DIR- GUE GUE fundamentals, tec pass?
- Thread starter RLima
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CptTightPants21
Contributor
Why be so modest. Let Rec 3 know how you really feel. Look it straight in the eye and tell it what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey sh*t it is! Hallelujah! Holy sh*t! Where's the oxygen?
In short, focus on Fundies Tech pass and leave Rec 3 alone.
I can't speak about the merits of Rec 3 (I'll leave that to people with more experience). But taking that course doesn't make sense to me, as fundies is the gatekeeper course to T1. Once you earn a tech pass, just keep diving, practice once in a while to ensure you maintain/improve your tech pass skills, and take T1 when it suits you (after 25 dives minimum of course).
I haven't taken T1, but I've heard it is an even better course than fundies.
I haven't taken T1, but I've heard it is an even better course than fundies.
PfcAJ
Contributor
IM GLAD YOU ASKED!!!
So. Rec 3.
It’s a course that certifies you to do mandatory deco...with a deco bottle...with doubles....beyond 100’...with helium.
Except the entry bar has been lowered to “rec pass”. So you wanna do tech dives but don’t have the tech skills. That’s bad.
Oh wait, the deco gas is an “ascent gas”. Gunna switch from 30/30 to 32%. Woo! Great advantage! 32% from 21/35? Why not use a real deco gas like 50% or oxygen? Oh wait it’s because the rec pass standard isn’t good enough to manage proper deco gases. It’s a half measure to get people doing dives they honestly shouldn’t be doing. If you don’t have the skills to do it right... don’t do it.
how do we know it’s not right? There isn’t a tech diver in the WORLD that would use 32% as a deco gas for a 130’ dive. It’s a bad choice.
wait... 130’? Why 130? Thumbs Padi manual Oh there it is, 130’ max depth for a recreational diver.
following PADI as the example? Is that what we’re doing now? Ridiculous.
“but AJ, I don’t wanna take t1! The jump is too big!”
what jump? The doubles? Oh. The extra bottle? Oh. The stops? Oh. The helium? Oh. The drysuit? Oh. The depth? 130’ vs 150’ max on the training dives for t1. Thats like two aisles at your grocery store. If 20’ is “too much”, i strongly argue that 30’ is also too much and you should stick to 100’ or shallower dives.
So what’s the point here? Why does this class exist? From my perspective, it’s simple. Separate a student who has no confidence and/or no skill from his money. That’s it. There’s no other explanation when Tech 1 gives you the actual tools you need to dive between 100 and 150’. And it even gives you more via 18/45. So you take r3, spend a few grand, then immediately realize that you goofed and still need t1. Bamboozled.
Rec 3 exists because 20 years ago GUE wanted everything to be 1 2 3. No one took tech 3, no one took cave 3 (save for like 3 dudes, you can read about their class in Quest) because the classes weren’t needed. Just like rec 3 isn’t needed.
Friends don’t let friends take rec3. Friends train up friends and help them master the skills and gain the confidence to take tech 1.
Raise the bar. Don’t lower it.
What AJ said ^^^^
It's thousands of dollars to give a nervous rec diver the impression that they are stepping up to deco dives. Stick with recreational dives (in doubles or whatever), develop the skills, take a proper tech class not this feel good hybrid not really deco class.
It's thousands of dollars to give a nervous rec diver the impression that they are stepping up to deco dives. Stick with recreational dives (in doubles or whatever), develop the skills, take a proper tech class not this feel good hybrid not really deco class.
arthurng311
Registered
I disagree and agree with PfcAj. Absolutely, if you have Tech 1 or Tech 2 buddies, they can and should help you pass Tech 1 without taking Rec 3. Rec 3 is an introductory class to decompression diving. If you focus on the depth and the amount of decompression you accumulate in R3, then you'll lose focus of R3.
R3 provides a rigorous approach to gas planning and you begin to learn some (extremely extremely limited) decompression strategies. If your instructor tasks loads during the course, you begin to understand that you need sharper skills to resolve issues without having to concentrate on your position in the water column. Personnaly, when I passed R3, I really didn't care that I could use 31/25 or that I could perform extremely limited deco dives.
I found an appreciation for gas calculations and gas management, which I did not fully understand in Fundamentals, nor did I appreciate how intuitive it made dive planning. Learned that I needed far better control midwater of my buoyancy and needed improvement in my trim. I did like that I learned how to use a stage/deco bottle but that along with the 21/35 was just a bonus. All of my dive buddies had achieved the same training level so I round R3 very helpful and I acknowledge that I probably would not have passed T1 w/o first taking R3.
PfcAj makes a good point that season divers can and will help you ameliorate your skills to pass T1 w/o first going through R3. The last few divers from our GUE club passed T1 without R3 and probably within a year of passing Fundamentals. If you have strong skills and the support group, you won't need R3. If you don't, R3 will help you pass T1.
O.
In my (and my very own) honest opinion - what you describe here is just you discovering you need to improve fundamental skills - doing rec diving with doubles up to 30m/100' and getting a tech upgrade lead to the same result.
Gas calculations/management are also fundamental skills - if you didn't get them through fundies - need to check why.
I remember in my fundies class (2011) these were well explained and actually even through T1/T2 the basics remained exactly the same.
That's the point - taking R3 to "pass" T1 just doesn't make sense (again - to me).
how long you need from fundies to T1 is up to you - for me it took 5 (yes five!) years to get my fundamental skills to a point where (I though) I'm good enough for T1.
And like we all learn in more GUE classes - we can always improve our fundamental skills (however I would never take an entire class just for the sake of realizing that, as that class is fundies itself).
Matan.
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