acreichman
Registered
I haven't seen any course reports lately but they were super helpful when I was looking at classes, so I thought I'd add mine to the list. I just finished the GUE Drysuit Primer with Karim Hamza.
Some background:
I finished Fundies in February 2020 (about 8 months prior) with a rec pass and have done ~25 dives since then with other local GUE people. I eventually want to take the GUE Tech and CCR classes, so I needed a drysuit. I got my Seaskin suit (there's another thread on ScubaBoard that was incredibly helpful in customizing my suit) and started to look at training. I saw some people here who decided not to do a drysuit class and go out with a knowledgeable buddy instead but all my local scuba buddies talked about how different it is to dive dry and recommended the class. All the time I've spent with GUE instructors so far has been great so I decided to go for it. One of the nice things about diving in California is how many GUE instructors we have, including Karim, who does the drysuit repairs for the local community and can teach all the way up the tech chain. I managed to find a weekend that worked for both of us and packed up my gear.
Day 1:
I showed up at 8am, we chatted for a few minutes and got down to the academics. The materials for this class definitely seem like they might not have been updated as recently as some others but they effectively convey information about cold water diving. I'm assuming this is like most other classes where the classroom part can drag a little but Karim was really engaging. He had funny (and sometimes scary) stories that related to the material and made it interactive by peppering in questions and requests for feedback. I also appreciated that he had more questions beyond the ones from the presentation. I think he was making them up on the fly based on what he wanted to make sure I was understanding. Even if it had been boring, the theory section isn't supposed to be the highlight of a scuba class.
After lunch we got our gear and headed to the pool. I know it’s foolish but I didn’t expect to run into as many issues as I did. I’ll leave it to your imagination but if there was a mistake to be made, I probably made it. Fortunately, Karim was very patient and very thorough. He showed me step by step how to get into each layer of the suit, gave tips and tricks on how to be more efficient, and gave me some space to figure it out when things didn’t go as expected. In short, he was a great teacher. After getting the suit on and in the water, the first thing I realized is that squeeze hurts. I thought it would be uncomfortable like wearing clothes that are too tight but it’s much worse than that, especially in the feet. Squeeze hurts, venting the feet is hard and doing it while trying not to look like an idiot is almost impossible. With that said, Karim was very clear in his instructions, always had helpful tips and was incredibly patient. The thing I appreciated most was near the end of the pool session, when I’d been fighting the suit for what seemed like forever and was feeling pretty down about how it was going. I signaled to ascend, met him at the surface and just took a minute. I wasn’t able to articulate why I was struggling so much but eventually figured out the problem. He helped me deal with it on the surface, adjusted my gear to bring things more in line and when we went back down a few minutes later, I was able to complete the skill. On top of all that, he was constantly evaluating my non-drysuit skills. Karim pointed out ways I could improve my kicks, helped me refine my stability in the water, and gave me tips on how to more smoothly communicate with a team. None of those are directly related to my drysuit but they make the class much more helpful. The primer isn't just about learning a new piece of gear, it’s about how that gear fits into your overall diving, and that’s where I feel this class has been most helpful so far.
Day 2:
Getting to Catalina proved too difficult on short notice so we did our final day at Redondo Beach. While the dive park at Catalina would have been a lot easier to get in and out of, Redondo is where I do the majority of my diving so it was nice to get some experience there with an instructor. I don’t know if I realized it during Fundies, but ocean dives are really just a repeat of the pool work from the first day. The skills are the same and the instructor isn’t trying to trick you. Things were both easier and harder the second day. The ocean is a lot less predictable than a pool, there’s waves getting in, surge underneath, and visibility could always be better. The upside is that I was much more comfortable with the skills and was starting to get a feel for them. We did a bunch of ascents and descents and worked our way through all the skills from the day before. We also spent a lot of time going up and down a slope, adding and venting gas, which helped engrain the muscle memory (hopefully). The most difficult part of the class was consistently hitting the 3m stop. No matter how many times you’re told to anticipate the change and vent early, there’s nothing quite like experiencing it to really show the necessity of doing it. Having to tell your instructor afterwards that you didn’t do the things he told you to and experienced the mistake he said you would was unpleasant enough to make me swear not to do it again.
Final review:
To make this useful for other people looking at the drysuit primer, here are the answers to a few questions I was asking myself before taking it.
Do you really need to take a class in order to dive a drysuit?
