In the mean time a number of our divers have gone through the UASBC taught Intro to NAS and NAS 1 curriculum.  This has given us the opportunity to learn about underwater archaeology, survey techniques, and to get some experience doing simple surveys.  In July of 2009 our team had its first success in this partnership when we physically located a target that was believed by the UASBC to be a ship in 240 feet of water.  A team of our divers, Mark Gottfried and Ray LeFrense, executed a successful dive onto what turned out to be an intact scuttled wooden sailing ship.  

In October of 2009 the UASBC Board confirmed support for a joint project to conduct a simple survey and video documentation of another wreck target in 240 of water.  This project will take place over a two day period.  In preperation for this our team will be conducting a survey project on a well known shallow wreck in Deep Cove, Victoria in February.

We are excited about the opportunity to take part in an archaeological project.  We hope that this will be the first in a long series of successful projects working with the UASBC.

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

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

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

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.

 

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 

Jake Enjoying Whytecliff

This particular course has been split up into two segments. The first of two was held on February 16-19th, which just finished up this afternoon. The second installment will be taking place some time in July. These three days mainly consisted of class room lecture due to some paper work that needed to be taken care of prior to in water activity, and also that Jake turned out to be the first person to register for a Rec 1 class. :-)

Going over Valve Failures The first two days consisted of very thorough lectures on Physics, Physiology, Dive planning, and Decompression to name a few (for a complete list of academic topics covered check the GUE website). Dan's ability as an instructor, and ability to articulate inspires me every time I sit in on one of his classes.

After two days of lectures i think Jake and Ness were ready to hit the water, but not before some land drills. Dan ran them through all the valve failures and Gas switching before we left for Whytecliff. After battling with traffic, and a few laughs about somebody named Diedrich, and his or her affiliation with me, we arrived at Whytecliff. I feel that I should let you all know that Whytecliff is Jake's favorite dive site of all time, and he never wants to dive anywhere else again.

Marc Hall was Interning as a Tech 1 Instructor After pre-dive checks, and briefing they hit the water. The first dive was valve drill, S drill, find 80 feet and make a mid water ascent with 30 second stops at each 10 foot interval with another 30 seconds ascending to the next 10 foot interval. Jake and Ness fired this out with no problems, and I got the video to prove it! The next dives got progressively harder with adding a gas switch at 70 feet, and shooting a bag from 70 feet after the gas switch, all done very well by Jake and Ness.

Ness making good use of the water column

After the dives today things look quite promising for these two upcoming Tech 1 divers, and i look forward to having two more solid individuals to explore BC diving with!

Great job guys!

Alan

Jehannine and Sonia are old hands in the florida cave system, so they'll be giving the rest of us the benefit of their wisdom and experience for the next week.

We'll be bringing you daily updates on our Dive Reports page starting Sunday, when we'll start our diving in the Peacock system. Stay tuned!

Taking the class this time are DIR Project members Kim Buschmann, Libby Knight, Manfred Lippe, Bill O'Brian and Richard Parker. 

Best of luck, folks - have a great time!

Why? Because the old website wasn't very flexible. It looked nice, but it was an awful lot of work to maintain. 

This new site is built on technology that makes it vastly easier to add and manage content. It incorporates easy-to-use blogs, FAQs, Image Galleries, and much more. 

All DIR Project Members will have their own logins so they can access members-only features. And the maintenance of the site can now be handled by several editors, so the site will stay fresh and relevant.

So please have a look around. Let us know what you think in the comments below. And keep checking back as the site continues to grow and evolve.

Save dives,

~Jeremy