?
However for exploration a compass is a must, there is no way you can seriously hunt for going cave unless you gave a compass and know what direction to push.
Obviously for hand survey a compass on a survey slate is a must, unless you have an MNemo.
Great so the concensus seems to be that no one really knows.
Thank you all!
Correct. Just pick a dive computer that includes a digital compass function, pay attention to the orientation of the cave, and you are good for most any imaginable scenario. No need to carry a dedicated compass on typical cave dives.
In Mexico, you may need a compass just to find the mainline in an unfamiliar cave. The tip they gave you at the fill station was “it starts about 200 feet southeast from the cenote.” If you head off more south than southeast you may encounter a different mainline.
My experience as been that I just don?t use an electronic compass as much as I do a real one. Also, after I had a couple firmware issues with my Perdix computer I don?t always trust it.Quote:
Originally Posted by oceancurrent
Believe it or not, I know divers who claim their digital compass dive computer is more accurate than analogs. I don't buy it, personally. Nothing beats a Suunto wrist compass for exact navigation.
Then again, so far I haven't had much trouble finding my way around with the Shearwater when needed (mostly in open water) despite its clunkier precision. Most of the time it's not hard to correct for a +/- 15 degree error or whatever with natural navigation. So, I'd pen it down as good enough for general use.
Of course, I am not about to sell my Suunto, but I find myself rarely strapping it on these days.
My perdix is always the same as whatever other compass I have to compare it to. Seems to be just fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by oceancurrent
I reference my compass sometimes on cave dives, especially when I’m tryin to goin somewhere new. But I don’t take a separate one anymore except for a survey compass.