I think so, for a few reasons. First, there are a lot of little things I got from Karim that I would have missed without taking the class. We spent a lot of time talking about argon bottles even though I don’t need one yet and how being cold affects on and off-gassing. I feel much more prepared for future cold water diving because of the class. Second, spending time in the pool was really valuable. I did a feet first ascent almost immediately and it was much more comfortable in a nice pool with good viz and no current instead of in the ocean. Having an easy environment to get comfortable with skills before needing to use them was helpful. Lastly, managing squeeze and another air bubble is hard to explain to somebody who hasn’t experienced it. Having an instructor (a good instructor) who has seen all the common mistakes and can explain and demonstrate the solutions in an efficient way is a valuable thing. If I was depending on a buddy in an informal (free) situation to teach me how to use a drysuit, I would either feel the need to pay them for their time and expertise (if it was done well) or have to do a lot of trial and error on my own to figure out situations that weren’t covered. In either case, I’d rather pay an instructor to do it quickly and efficiently. A drysuit is expensive enough that the class is a relatively small fraction of the cost and probably makes all of your dry dives better. Just like I wouldn’t buy a BC and try it out without getting professional training, a drysuit is just as, if not more, difficult and also requires training.
Do you need to take the GUE Drysuit Primer?
Probably not. I especially wouldn’t take the drysuit primer as my first GUE class, even though you can. If the rest of your gear is in the GUE configuration and you’re on board with the system, you’ve probably already taken another GUE class. If not, Fundies in a wetsuit is probably a better option. If you don’t have the GUE gear setup and aren’t interested in the rest of the system, some of the pieces of the drysuit primer just won’t be applicable. I don’t know how GUE instructors deal with non-GUE students taking a primer like this, but I think it’s more useful if you’ve already been exposed to the whole system. All the normal caveats about finding a good instructor you’re comfortable with still apply, but I wouldn’t recommend the drysuit primer as the first (or only) GUE class. If you are a GUE diver, at any level, I think it’s a really useful class.
What do you get out of the class?
As much as I’d like to say I’m now an expert drysuit diver, I’m not. I’ve had a chance to see somebody do it really well, ask all of my questions and I haven’t built any bad habits yet. If I didn’t think I was going to go diving pretty often and practice these skills, it would have been harder to justify the cost of the class. The fact that I do go diving often, with other GUE trained buddies, made it worthwhile for me. I’m really happy I took the class and I think it helped my diving and brought me closer to my goal of a Fundies tech pass than I would be without it.
Some background:
I finished Fundies in February 2020 (about 8 months prior) with a rec pass and have done ~25 dives since then with other local GUE people. I eventually want to take the GUE Tech and CCR classes, so I needed a drysuit. I got my Seaskin suit (there's another thread on ScubaBoard that was incredibly helpful in customizing my suit) and started to look at training. I saw some people here who decided not to do a drysuit class and go out with a knowledgeable buddy instead but all my local scuba buddies talked about how different it is to dive dry and recommended the class. All the time I've spent with GUE instructors so far has been great so I decided to go for it. One of the nice things about diving in California is how many GUE instructors we have, including Karim, who does the drysuit repairs for the local community and can teach all the way up the tech chain. I managed to find a weekend that worked for both of us and packed up my gear.
Day 1:
I showed up at 8am, we chatted for a few minutes and got down to the academics. The materials for this class definitely seem like they might not have been updated as recently as some others but they effectively convey information about cold water diving. I'm assuming this is like most other classes where the classroom part can drag a little but Karim was really engaging. He had funny (and sometimes scary) stories that related to the material and made it interactive by peppering in questions and requests for feedback. I also appreciated that he had more questions beyond the ones from the presentation. I think he was making them up on the fly based on what he wanted to make sure I was understanding. Even if it had been boring, the theory section isn't supposed to be the highlight of a scuba class.
After lunch we got our gear and headed to the pool. I know it’s foolish but I didn’t expect to run into as many issues as I did. I’ll leave it to your imagination but if there was a mistake to be made, I probably made it. Fortunately, Karim was very patient and very thorough. He showed me step by step how to get into each layer of the suit, gave tips and tricks on how to be more efficient, and gave me some space to figure it out when things didn’t go as expected. In short, he was a great teacher. After getting the suit on and in the water, the first thing I realized is that squeeze hurts. I thought it would be uncomfortable like wearing clothes that are too tight but it’s much worse than that, especially in the feet. Squeeze hurts, venting the feet is hard and doing it while trying not to look like an idiot is almost impossible. With that said, Karim was very clear in his instructions, always had helpful tips and was incredibly patient. The thing I appreciated most was near the end of the pool session, when I’d been fighting the suit for what seemed like forever and was feeling pretty down about how it was going. I signaled to ascend, met him at the surface and just took a minute. I wasn’t able to articulate why I was struggling so much but eventually figured out the problem. He helped me deal with it on the surface, adjusted my gear to bring things more in line and when we went back down a few minutes later, I was able to complete the skill. On top of all that, he was constantly evaluating my non-drysuit skills. Karim pointed out ways I could improve my kicks, helped me refine my stability in the water, and gave me tips on how to more smoothly communicate with a team. None of those are directly related to my drysuit but they make the class much more helpful. The primer isn't just about learning a new piece of gear, it’s about how that gear fits into your overall diving, and that’s where I feel this class has been most helpful so far.
