jadairiii
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I have been an avid diver since 1975 but never pushed the sport on my daughter, she was happy to paddle board and snorkel. When she came home from college this summer she told us that she would like to get scuba certified. Mind you, she had NEVER tried any of my scuba gear in the pool or out in the ocean, no "trust me" dives ever.
To me there was only one option, GUE Rec 1, I wanted her to have the best tools available if she was going to get certified. You have GUE instructors, that are exploration divers, teaching the new students to use basically same gear, gear configuration ,same skills and techniques that they use so they learn how it is done by exploration level divers from day one. Should the student decide later take more advanced training, there is no need to change gear or configuration. It does take more time and skill from the instructor, and student, but students are immensely better off. It was an intensive 6 days for her (and her buddy), morning to night and I had the good fortune to observe since I acted as "dive master", logistics person, boat monkey and sandwich maker for the 6 days.
By day 3, her trim was just about perfect, she and her buddy conducted the basic 5 drills and S drills within Tech perimeters (1 1/2 feet of target depth, recreational is 3 ft) , it was amazing to watch her adjust buoyancy, deal with problems, clean up after drills without ever touching the bottom or losing buoyancy control. She would adjust her wing as if she had been diving for 5 years, not one day. On day 5 conditions were not great, seas were rough and a "sporting" current on the reef, but there they went, like it was nothing, and their ascent on the down line at the end of the dive, in the current, was amazing, neither even held on to the line since their trim was so good.
I even felt bad once, during the SMB deployment drill, I thought her instructor would hand her is SMB/Spool, but instead, she went to her side pocket (which is not easy, its a tight pocket) and removed the SMB/spool I had put in there, it was a POS, but she removed it, cleaned up the pocket, attached the spool to the SMB and shot it to the surface without moving a bit. On the boat she did chide me a bit for my crappy SMB . She completed the course with great buoyancy skills, awesome trim, 3 different forward kicks, a backward kick and the ability to competently rescue herself and a buddy without ever losing buoyancy or trim. Not bad for a beginner.
I could go on and on but proof is in the picture, this is her, second day in open water. If you want to have that trim and control, not have your fins kicking the reef, then there is only one choice.
To me there was only one option, GUE Rec 1, I wanted her to have the best tools available if she was going to get certified. You have GUE instructors, that are exploration divers, teaching the new students to use basically same gear, gear configuration ,same skills and techniques that they use so they learn how it is done by exploration level divers from day one. Should the student decide later take more advanced training, there is no need to change gear or configuration. It does take more time and skill from the instructor, and student, but students are immensely better off. It was an intensive 6 days for her (and her buddy), morning to night and I had the good fortune to observe since I acted as "dive master", logistics person, boat monkey and sandwich maker for the 6 days.
By day 3, her trim was just about perfect, she and her buddy conducted the basic 5 drills and S drills within Tech perimeters (1 1/2 feet of target depth, recreational is 3 ft) , it was amazing to watch her adjust buoyancy, deal with problems, clean up after drills without ever touching the bottom or losing buoyancy control. She would adjust her wing as if she had been diving for 5 years, not one day. On day 5 conditions were not great, seas were rough and a "sporting" current on the reef, but there they went, like it was nothing, and their ascent on the down line at the end of the dive, in the current, was amazing, neither even held on to the line since their trim was so good.
I even felt bad once, during the SMB deployment drill, I thought her instructor would hand her is SMB/Spool, but instead, she went to her side pocket (which is not easy, its a tight pocket) and removed the SMB/spool I had put in there, it was a POS, but she removed it, cleaned up the pocket, attached the spool to the SMB and shot it to the surface without moving a bit. On the boat she did chide me a bit for my crappy SMB . She completed the course with great buoyancy skills, awesome trim, 3 different forward kicks, a backward kick and the ability to competently rescue herself and a buddy without ever losing buoyancy or trim. Not bad for a beginner.
I could go on and on but proof is in the picture, this is her, second day in open water. If you want to have that trim and control, not have your fins kicking the reef, then there is only one choice.