GUE recreational classes - early details

[rainman_02]

So, are we talking "practice deco" where you do 1s up from 70 to 10 with a bottle of 32%? Because that will give you an excellent 12-15 minute dive at 130' on 21/35.

Or are we talking real deco, where you have to plan for your five contingencies and whatnot? And if people aren't good enough to do real deco with real deco gasses...why are they being "certified" to do real deco with half-assed deco gas?




A much better construct under the recreational mantra would be:

Rec3: 30/30 to a max depth of 120' (this falls within the GUE 1.2 for Tech 1.4 for Rec). Carry a deco bottle of 32%. Restricted to MDL. That gives you a 20 minute dive at 120' and six minutes of MDL (plus the switch at 70' for practice).



Save the 21/35 for when you can efficiently deco it.

 

[Bismark]

The issue of introducing a al 40 into the top end class immediately before Tech I is, in a sense, similar to the issue of the huge step between Tech I and Tech II where you go from one al 40 to two deco gases and a bottom stage. A huge step in terms of just about everything. It looks to me that GUE has recognized that going from Fundamentals to Tech I can still be a daunting task. After all, I am sure GUE would be happy if every student who attempted Tech I demonstrated the skills necessary to pass the course. With a committment to higher standards and training, the point is to produce divers with those skills, not fail divers who do not meet them.

Looks to me that GUE is not trying to introduce "real deco" to non tech trained students, but just introducing them to deco bottles and gas switches while avoiding the potential issues that hig PP02 gases can cause. More of a way to lead in to tech rather than jumping in.

 

[trogloxene]

From reading Jarrod's answer to my questions,

So you must be Lynne

Sean

 

[TSandM]

So you must be Lynne

Guilty as charged!

 

[cfenton]

So, are we talking "practice deco" where you do 1s up from 70 to 10 with a bottle of 32%? Because that will give you an excellent 12-15 minute dive at 130' on 21/35.

Or are we talking real deco, where you have to plan for your five contingencies and whatnot? And if people aren't good enough to do real deco with real deco gasses...why are they being "certified" to do real deco with half-assed deco gas?

A much better construct under the recreational mantra would be:

Rec3: 30/30 to a max depth of 120' (this falls within the GUE 1.2 for Tech 1.4 for Rec). Carry a deco bottle of 32%. Restricted to MDL. That gives you a 20 minute dive at 120' and six minutes of MDL (plus the switch at 70' for practice).

Save the 21/35 for when you can efficiently deco it.

I think the point here is that this is a recreational class and not a technical one. While we might choose to do deco using 30/30 or 21/35 as back gas and 50% or 100% as a deco gas this has us at the high end of acceptable PPO2 limits. 21/35 at 130' and 32' at 70' takes away that danger. The diver still learns, and has the chance to become familiar with, the ascents and gas switches without the danger. The AL40 will also help keep the min gas reserve at a more reasonable level. It is without a doubt a new approach to recreational training. I like the idea. The other thing is that nitrogen is not the only inert gas that can get you bent. Moving from 21/35 to 32% reduces the overall inert gas levels. I don't understand the oxygen window as only being effective at a PPO2 of 1.6. I think this PPO2 was chosen because it is deemed to be a good for the trade off between benefiting from the oxygen window and minimizing the risk of a tox incident. But I'm certainly not a doctor/expert.

 

[rainman_02]

If you read the O2 window paper by Brian Hills (which is still hotly debated)...you'll see that the higher the ppO2 of your deco gas, the larger gradient of inert gas you can drive at a deeper stop. Keeping you deeper keeps your already existing bubbles smaller...

All around good deco that "feels better" getting out of the water. That's why there used to be emphasis on shaped deco curves (see GI3 and AG deco profiles) versus the now-taught 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 7, 3 (because it's easy to remember...give me a freaking break!).



In other words...from the way y'all are talking about safety and blah blah blah...

Are we going to see divers that only dive EAN32 to 90', 30/30 to 100', 21/35 to 150', 18/45 to 190', etc? I thought 1.2 was the average ppO2 for working dives with a max of 1.4? I thought recreational was a max of 1.4 ppO2 or END of 100'?

In this new scheme, 30/30 becomes an even more worthless gas...unless you can deco it on O2 or dive it to 120' recreationally.

