Nonprofit GUE has been working to improve the scuba industry for 20 years

[Germie]

Jack Hammer: one time i met a gue t1 diver who told me ccr diving is dangerous. I invited him at 135m depth to show me why.
But most are just serious interested if you do things different like sidemount or ccr.

But I also have been refused with another ccr diver on a project baseline dive because we dove rebreathers. Yes we already knew what the future would be. And that was ccr.

Since I started techdiving a lot has been changed: ratio deco is gone.
I already learned pragmatic deco, wow, that is what they now use.
They added dpv cave, they added ccr after t2, they changed it because too many divers started ccr somewhere else to t1. They added sidemount. They added documentation diver. Rec2 can be done now in 3 primers, so 3 independent certs.
Wow i see they change in the same as all other agencies. They come closer and closer now, the differences left are only small.
Wrong? No.
But primers aka specialties is not new. With ccr and sidemount they started slower than other agencies. And I think if I had done T2 in 2011 or 2012 it would already partly be outdated if you never followed updates. No rd anymore. Oh I learned vpm, but changed in 2012 definetely to buhlmann. So in every course a diver should read about new updates. Not only gue.
Yes, T2 was an option maybe after normoxic trimix, but not over fundies and t1. So I did full trimix with another agency.

And there is no proof or statistics that padi is doing it worser with accidents than iantd or gue.

Sometimes your car is a Ford, sometimes Audi. And only a few buy time after time the same brand.
None is bad, none is best. Same in diving.

 

[beester]

The OP referenced mixed gas (helium) diving, and so did several replies. Personally, I think the helium policy is one of the negative things about GUE and was pointing it out. I'm well aware that there are some even bigger ways to waste a precious resource like helium. That doesn't mean we have to ignore waste when there's a better way.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate GUE/DIR. They do a lot of stuff really well, especially the focus on buoyancy/trim. Just because they lead in some areas does not mean they lead in all areas.

Well I guess using He in OC is self regulating in a way... it costs money to fill a set full of trimix. For example a D12 (or double 80cuft set) will set you back about 70€ for 21/35 up to 120-130€ for 12/65 or 10/70. So a full trimix dive to let's say 80m with reasonable bottom time will cost north of 200€ just for the gasses. I think that's self regulating in it self and the reason why I didn't sell my rebreather... (I couldn't find any more OC buddies to do deepish dives... they all moved to CCR).

On the other hand I like that GUE is promoting the use of He in dives deeper than 30m. Not just PPO² and EAD limits (N² narcosis) but also taking into consideration the effect of gas density on your breathing and the resulting build up of CO² (at 40m (120ft) you are already over 6gr/L diving air or nitrox which is a lot). But of course your mileage may vary. I will take He if I know it will be a hard working dive on the north sea at 30m, but on an easy drift dive at 38-40 m in the tropics I might take air

@ Germie: What I like about GUE is a couple of things:

- Fundies: You can say whatever you want but they did put focus on the basics, and a lot of divers can still benefit from this (also with other agencies who started providing "basics" courses doing the same)
- Standardisation: There are a lot of pro's and cons, but I like it because it allows me to do complicated dives without a lot of discussion/fuzz.
- Quality of training: I've met some incredibly good instructors from TDI/IANTD/PADI (most have cross over certs from different agencies), but I've also met some very bad ones (yes also in tech training). When it comes to GUE the overall level of instructors is high to very high (IMO). I'm really not a talented guy underwater or above, but the GUE training has allowed me to do some amazing dives.
- World wide community: I moved to Italy this winter. Just 1 little message to local instructors (Andrea, Mario) and I'm touch with the local community. I go on my own to a diving base in Croatia frequented by GUE divers... I don't need to worry about finding a buddy... the first day I dive with a guy from Ukraine, the next with a guy from Norway, the last with a guy from Dubai. We speak the same "language" underwater so diving is easy.

I agree with some of your points. I don't like the primers, I don't like this waterfall of new courses being created (3d photogrametry, documentation, cave documentation, divemaster), some old ones (rec3)... I'm on the fence with CCR starting after T1... but I guess some of it is market pressure.

However like I say, I dive with loads of people from different federations, also tech... but I can't dis this worldwide community because it's really nice and easy.

 

[seeker242]

The problem I see is .... the lack of instructors. I don’t know, but to me that seems to limit their effectiveness in providing services.

Lack of instructors is definitely limiting, but at the same time, the fact that they don't let just anyone become an instructor is one of the good things about the organization. Joe Schmoe, with his head up his butt, will have no chance of becoming a GUE instructor.

 

[helodriver87]

Open circuit helium diving should be eliminated. It's a horrible waste of resources. Closed circuit + helium is the obvious solution...or, just don't dive past whatever your personal limit for nitrox is.

That'll happen when the market dictates. Right now, it's still somewhat affordable, depending on where you live, and it's valuable experience needed before moving into rebreather diving. Contrary to what you might've heard, we aren't running out of helium. We're running out of helium reserves. Helium can be captured as a byproduct of natural gas production, we just don't do it right now in most cases because it doesn't make economic sense. New refineries are already being designed and built that can capture helium. This will help stabilize the price in the long run. We're also starting to see MRIs come online that don't use helium. There are also other reserves in the world that we don't have access to for political or logistical reasons. If we were truly in danger of totally running out of helium, it wouldn't be sold to dive shops anymore. Instead, it's sold at market rate, and people pay for it if they're willing to bear that expense. All that to say this: OC trimix diving is invaluable for people (like myself) who ultimately want to move to rebreathers for various reasons (including gas efficiency). But saying OC helium should be eliminated is wrong. It's wrong from a training and experience perspective and it's wrong from a helium usage perspective.

