GUE Fundamentals, Fund 1 and Fund 2?

[elgoog]

I believe gobuyastick stated in an earlier post that they were looking at getting a tech pass without completing the Fundies course. Not converting from a rec to tech pass.

Ah, OK. I re-read his posts and do see that that could be what he was asking. Based on the context of the rest of the posts, I assumed rec->tech conversion.

 

[KevinNM]

I believe gobuyastick stated in an earlier post that they were looking at getting a tech pass without completing the Fundies course. Not converting from a rec to tech pass.

Yup. In theory I believe you could recruit a GUE tech diver buddy and get 4 hours of Mark or Karim's time and he could approve you to continue to a tech class without you having taken fundamentals at all. But there is more than just the diving skills, the whole dive planning, dive prep, ascent rate, min gas calculation, team focus etc would need to be demonstrated to his satisfaction. And I know Mark is a hard grader. Not that I'm saying can't do it, but you need to start out contacting the IE to see what he thinks of this plan.

 

[gobuyastick]

I believe gobuyastick stated in an earlier post that they were looking at getting a tech pass without completing the Fundies course. Not converting from a rec to tech pass.

im already rec fundies certified, i meant upgrading to tech pass from a doubles primer if someone was good enough

 

[AJ]

If your comfortable with doubles (i.e. valve drill, trim, etc.) you could skip doubles primer and go directly for a tech pass. A doubles primer however might help to aquire those skills as GUE has specific requirements for doing a valve drill.

 

[Lorenzoid]

If your comfortable with doubles (i.e. valve drill, trim, etc.) you could skip doubles primer and go directly for a tech pass. A doubles primer however might help to aquire those skills as GUE has specific requirements for doing a valve drill.

Ah, that makes sense and might explain why gobuyastick, who already has a rec pass, is interested in doubles primer. Still, "how to do a valve drill GUE-style" would be a relatively small portion of the curriculum of a doubles primer course. In fact, "how to do a valve drill" is described step-by-step in the published GUE SOPs, and I don't recall any subtleties to it that require in-person instruction for someone to learn to do it properly. For someone already accustomed to diving doubles who is interested in upgrading his rec pass to a tech pass, the sensible route would be to just hire an instructor for a day to focus on the relatively few GUE-specific requirements and evaluate for an upgrade. For such a person, there is no point in actually going through the full doubles primer course, and being subjected to the required Powerpoint presentation, etc. Rather, just spend the full day in the water with an instructor.

 

[AJ]

Agree, if one is comfortable with doubles there's no need to take a primer. However, a lot of divers think they are comfortable with their rig, but find out during Fundies that their rig is not quite GUE ready. Making changes and subsequently diving with an changed config while trying to pass tech can be challenging. I know what I'am talking about because it happend to me and did cost me my level 2 and tech pass. My 'platform' was not on par for level 2 and tech pass. It took me some while to get used to the altered config.

 

[VR78]

On the other hand, remember that Fundies is a class, not an exam. They will teach you everything you need to know. The will be the second day crisis and the third day crash - but also the fourth day revelation.

 

[AJ]

True, the training is very very good. It changed the way I'am diving completely and made me a much more confident diver. Just saying don't expect this class to be a walk over because it is'nt.