GUE Fundies Class Review (Long Post)

[BoltSnap]

@sea_otter

Can you please summarize how many lectures (in class), pool sessions and days of diving and how many dives/tank per day and what was the total commitment in days for the whole course?

 

[KevinNM]

Length can vary. It is typically 4 days but it can be 5. This allows another day of diving and more chances to correct issues.

My experience is that typically day 1 is lots of lecture, some field drills for kicks and possibly the swim test. Otherwise the swim test is day 2. Day 2-4 are mostly diving (2 tanks if you are in singles) with some classes in the field and post dive video review. Somewhere there is a classroom portion on deco and at the end of the last day the written test.

But it can vary. If you do fundamentals 1 & 2 the 2 portion might well be all out at the dive site.

But they are busy tiring days, don't plan anything for the evenings of the class.

 

[sea_otter]

@sea_otter

Can you please summarize how many lectures (in class), pool sessions and days of diving and how many dives/tank per day and what was the total commitment in days for the whole course?

The entire class was 6 days:

• Saturday and Sunday full days at the dive shop / swim pool - 9 hours each
• Monday and Tuesday evenings at the dive shop / swim pool - 6 hours each
• Saturday and Sunday full days at the ocean - 12+ hours each

Those were busy days. We worked through meals and didn't have much in the way of downtime.

Classroom time totalled about 10-12 hours (more heavily loaded towards the first weekend). I read the books that GUE provided before class (and I was glad I had, because most of the classroom work was review and I could focus on diving). The lectures were still worthwhile.

In terms of dive time, we did 3 in the pool (2+ hours each) and 4 in the ocean (1 hour each). That doesn't include the first Saturday which consisted only of swimming and free diving. Dive time was limited only by gas supply in HP100s (I am female with smaller lungs, so my pool time went longer than that of the guys). Beto actually did a total of 6 dives in the ocean so that he could split the team into two groups and provide some more individual attention (he was using doubles with a bottle of nitrox on the beach to refill).

Lots of time and attention was spent on equipment. The rest was spent on pre-dive planning, post-dive feedback, land drills, and video review.

 

[sea_otter]

I should also mention that all the pool dives were in full exposure protection (minus a hood), which was pretty miserable. Wearing a drysuit and undies for a 50° ocean really sucks when the pool is 86°.

 

[george_austin]

Great read. Thank you. Being a better diver is it's own reward - in many, many ways.

 

[guruboy]

what body orientation/position were the timed ascents done in?

 

[KevinNM]

what body orientation/position were the timed ascents done in?

They are supposed to be horizontal. Team goes up with everyone facing each other about an arms length apart. And you hold that formation during the ascent and stops. It all sounds easy, but it's not even without a lot of attention to the the timing part.

 

[sea_otter]

what body orientation/position were the timed ascents done in?

Everything is done in horizontal trim, head up, glutes tight, fins flat. Even though the class teaches a series of skills, it's really not about the actual skills. They are all things we did in the first week of open water training (replacing a mask, sharing gas, etc). It's all about creating a stable platform with good trim, neutral buoyancy, and awareness of the situation, and adding basics on top of that.

 

[Lorenzoid]

What I found frustrating about the team in-trim ascents and descents in Fundies was that--being new at all this--we would not ascend/descend at exactly the same rate, and as soon as one of my team members started disappearing from my view, I would look up to try to keep an eye on the person while I attempted to slow my descent, and the more I looked up and tried to slow myself by dumping gas, the more out of trim I got. Fundies can be frustrating, but it's all part of the learning experience. The rewards definitely outweigh the frustrations.

 

[AJ]

Tried to do a valve drill at 1 metres in dry suit last Sunday, just for fun. It reminded me how frustrating keeping depth and horizontal position can be while performing tasks