I never drank Kool-Aid while growing up

[TSandM]

There isn't a lot of specific work on navigation in any GUE class that I know of or have heard tales of, but I'll tell you that the increase in situational awareness makes navigation easier, because you are so much more aware of what is going on around you.

As for what you do when one spouse goes DIR and the other doesn't . . . read my posts from 2005 and 2006! The short answer is that my husband thought taking Fundies was stupid, and that it was overkill for a recreational diver. And today, he is a PADI instructor who teaches his students in backplates and bungied backups, and gets them horizontal and stable in midwater before they ever hit an open water dive. He dragged HIMSELF, kicking and screaming and dragging his feet, into this kind of diving . . . because he dove with me and my friends, and he decided on his absolute own that what we were doing was BETTER.

 

[fnfalman]

When I look at the areas I see myself wanting to improve my diving, underwater navigation skills rank at the top of my list, but I never see that mentioned in the DIR descriptions. I'm comfortable enough underwater in pretty much any situation I get myself into, but my biggest challenge is always getting back to a known point, or getting to one in the first place. I've been working conscientiously on my nav skills, and slowly improving, but from a risk / safety standpoint, that's my top priority right now. While diving with a couple of very serious tech divers earlier this year, even they got lost as to exactly where we were and what was the direction back to the boat!

Navigation skills aren't included in the training because:

a) Cave divers have cave lines to follow back out. Or use pre-laid cave lines to go to and fro.

b) Wreck divers also have lines to follow back out.

c) Deep divers probably don't want to wander too far from their anchor points because that's where a lot of their stage bottles going to be at for their decompression ascend.

Ocean Safari Scuba in San Gabriel holds seminars on underwater navigation.

Uncle Sam also provides for excellent navigation training, except that he also expects you to possibly practice it while under incoming fire.

Anyway, if you were to want to start a thread on navigation, we can start chiming in with tips and advices.

 

[Blackwood]

Navigation skills aren't included in the training because:

a) Cave divers have cave lines to follow back out. Or use pre-laid cave lines to go to and fro.

b) Wreck divers also have lines to follow back out.

c) Deep divers probably don't want to wander too far from their anchor points because that's where a lot of their stage bottles going to be at for their decompression ascend.

A and B have little to do with the GUE course in question, and C is completely wrong from the open water DIR perspective.

 

[Leejnd]

As for what you do when one spouse goes DIR and the other doesn't . . . read my posts from 2005 and 2006! The short answer is that my husband thought taking Fundies was stupid, and that it was overkill for a recreational diver. And today, he is a PADI instructor who teaches his students in backplates and bungied backups, and gets them horizontal and stable in midwater before they ever hit an open water dive. He dragged HIMSELF, kicking and screaming and dragging his feet, into this kind of diving . . . because he dove with me and my friends, and he decided on his absolute own that what we were doing was BETTER.

This is an issue for me as well - my husband, who is my most frequent dive buddy, is NOT taking the class. I did convince him to change out his gear and go with a bp/w rig, which he was considering anyway because he was having a lot of balance and trim problems with his big ol' jacket-style BC. But he's not taking the class with me.

All I can say right now is, stay tuned. He's very intrigued by all I'm telling him, and we'll see how it works out.

 

[geoff w]

Navigation skills aren't included in the training because:

a) Cave divers have cave lines to follow back out. Or use pre-laid cave lines to go to and fro.

b) Wreck divers also have lines to follow back out.

c) Deep divers probably don't want to wander too far from their anchor points because that's where a lot of their stage bottles going to be at for their decompression ascend.

Uncle Sam also provides for excellent navigation training, except that he also expects you to possibly practice it while under incoming fire.

But none of these qualify as recreational diving! When I think of diving fundamentals, in a recreational, open water setting, and all the places I've been diving, basic buoyancy control and trim make sense, as does navigation, dive planning, not running out of air, knowing how to use your equipment and being able to handle basic problems and emergencies. Being able to hover within a few inches for long periods of time goes beyond what's required to enjoy diving at a recreational level. I realize DIR, GUE and UTD all evolved out of cave and wreck diving, and that colors a lot of the methodology, but that's a pretty limited definition of what constitutes a "better diver". To me, being well rounded and competent in all diving skills seems like the fundamental objective. I'm not knocking any of the DIR approach, just trying to get the proper mental picture of what it's all about. For me, diving should be fun first and foremost (as well as reasonably safe), otherwise I've got better ways to spend my limited free time

I think I'm way past the expiration date on the box for anyone Uncle Sam would want to invest in underwater navigation training!

Ocean Safari Scuba in San Gabriel holds seminars on underwater navigation.

Anyway, if you were to want to start a thread on navigation, we can start chiming in with tips and advices.

I can barely keep up with this thread. Another thread now on navigation would really quality as too much task loading!

A and B have little to do with the GUE course in question, and C is completely wrong from the open water DIR perspective.

Care to elaborate on why C is wrong from the open water DIR perspective?

