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Friday
24Apr

GUE Tech 2, April 2009 

DateFriday, April 24, 2009 at 1:27PM

Dan MacKay was in Victoria this week to teach a GUE Tech 2 course held at Beyond Deep Diving.  The conditions top side for the week were excellent, while underwater visibility averaged about 5'.  The two students were Kim Anderson and myself, and Guy Shockey was a big help shooting the video for the week.

For Kim and I it had been a relatively long stretch between our Tech 1 in 2006 and this course.  Some things, like the standards, had changed a little while other things, like the training materials, had improved in leaps and bounds.  

The course spanned five days with the first two days consisting of skills dives and the last three days consisting of experience dives.  There were two apparent foci of the training dives.  The first was ascending through the water column with precision while moving bottles around and making gas switches.  The second was the nine valve failures covered in Tech 1.  All three experience dives are done utilizing a bottom stage and two decompression gasses.  These three dives are progressive starting with 21/35, then 18/45 and finally ending with 15/55.  

Any GUE Tech 1 diver preparing for a GUE Tech 2 course will want to master the Tech 1 level skills while keeping buoyancy within a plus or minus 18" window and trim within 20% of perfect.  This really is the best focus for pre-course preparation, as well as gaining the experience at the Tech 1 depth level.

Unfortunately I woke up on day five with a nasty head cold and was not able to do the last expereince dive.  Because there were only two of us in the course Kim was not able to do the dive either.  So we will anxiously await Dan's return in July to finish up and with any luck will have some better visibility.

Goodluck to Alan and Josey on their GUE Tech 2 next week!

Chris Fenton

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Monday
20Apr

GUE Updates

DateMonday, April 20, 2009 at 9:44PM

Greetings,

As i have already mentioned, GUE has been putting a lot of work into producing solid written materials this year, and some of those materials are only available to Quest members. A couple in particular that I feel would be worth the membership alone are "Standard Operating Procedures", and "Valve Failure Identification and Resolution

"Standard Operating Procedures" gives you the current standardized method of GUE diving procedures, and will benefit, the upcoming fundamentals diver as much as the Tech II diver. It has everything from S-drill to bottle rotations, and is broken down step by step, with roles for all team members involved in the drill.

GUE has also added videos of demonstration quality skills, at the fundamental level for viewing. These are the same videos, that you will or would have seen durning a fundamentals course. Very good reference for brushing up, or getting prepared for that upcoming fundamentals class. 

"Valve Failure Identification and Resolution" is a complete reference of the GUE standardized method of managing manifold failures. As with the SOP manual it gives the roles for all members in the team. I would highly recommend anyone who is looking into technical or cave training get their hands on a copy of this previous to training, and have a good understanding of the procedures necessary, since a large part of Tech/Cave training is managing manifold failures.

Also for those interested in DPV training the DPV level 1 materials are now available for download.

 

Alan

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Monday
30Mar

GUE Spring/Summer Course Schedule

DateMonday, March 30, 2009 at 8:42AM

Hi Everyone,

We have a very exciting first half of the year for the GUE/DIR community. There are going to be a lot of "firsts", as well as a fairly historic moment for GUE training in Canada. GUE has been putting a lot of work into their written materials this year, and the results are very positive, and I would highly recommend that everyone check out the new Recreational level 1 manual "Beginning With the End in Mind", by Jesper Burglund. Along with the Rec 1 program GUE has introduced some programs this year which include the DPV curriculum, and I am proud to say that we will be taking part in the first two DPV 1 courses in Canada this July!

Mosshead Warbonnet - Whytecliff

GUE has also introduced multiple smaller more focused courses, such as Doubles, and Drysuit. The one course that I am quite excited about is the GUE primer. This will be a great tool for introducing divers to the GUE system, and paired with a dive shop that rents GUE compliant equipment this will give the GUE curios diver a very affordable, and convenient means to GUE training. Also being a non-certification course, thus eliminating the stress of not passing, and assuming the student will be able to rent the equipment needed, we have just eliminated the two main reasons people hold off on GUE training.