 

[mnjhuz76]

@ Germie: Wow is it already 750€... wow that's inflation for ya...

That's one of the reasons why I have a hard time to think of GUE as non profit. Plus the affiliation to Halcyon, Santi - Honi soit...

 

[beester]

That's one of the reasons why I have a hard time to think of GUE as non profit. Plus the affiliation to Halcyon, Santi - Honi soit...

I'm not going to comment about JJ having different responsibilities and how they might conflict (ceo of halcyon, president of GUE, whatnot).

But when it comes to the instructors, at fundies level it is still possible to do this parttime (and have a parttime other non diving job) but at the technical levels there is only 1 road and that is fully professional (full time instructing). Before they get to this level they have invested a big chunk of their life and their resources into this, and they should get some return on this investment.

If we are paying peanuts, like we do the poor twenty something schlob who became a zero to hero OWSI instructor and is living the "good life" in Bali, needing to certify at least 300 students a year or half of that and then a lot of discover scuba's to make ends meet... don't expect to get any quality instruction in return. I believe good instructors should be able to make a reasonable to good living doing this, allowing as well for time of when they can do their own exploration diving (in return making them better instructors). This is cross federation for me.

 

[Germie]

That's one of the reasons why I have a hard time to think of GUE as non profit. Plus the affiliation to Halcyon, Santi - Honi soit...

Every agency makes profit. Not wrong, but non profit is not true. And the same you see in other non-profit groups. The profit is used for trips, salaries, etc.

Every cert is 95 dollar and need to be renewed every 3 years. But if you don't do and think after 5 years I need to renew, it is just paying (a friend of me did this).
I like certs without expiration date. It is the diver who knows if he is current or not. And 'proof' of doing dives is easy. They call it 'liebooks'.
But if you know a cert costs around 35 with padi and around 80 with other agencies and some agencies are less than 35 for a cert, then you know you sponsor with every cert an agency. Wrong? No, but I would never pay again for something I already did. In ICT jobs it is normal to stay current, but not to pay again for the cert you already have.

I do not agree that a tech instructor must teach fulltime. Even if you start at techlevel as instructor you don't have enough students to earn enough to quit your normal job. Another thing against a full time instructor is that he has to teach to earn money, so this can also make that the quality goes down. Being less motivated to teach. You see this everywhere, not only in diving. So there are pros and cons for full time vs parttime instructors. And even a parttime instructor can have time enough to do also his 20 or 25 private dives to stay 'current'.
The problems to live from diving are not the courseprices, but the risk that you don't have every week a new group or that the group has only 1 or 2 people instead of 3. If you start as techinstructor, most times you can only teach 1 kind of course, so you start with advanced nitrox, T1 or C1. It is the lowest level of techdiving. It is impossible to teach this course 3 times a month and have 3 groups full with 3 people. So you see fulltime instructors teach more than 1 or 2 courses, most times the whole range. And also own a shop.
Another thing is: what is a good salary? Remember that open water and advanced open water are also teached by volunteers in clubs, mostly by cmas instructors. So sportsdiving is not the place to earn money. Even not with gue. The owsi's in divecenters are most times young backpackers that like travelleing around. So they are satisfied with food and a bed. But if a sportsdiver has to pay 250 for a day, so 750 for the 3 day open water course, he will never start diving, and never any money is earned. Every agency has its own core market. So easy it is. And on the other hand: statistics don't show that padi is worser than gue or tdi is better than iantd. So for all these agencies, there is a market with customers, instructors and courseprices.

 

[seeker242]

Every agency makes profit. Not wrong, but non profit is not true. And the same you see in other non-profit groups. The profit is used for trips, salaries, etc.

That isn't how non-profit organizations work. I worked as a treasurer for one once. That's called revenue, not profit. Profit, by definition, is not what is used to pay expenses like trips, salaries, etc. Profit is what is left over after all those expenses, taxes, etc. are paid and then goes into the personal pockets of the owners. GUE does not have owners, no non-profit does. Any monies left over are recycled back into the organizations future budgets. No owner makes a profit from the operation of the organization, hence the name "non-profit organization".

 

[The Chairman]

Surface oxygen is maybe also controversial, but it seems to work.

I haven't seen too much controversy, but I know what you mean. I had a captain tell a tech diver that he would have to take him to the hospital if he breathed oxygen. Four of us sniggered and informed him that all of us had been on that devil gas, so he best be prepared when we got to the dock. That was 10 or more years ago, and more people are accepting it as a post dive therapy.

some of them came across like religious fanatics and a few were just elitist personally types to begin with who act that way in everything they do.

It's my opinion that they were simply imitating GI3. He made it look cool with his being happy when some people got bent, hurt or died. He was living the dream and they wanted a slice of that pie. I run across someone every now and then whose eyes glaze over as they think of their "good ol' days". Le sigh.

Generally when I meet obnoxious folks I just smile and ignore them.

Dive and let dive.

 

[TrimixToo]

Open circuit helium diving should be eliminated. It's a horrible waste of resources. Closed circuit + helium is the obvious solution...or, just don't dive past whatever your personal limit for nitrox is.

I'm happy you're not in charge.

My technical diving career will likely end in not too many more years. I don't want to spend a significant fraction of those years (not to mention $15K-20K+) to regain the capabilities I have today.

That said, were I ten or more years younger, it would be a no-brainer to switch to CCR. Or, if they were to come out tomorrow with an eCCR that requires considerably less training and fewer dives to advance *safely* back to the hypoxic trimix level some time soon, I might reconsider.