 

[Peter_C]

Navigation skills aren't included in the training because:

a) Cave divers have cave lines to follow back out. Or use pre-laid cave lines to go to and fro.

b) Wreck divers also have lines to follow back out.

c) Deep divers probably don't want to wander too far from their anchor points because that's where a lot of their stage bottles going to be at for their decompression ascend.

A and B have little to do with the GUE course in question, and C is completely wrong from the open water DIR perspective.

What it shows is just how little fnfalman knows about GUE and UTD. The Pacific Ocean I dive in sure doesn't have any cave line to follow and yet we have a rapidly growing GUE community. It would be good for fnfalman to take a Fundies course and learn some great skills which is what the training is about.

Care to elaborate on why C is wrong from the open water DIR perspective?

What if you missed the anchor line? Wouldn't you want to have your deco tanks with you? Many will do drift decos too. That is simply using logic since I am still just a recreational diver.

 

[geoff w]

This is an issue for me as well - my husband, who is my most frequent dive buddy, is NOT taking the class. I did convince him to change out his gear and go with a bp/w rig, which he was considering anyway because he was having a lot of balance and trim problems with his big ol' jacket-style BC. But he's not taking the class with me.

All I can say right now is, stay tuned. He's very intrigued by all I'm telling him, and we'll see how it works out.

I'll be most interested to hear how this works out. My wife wants the same equipment as me, or should I say for me to have the same equipment as her. I'm still diving with the same ScubaPro Classic jacket BC (with Air2 I'm proud to say) and ScubaPro regulator from when we got certified in 1994, and it all works just fine. I bought her a Zeagle BC right before we went to Bonaire in 2005, but she hasn't used it since that trip and went back to her ScubaPro Classic. She lost one of her Quattros in the surf this summer during our rescue diver class, and after going through Apollo Biofins and Volos, she's back to Mares Quattro Excel fins. I tried the split fins when we were test driving fins for her and love the Apollo splits.

Please keep us posted on your thoughts and your husband's as you progress to GUE Master, and whether you're able to spike his punch with Kool-Aid. Since you're close to me, maybe we can even get together and dive some time, although there's no way I'll ever be able to get my wife to do a beach dive here again

 

[Blackwood]

Care to elaborate on why C is wrong from the open water DIR perspective?

What Peter said. I know if I'm doing a deep open water stage decompression dive, my bottles are attached to me. I'm not leaving them somewhere that I may be unable to return to for any number of reasons - including getting lost (just bringing it back full circle).

Also the conclusion which was based on the poor assumption (dropping bottles in OW) is wrong. There is nothing in the DIR philosophy that leads one to just dawdle around the upline for fear of not being able to find it again.

 

[Leejnd]

But none of these qualify as recreational diving! When I think of diving fundamentals, in a recreational, open water setting, and all the places I've been diving, basic buoyancy control and trim make sense, as does navigation, dive planning, not running out of air, knowing how to use your equipment and being able to handle basic problems and emergencies. Being able to hover within a few inches for long periods of time goes beyond what's required to enjoy diving at a recreational level. I realize DIR, GUE and UTD all evolved out of cave and wreck diving, and that colors a lot of the methodology, but that's a pretty limited definition of what constitutes a "better diver". To me, being well rounded and competent in all diving skills seems like the fundamental objective. I'm not knocking any of the DIR approach, just trying to get the proper mental picture of what it's all about. For me, diving should be fun first and foremost (as well as reasonably safe), otherwise I've got better ways to spend my limited free time

Geoff, I'm not sure why fnfalman said any of that, because as others have pointed out, none of those apply to this course. Nothing that we're learning has anything to do with diving in overhead environments, or deep diving. Perhaps he's just speculating as to why Navigation is not a big part of this course, but I don't think he's taken it, so I'm not sure why he's posting his answer as if it's a fact, rather than an opinion from afar (meaning - no direct experience with it).

I highlighted a sentence in your post above. That, in a nutshell, is the primary reason I'm taking this course, and what I expect to get out of it.

The point of the class is NOT to make you into a cave-ready diver. The point, as I see it, is to improve your overall skills so that you are more comfortable, situationally-aware, safer, and better able to protect the fragile underwater environment. Those are basics that every diver can benefit from. And they are essentials if someone is interested in moving on to caves or wrecks or deco diving.

I too have struggled with my navigation skills. I talked to Steve about this, and while he said that this class does not focus on nav skills, it DOES focus on dive planning from an overall perspective. He said that he would spend some time giving us tips that would improve our navigation, so I'm looking forward to that, and I'll report back what I learn.

 

[Leejnd]

Please keep us posted on your thoughts and your husband's as you progress to GUE Master, and whether you're able to spike his punch with Kool-Aid. Since you're close to me, maybe we can even get together and dive some time, although there's no way I'll ever be able to get my wife to do a beach dive here again

Geoff, we have a sailboat in Channel Islands Harbor, and we dive off it occasionally. Once I'm through the class, let's chat - we'd love to take you and your wife out for a short sail to Anacapa, where we can drop anchor and dive right of the stern of our boat.