Now on to the really exciting part! Some of you may not know that Dan MacKay has earned a position on the GUE training council, and is now a recreational and technical instructor trainer! Following this development is the first ever GUE Fundamentals ITC in Canada which four Canadian GUE instructor interns will take part in. Two of which are from the west cost- Guy Shockey and Alan Johnson, and the two other interns from Ontario - Corey Philips, and Steve Blanchard. Scheduled for May 10th-16th these seven days will be very chalanging, and very rewarding. With hard work and dedication we could have four new GUE instructors in Canada by the end of 2009!

New Stages for Tech II

Some other news worth mentioning is that in late April DIR Project members will be participating in back to back GUE Tech 2 courses. One will be held in Victoria, and in attendance will be Kim Anderson, and Chris Fenton. Following this will be GUE Tech 2 Vancouver which will be hosted by IDC, participating will be Josey Goodin, Alan Johnson and Michael Depaula from Japan.

July also holds lots of exciting courses as well. These include a GUE Tech 1 course in Victoria, as well several GUE courses hosted by IDC these include: GUE Fundamentals, GUE Tech 1, and back to back GUE DPV Level 1 in late July early August.

It's an exciting time for dive training in Canada, and the future looks bright and full of potential.

Alan

 

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Monday
02Mar

Announcing the Shipwreck Research & Exploration Project

DateMonday, March 2, 2009 at 7:04PM

Over the past several months Jeremy Hoey, Guy Shockey, and Mark Gottfried, and I have been working on plans for an ambitious project that will be open to all members of The DIR Project.


Today we are very excited to announce the Shipwreck Research and Exploration Unit (SREU).

 

The SREU's mandate will be to research, (re)discover, dive and document the many shipwrecks of British Columbia. We hope, and encourage, all DIR Project members to participate.

 

The SREU's work will be broadly split into four areas:

 

  1. Academic and historical research: this will be an ongoing endeavour utilizing a wide array of historical document sources.
  2. Field Research: where historical research provides us with plausible leads, we will then seek to pinpoint the location of wrecks through sidescan sonar, magnetic anomaly detection and in water scooter-aided searches.
  3. Exploration & Surveying: once wrecks have been accurately located, we will send dive teams to explore, survey, and document them with video and photo.
  4. Documentation: the results of our research, exploration and surveying will be organized and made available to the public via our searchable online database in the form of dive reports, videos, image galleries, 3D models, and more. Jeremy has created an amazing database to store all of the information we gather throughout the lifetime of this project. 

The Shipwreck Research and Exploration Unit will adhere to many of the same ethical principles that govern the Underwater Archaelogical Society of British Columbia. In particular: to document, but never remove, any artefacts from a wreck site without proper documentation/authorization. We encourage SREU members to join the UASBC and anyone interested in joining can do so at: http://www.uasbc.com/forms/joinusform.cfm

 

This is a big undertaking, and one that will require volunteers with a wide array of abilities and interests. We have a chance to do something really special here, so we welcome and encourage everyone to participate!

 

Safe dives,

 

Chris Fenton

 

We will be making more announcements soon as we organize our first field expeditions. Until then, for additional information, please visit the SREU page.

 

If you would like to volunteer, or if you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, please email Chris Fenton.

 

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Thursday
19Feb

Florida cave trip updates

DateThursday, February 19, 2009 at 12:39PM

Hi folks!

We've been having a great time here in Florida, and the days are flying by. We've been posting regular trip reports, so if you're interested in what we've been up to, check out our updates:

Day 1: Peacock Springs
Day 2: Ginnie Springs
Day 3: Little River and Peacock Springs
Day 4: Madison Blue Springs

Happy diving!

Jeremy, Kim, Chris, Jehannine and Sonia 

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