What's with those GUE divers wearing wrist compass'?

[oceancurrent]

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.

[maxguru]

Maybe it's just the way it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QuwPeH9P7Y

m

[TraceMalin]

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.

[bent]

Having taken GUE-F three times, GUE Tech 1 twice, and GUE Tech 2 once, I have an opinion on this matter.

Did you fail fundies twice? How come?

[TraceMalin]

Did you fail fundies twice? How come?

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.

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.

[oceancurrent]

I figured I didn't need GUE anymore. Diving was more fun without it.

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!

[bent]

... 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.

Wow, usually people make sure to wright super positive reports about gue classes.
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.

[OFG-1]

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.

[TraceMalin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU

[TraceMalin]

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!

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.

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.