I first heard about the GUE Fundamentals course a few years ago and wondered why anyone needed to go back and learn
the basic skills of buoyancy, trim & propulsion.
So why did I end up doing the course? I am an experienced diver with 3000+ dives and a PADI Course Director.
After a lot of thought I realised that there is always something to learn and fine tune while diving and anyone who thinks they know everything they need to know is sorely mistaken. And unfortunately even experienced divers make mistakes or have problems underwater that they cannot fix even on ‘simple’ dives.
Part of this change of thought came from my new interest in cave diving; and the importance of trim and teamwork in this environment cannot be understated. These factors are also important in wreck diving and other dives where you may be pushing personal limits or experiences.
My other interest is photography and to be able to get close to a subject and then move away without flapping my arms, stirring up silt or scaring off the marine life would be awesome.
I may think I am a good diver (and in most cases I am) but improvements are always possible. As I lead my mate out of the cave in Mexico earlier this year I was extremely conscious of my body position and kicking style but as I relaxed, or got tired I could feel myself drop off kilter hoping he wouldn’t notice but of course he did and he told me off about it! Next time this won’t happen! Especially as I would like to do more challenging dives.
So last month I found myself signing up with Global Underwater Explorers and their Fundamentals Course with Jamie Obern from Tech Dive NZ.
The GUE Fundamentals Course starts of slowly – an idea of who GUE is, what the course entails, gear configurations & videos of the skills we are expected to perform.
The focus of the course varies from other agencies with teamwork being our first priority and actually performing the skills comes last.
Teamwork – awareness/communication/positioning
Buoyancy
Trim – relative to your environment
Skill
But to pass the course we were expected to complete the skills to within strict guidelines depending wether we were aiming on recreational or technical passes. These guidelines included how far our buoyancy and trim could change from our start positions.
And of course Jamie wants us to perform all these skills with FINESSE!
The class sessions passed smoothly – Jamie was easing us in gently before our pool session.
Our first water session went interestingly! Jamie only used the word finesse 3 times and never regarding our skills.
There are the basic 5 skills:
Reg Clear
Reg Swap – for tec configurations
Reg Deployment – with long hose
Mask Clear
Mask Removal & Replacement.
Remember these are all being completed in team formation with buoyancy, trim & FINESSE
We all had swimming forward down pat – swimming backwards was a lot more frustrating. Staring at the wall and willing yourself to move away from it doesn’t work as a technique. (We had an interesting session later in class lying across the desks practicing the proper technique)
Back to the class after lunch and time to discuss gas mixes, deco ascents and dive planning.
Our first sea dives were even more interesting than the pool – the surge didn’t help us stay in team formation at all, it took us 50mins to not complete 3 skills – valve drills, S drills and deco ascents (let’s just leave SMB’s to the next dive shall we). The second dive was smoother but still not a lot of FINESSE – as was definitely proven as we watched the video back at the shop! A video of your dive skills might not be your favourite thing to watch but it is the best way of seeing how you actually sit and move in the water. The video does not lie and you finally get to see your fins flapping behind you.
Our final dives were definitely challenging – especially in Kau Bay with no vis. The importance of teamwork is definitely proven in this environment. However we did get to review some of our favourite skills – back kicks and valve drills along with SMB deployment and horizontal deco ascents. Our attempts at air sharing combining with SMB’s & deco ascents is best left unmentioned, fortunately the vis was so poor there was no evidence caught on tape. Jamie placed our attempt well inside his top 5 ‘Epic Fails!’
This is why having had time to absorb all the information and practice some skills independently at the pool we are heading to the sea on Sunday for some team training.
Who would have thought that 4 simple skills (teamwork, buoyancy, trim and propulsion) would be such hard work and we would finish with still more to practice.
My biggest decision for Sunday will be picking just a few skills to focus on and practice.