 

[SparticleBrane]

Sounds to me like this is more of a pedagogical change rather than anything else. Think of these classes as a 'lead-up drill' to the more advanced classes.

In the university classes I work with, we have plenty of lead-up drills that students do before moving onto more advanced skills. Many times, these drills might not have a "real world application" for diving, rather, they are there for the students to build confidence and slowly work their way through skills, while gaining experience and perfecting technique.

Makes sense to me...

 

[Thalassamania]

Let’s take JJ at his word … it’s an ENTRY LEVEL program:

… the GUE recreational programs are designed to train and then develop non-divers. These programs would not require Fundamentals training as these skills are developed within the GUE recreational curriculum.
GUE's entry level diver training is a comprehensive program designed for non-divers. The program includes the academic and skill foundation we all wish we had in the first place, including Nitrox and basic decompression concepts. …quote]I assume that all diving will be done with NITROX and that makes a great deal of sense.

Well, I have 3 friends I just got into diving via getting them into freediving..now they want to learn scuba.....I love the idea of a GUE recreational cert for them....relatively speaking, a PADI cert is a complete waste of money--it teaches little of value and wastes time. Not to mention, if they went to a PADI OR NAUI certification next week, when they completed, I would still have to teach them how to dive after the classes...after a GUE cert, they would already know

Dan, you hit the nail on the head. I have the same problem with scientific diver training, it is oft easier to train a non-diver than someone who has been exposed to currrent diver “training.”

(but yes, this does limit the market base, because most of the American public wants a majic pill to get anything--most will not want the work involved in actually "learning" how to dive...so most will go to a place that will offer a cheap certification, and they may learn enough to survive in a swimming pool for 30 minutes, without supervision..maybe.
It's all about making diving cheap enough for the masses, and trying to teach the minimum possible, to allow the cheap pricing...but some people should not be divers, and there are too many dive shops competing for the much smaller number of potential divers, who actually should become divers.

The market base will be passing small, which is a shame. I suspect that it will be much like what I now do, I teach a few entry level courses a year to the friends and families of scientific divers whom I trained in the past. A few scientists with special needs and time constraints crop up here and there but almost no one comes looking for my classes from scratch … they are sent by someone who knows … the GUE program will likely be the same sort of thing.

As Peter noted:

I believe the 3 confined water dives are WAY too few for the amount of training they are going to get. Yes, they may have 4 days of open water diving (and at 4 dives a day or 2?), but the basic skills need to be worked on in confined water, NOT the OW scene.

Of course in addition to the "standard" things one must learn to become an OW diver (like taking your mask on and off/clearing it that is one of the hardest things for many), I'd assume GUE would be teaching the basic kicks (frog, mod frog, etc.).

I’m assuming that in those 4 open water days there are six to eight total dives. My concern is that the program is too short for what they are trying to accomplish. To conventional thinking, it seems a bit short on confined water time. If it is an eight dive program that could go a long way to solving that problem, you could do a bare minimum in confined water and then perform the heretical action of actually teaching in open water.

Academic time also seems a bit short, I can’t imagine a whole of of effort going into oxygen windows, optimum mix, etc., so I’d have concern over providing a sufficient background for a new diver to make an intelligent choice (informed consent) about what to breathe if all that is thrown at them.

I'd love to see this work, it would be great to have a competent entry level program out there that I could refer people too. It'd be much better for me to finish the training on top of a competent base than to have to start from scratch.

 

[SparticleBrane]

I agree with Thal -- there isn't enough time in confined water to really get experience and feel for the gear and your own body position. Heck, I don't think it's enough time to get many people comfortable in the water.

I would also be very disappointed if they didn't teach any basic skin-diving skills.

 

[Thalassamania]

I agree with Thal -- there isn't enough time in confined water to really get experience and feel for the gear and your own body position. Heck, I don't think it's enough time to get many people comfortable in the water.

I would also be very disappointed if they didn't teach any basic skin-diving skills.

You're right, and your concern is well placed. If there's anything that GUE will give short shrift to it's free diving skills, that would be a shame and would render the program as useless to me as a PADI entry level program.

But there may be plenty of time in OW, the idea that nothing can be taught or learned in OW is a real crock.