Dutch scuba fans?

[Thyraon]

Thanks for sharing, @rduquesnoy. If I'm not mistaken a double set and dry suit are only required for the Tech pass, not for the Rec pass, right? Is there a specific reason you chose to go directly for the Tech pass, instead of starting with Rec and upgrading later?

 

[Matthijs]

Indeed I reached out to Sander and arranged everything with him directly. At some point he put the course on the gue site for us to register there as well.

I think I paid 700 euros for the course itself. There’s also a registration fee that needs to be paid to gue directly. Definitely the most expensive part was gear though. Our setups were fine for a rec pass but getting everything ready for a tech pass was quite a bit more. I’m not sure whether you have a dry suit already, I got mine from seaskin for a really reasonable price. There’s a large topic on here somewhere with a lot of info on the suit

drysuit and doubles are indeed only needed for a rec pass, not for a tech pass. For a rec pass you also don't need a primary light.

 

[rduquesnoy]

Thanks for sharing, @rduquesnoy. If I'm not mistaken a double set and dry suit are only required for the Tech pass, not for the Rec pass, right? Is there a specific reason you chose to go directly for the Tech pass, instead of starting with Rec and upgrading later?

Correct, it is not mandatory to use a drysuit and doubles.

As I had been diving for 20 years I started to lose interest. Diving in NL was something we rarely did anymore. To make things more fun again we decided to do a wreck diving specialty. Our instructor recommended to take fundies so that's how we found out there is such a thing (never heard of GUE before that).

Later me and my partner decided cave diving might be a fun next step, and for that you need a tech pass. With that in mind we thought it was best to start training with the required gear as soon as possible.

Cave 1 is planned for next month, looking forward to it .

 

[Thyraon]

Indeed I reached out to Sander and arranged everything with him directly.

OK, nice, that's good to know.

I’m not sure whether you have a dry suit already, I got mine from seaskin for a really reasonable price. There’s a large topic on here somewhere with a lot of info on the suit

drysuit and doubles are indeed only needed for a rec pass, not for a tech pass. For a rec pass you also don't need a primary light.

No dry suit and wing yet, so I'm thinking of doing the Rec track first. That way I would only have to invest in a single tank wing right now – my regulators are already set up on a long hose config. Doubles with a suitable wing and a dry suit would set me back a bit more than I'm comfortable with right now. Starting with Rec Fundies would at least get me into the GUE way of diving soon-ish

 

[Thyraon]

As I had been diving for 20 years I started to lose interest. Diving in NL was something we rarely did anymore. To make things more fun again we decided to do a wreck diving specialty.
...
Cave 1 is planned for next month, looking forward to it .

So... I guess your plan worked out and diving is more fun again?

Do you dive more frequently in NL as well, these days? Are there any interesting wrecks within reach? Not that many caves, I suppose?

 

[Matthijs]

Starting out with a rec setup is the right approach for most people in my opinion! The only reason I switched was because of the long time between starting and finishing the course, and the amount of practice we did in the meantime.

I would suggest to get comfortable with your gear before taking the class. A wing shouldn't be a massive change, but fundies throws a lot at you and struggling to find the dump valve on your wing is the last thing you want to worry about.

There's a decent market for 2nd hand wings, and as long as you follow the gear specification and don't get a Mares one there's not much you can do wrong. Otherwise, stores like the aalscholvers or scubasupport are great places that can certainly help you out.

 

[barth]

(In 2008 I did gue fundamentals because I wanted to improve my skills. I didn’t want to do cave and/or techdiving. I did pass my fundamentals (tech rating).

in 2011 I did a intro dive in the Christine mine. After that dive I did cave 1 in 2012 (provisional). In 2013 I did try to pass cave 1. We only did training dives , skills were good enough. But awareness was not good enough because we were only doing training dives…. Diving was also no fun anymore…

In 2014 I finally did pass cave 1.I decided to join the Morpheus cave project for one week on 2015. After that week I wanted to be cave 2 and 1.

In 2016 I did tech 1 in Croatia and it was easy and felt like holiday .

in 2017 I did cave 2 in Mexico.

In 2019 I did realize I was not doing enough trimix/tech dives. Because it took me a lot of time for filling trimix and my buddies also weren’t doing enough tech dives. In October 2019 I did ccr1.

in 2012 I didn’t want to do tech and/or cave diving. This morning I did a dive to 36 meter depth and I do a tech/cave dive almost every week…)


it’s important what kind of instructor you want. There are instructors who tell/teach a lot more then standards. But I don’t like very long days…

There are also instructors involved in projects. If you want to join a project that might be a benefit if you already know the instructor.

Logistics, water temperature and weather is also important.

(Ask your instructor what kind of dives he’s doing and how often.)

 

[Thyraon]

I would suggest to get comfortable with your gear before taking the class. A wing shouldn't be a massive change, but fundies throws a lot at you and struggling to find the dump valve on your wing is the last thing you want to worry about.

Yes, that's definitely the plan. Shouldn't be too hard as it's just the wing that will be new to my setup, but I'd like to have at least a few dives under my belt with it before starting Fundies.

... and don't get a Mares ...

I've tried looking it up but what's wrong with Mares gear in relation to DIR/GUE setups? I've seen similar criticisms about Mares regulators. Genuinely curious

 

[Matthijs]

It’s not a gue thing, I just think they made some very questionable choices in their wing design. My partner and I both have a Mares XR single tank wing and have found:

- the inflators are badly built, mine failed catastrophically when an o ring slid over a bolt, and my partners slowly leans
- there are two positions for your hip dump for some reason. Only one of them is an active dump and the other has a screw on blind plug, causing a complete unnecessary failure point
- that failure point ends up mattering as well, because the thread they use for the dump valves is coarse and short, causing the dumps to come undone very easily over time
- in order to save money the inner bladder is the same for all their wing sizes. Since our wings are small, single tank wings, there is a lot of surplus bladder in there that sort of needs to fold in. This causes air pockets and makes it more uncomfortable to dump air than needed

I do like the aluminum backplate, it has a lot of cut outs cutting down on the weight. For some reason the steel back plates also have the cutouts, which I can’t wrap my head around either

 

[rduquesnoy]

So... I guess your plan worked out and diving is more fun again?

Do you dive more frequently in NL as well, these days? Are there any interesting wrecks within reach? Not that many caves, I suppose?

Currently we do 2 - 3 dives a week. We also joined the Aalscholvers diveteam which helps. They organize a lot of dives at different locations which is nice.
This winter we got ourselves heating so now we are even more comfortable all year round.

The small wrecks are not really that interesting. Wreck diving on the Northsea is still on my whish list. We have done some nice wrecks in the Philipines (Sangat). For caves France is one of the best options in Europe.