GUE vs. TDI in terms of opportunities in scientific research projects?

[Ayisha]

Come to think of it. @SpeedyJ the few month back I talked to a younger dude who did fundis and is a big gue fan. He ended up doing intro to cave with tdi or iantd because he couldn't afford cave1. Now he says he's getting goofed on by his gue buddies for having taken an inferior class... that kind of stuff bothers me and IMHO it's very typical...

There's nothing preventing GUE divers from diving with divers trained by other agencies. People dive in mixed teams often.

GUE divers, however, much like other divers, will avoid diving with those they consider to be using unsafe diving practices. If someone can't or won't participate in team protocols or is considered to be diving above their training, experience, equipment configuration, and/or skills, they likely wouldn't be welcome in a team diving environment.

There might be more to the story...

 

[berndo]

There might be more to the story...

Not sure if you read the story. They still dive with the kid. They goof on him for not having as much money to spend on diving.
It was an example for arrogance based upon money spend, not related to skill.

 

[RedSix]

Not sure if you read the story. They still dive with the kid. They goof on him for not having as much money to spend on diving.
It was an example for arrogance based upon money spend, not related to skill.

And GUE is now responsible for all people, who have taken GUE classes?
Maybe he is just in the wrong clique? If they mock him for not having enough money, there is a quite high chance of peer pressure, too.
I would look for other people to dive with. A GUE plastic card does not mean somebody is not stupid... And there are also bad divers with a gue cert...

 

[amado_sarhan]

Not sure if you read the story. They still dive with the kid. They goof on him for not having as much money to spend on diving.
It was an example for arrogance based upon money spend, not related to skill.

No arrogance is justified, whether that's because of equipment or even skills. There is no added value, it only puts off people scuba diving, and gives a bad rep to the diving community. I have met humble GUE divers and arrogant ones, just as I have met the same from several other agencies. Good attitude is an indicator for me of an experienced and mature diver - and a safe one.

 

[berndo]

And GUE is now responsible for all people, who have taken GUE classes?

No, but it's rather typical for that crowd.

There is no added value, it only puts off people scuba diving, and gives a bad rep to the diving community.

The added value is in instructor fees. It's explained in the early chapter of the fundi book.
The business model aims to have fewer divers that spend more money per person. So you push out younger people and other people with less money and get more money out of the people that remain.

It's not unique to diving. Some bike shops now only sell bikes for 5 grand or over... if you had more of these you'd kill the sport because it doesn't bring in new people, especially not younger people.

 

[amado_sarhan]

No, but it's rather typical for that crowd.


The added value is in instructor fees. It's explained in the early chapter of the fundi book.
The business model aims to have fewer divers that spend more money per person. So you push out younger people and other people with less money and get more money out of the people that remain.

It's not unique to diving. Some bike shops now only sell bikes for 5 grand or over... if you had more of these you'd kill the sport because it doesn't bring in new people, especially not younger people.

If you think that is typical of that "crowd", that is your opinion. If you think that an added value of being arrogant is to somehow push for courses being exclusive and therefore expensive, that is also your opinion.

I don't see a reason to defend GUE or GUE divers. I appreciate GUE, and my entry to the diving world was an excellent PADI instructor in 2003. I am sorry if you had some bad experiences yourself. Let's move on and dive

Cheers

 

[RedSix]

No, but it's rather typical for that crowd.

There is nothing better than a neat prejudice.
The world needs to be black and white. Otherwise rather simple people are not able to comprehend it... /irony_end

 

[berndo]

There is nothing better than a neat prejudice.

It's not prejudice, it's experience. The british CDG guys for instance are mostly really nice and really chill people in my experience.
It's not black and white and I never said it was (simple people might have missed that) but even the some gue guys and former gue guys will say offline that that crowd tends to be very full of themselves... especially the noobs who just got fundis or cave1/tec1 and think their the **** now.

 

[SpeedyJ]

Does Germany have any laws about desecration of equine corpses?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Looking to get into tech training but not sure about which agency to go with. There are number of TDI and GUE instructors in my area and I've heard good things about both sides. I've heard of people doing scientific projects collaborating with research centers, etc and I'm hoping I can participate in those things. I wonder if there's a significant difference in involvement in research projects between those two agencies?

Just by doing a simple Google search I could find GUE projects around the world but hard to find any TDI posts, not sure if that could conclude to GUE have more opportunities to get in touch with the scientific world...

Are you looking for research projects that involve tech diving only? Or scientific diving in general?
several of the state universities have NAUI progams that are somewhat tailored to scientific diving since the majority of the students taking the diving class are marine biology or oceanography majors. The class is a whole semester long and goes far and above what any basic OW class teaches but they do not get into tech diving AFAIK.
They just use regular gear mostly not plates and wings and can lights and long hoses, scooters, etc. most have never heard of GUE or TDI.
I know a guy who wanted to get into scientific diving as a volunteer with UC Davis Marine lab at Bodega Bay. He had to go through their program in addition to his basic rec. certs.
If you want to get involved at the federal level, many agencies like the Cordell Bank Marine Sanctuary will require a NOAA certification that you get at the NOAA diving school and it is very rigorous. But a lot of the deep stuff that divers used to do is now done with ROV’s. It’s just too dangerous and risky to put divers down on some of these deeper spots like Cordell Banks where the reef starts in 185’ and goes down with massive currents and it’s 35 miles out in open ocean. They can do all that now much better with some very high tech equipment with crystal clear imagery.
A lot of scientific diving involves fish counts and gridding off areas to run transects, starting coral farms, starting kelp farms, planting kelp, etc. it’s not deep thrilling work. The ones that get to do the very limited amount of deep work will be the agencies’ own specially trained people, they are at the level of commercial divers, not a recreational tech agency like GUE or TDI.