Day 2:
Getting to Catalina proved too difficult on short notice so we did our final day at Redondo Beach. While the dive park at Catalina would have been a lot easier to get in and out of, Redondo is where I do the majority of my diving so it was nice to get some experience there with an instructor. I don’t know if I realized it during Fundies, but ocean dives are really just a repeat of the pool work from the first day. The skills are the same and the instructor isn’t trying to trick you. Things were both easier and harder the second day. The ocean is a lot less predictable than a pool, there’s waves getting in, surge underneath, and visibility could always be better. The upside is that I was much more comfortable with the skills and was starting to get a feel for them. We did a bunch of ascents and descents and worked our way through all the skills from the day before. We also spent a lot of time going up and down a slope, adding and venting gas, which helped engrain the muscle memory (hopefully). The most difficult part of the class was consistently hitting the 3m stop. No matter how many times you’re told to anticipate the change and vent early, there’s nothing quite like experiencing it to really show the necessity of doing it. Having to tell your instructor afterwards that you didn’t do the things he told you to and experienced the mistake he said you would was unpleasant enough to make me swear not to do it again.
Final review:
To make this useful for other people looking at the drysuit primer, here are the answers to a few questions I was asking myself before taking it.
Do you really need to take a class in order to dive a drysuit?
I think so, for a few reasons. First, there are a lot of little things I got from Karim that I would have missed without taking the class. We spent a lot of time talking about argon bottles even though I don’t need one yet and how being cold affects on and off-gassing. I feel much more prepared for future cold water diving because of the class. Second, spending time in the pool was really valuable. I did a feet first ascent almost immediately and it was much more comfortable in a nice pool with good viz and no current instead of in the ocean. Having an easy environment to get comfortable with skills before needing to use them was helpful. Lastly, managing squeeze and another air bubble is hard to explain to somebody who hasn’t experienced it. Having an instructor (a good instructor) who has seen all the common mistakes and can explain and demonstrate the solutions in an efficient way is a valuable thing. If I was depending on a buddy in an informal (free) situation to teach me how to use a drysuit, I would either feel the need to pay them for their time and expertise (if it was done well) or have to do a lot of trial and error on my own to figure out situations that weren’t covered. In either case, I’d rather pay an instructor to do it quickly and efficiently. A drysuit is expensive enough that the class is a relatively small fraction of the cost and probably makes all of your dry dives better. Just like I wouldn’t buy a BC and try it out without getting professional training, a drysuit is just as, if not more, difficult and also requires training.
Do you need to take the GUE Drysuit Primer?
Probably not. I especially wouldn’t take the drysuit primer as my first GUE class, even though you can. If the rest of your gear is in the GUE configuration and you’re on board with the system, you’ve probably already taken another GUE class. If not, Fundies in a wetsuit is probably a better option. If you don’t have the GUE gear setup and aren’t interested in the rest of the system, some of the pieces of the drysuit primer just won’t be applicable. I don’t know how GUE instructors deal with non-GUE students taking a primer like this, but I think it’s more useful if you’ve already been exposed to the whole system. All the normal caveats about finding a good instructor you’re comfortable with still apply, but I wouldn’t recommend the drysuit primer as the first (or only) GUE class. If you are a GUE diver, at any level, I think it’s a really useful class.
What do you get out of the class?
As much as I’d like to say I’m now an expert drysuit diver, I’m not. I’ve had a chance to see somebody do it really well, ask all of my questions and I haven’t built any bad habits yet. If I didn’t think I was going to go diving pretty often and practice these skills, it would have been harder to justify the cost of the class. The fact that I do go diving often, with other GUE trained buddies, made it worthwhile for me. I’m really happy I took the class and I think it helped my diving and brought me closer to my goal of a Fundies tech pass than I would be without it.