Northwest Dive Club

To the whole class this weekend! The gang PASSED! Well done! Many thanks to everyone in the community who helped mentor, dive, make hot coco and brownies, dive more, give feedback, make cookies, dive more, hold camera when i was at DEMA and Lamont was in Mexico and especially Alex who put up with us all for the past 3 days (he was out of town for the first weekend)

Now lets get out and dive! (the learning doesn't stop, in fact, it's just beginning)

And a special thanks to Jan Shaw who (wo)manned the hot coco station and helped get the teams warmed up before sending them back out into the water... Having scuba-mom on the beach ROCKS!!!!

it takes a village

Uh, passed what?

Fundies, I'd think ... Laura's been instrumental in getting Guy Shockey to come down from Victoria and be our "local" GUE instructor. Seems like he's splitting his time between here and home quite a lot lately ... which is great news for anyone interested in taking GUE classes locally. Guy's a great instructor and a wonderful person ... we're lucky to have him so willing to come here to teach ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yep.. I saw it today.. And sounder

Well then it seems that congrats are indeed in order. I've never taken fundies but from what I hear it's a very challenging and rewarding class.

H20doctor wrote:Yep.. I saw it today.. And sounder

That was his evil twin... the real Sounder never dives (I hear he doesn't even own tanks!).

Having 5 out of 5 pass is a huge testimonial to the mentoring program that Laura's been coordinating, as well as to Guy's teaching and the determination of the students.

Now the newly GUEF'd need to get out and do a bunch of diving!

I want to emphasize again that it was the work of a whole bunch of people that made this happen... Everyone who's been coming out to the tweeks, people who've given great advice on the interweb, the people cheering them on along the way, the significant others of the students for whom i'm sure they have some flower to buy (the students were out as much as humanly possible on the 3 weeks between classes)

For some it's been literally 6 months of dedication. Despite at times it seeming like I was tilting at windmills, Kees and Lamont kept coming out for the Midweek Tweeks... We were not even sure up until a few months ago that the class was gonna happen, we just kept hoping for the best

This group has been so committed to each other that even on days where someone was too fried from work to dive, they'd still drive across town to cove 2 to provide encouragement to their classmates and the other divers who have been joining us... I really feel like not only did we gain more dive buddies, but we gained family..

its not done though, we have two more classes already on the books for after the first of the year, so there is still lots of diving and community building going on

Come to the Darkside.... WE have CUPCAKES!

This has been a great ride!! (Albeit humbling and sometimes frustrating), but all in all I can wholeheartedly reccommend this program.

As a fairly dialed-in diver and Instructor, I thought I was a good enough to hang with the pros.. Boy, was I in for a reality check..

But with without the never ending help of Lamont, Laura, Kees, Margeret and the crew, I would never have received a Tec pass! Thank you!!!

So, huge props goes to these guys and the local GUE community for what I describe as a quite laborious and intense class, but most fun I've had in a very long time!!

I do feel that I learnt a lot and ended up being a much better and safer Diver and Instructor who will be able to pass on this knowledge in my dive classes!!

Also, Very nicely done to all my cohorts, I learnt a lot from every one of them and I'm proud to be part of this community!!

I'd love to get out diving with the rest of the GUE and UTD crew to guage where the next logical step would be.. Tec1 or Cave1 ?

cheers

Koos

Yes -- now that we have the nucleus of a community, let's get out and go diving! I'm meeting one of the Tweekers at Redondo tonight, and I would really like to organize a long-hose charter for some time in January or February

Good job guys.

LCF wrote:Yes -- now that we have the nucleus of a community, let's get out and go diving! I'm meeting one of the Tweekers at Redondo tonight, and I would really like to organize a long-hose charter for some time in January or February

+1 Non-cove2 please

Depending on your work schedule etc... Pick a decent weekend, so that maybe A-list sites like Davidson Rock are do-able?

edit: other trip previously mentioned here is now full

kdupreez wrote:I'd love to get out diving with the rest of the GUE and UTD crew to guage where the next logical step would be.. Tec1 or Cave1 ?
cheers
Koos

Koos, there are awesome groups of GUE, UTD, and NAUI Tech folks who go out diving... a lot... and a lot of this diving is done together. Generally speaking we tend to avoid "cove 2 skill dives" because, well, que blah que boring. We do go out and dive for fun, and sometimes on these fun dives we toss in some RAOS's (aka Random Acts of Skill). Sometimes those dives are at the cove but more often than not we're out having fun all over the place, sometimes shore diving, sometimes boat diving. We either charter or generous folks offer up their own boat a lot too. So c'mon out and join us.

Happy diving!

CaptnJack wrote: Depending on your work schedule etc... Pick a decent weekend, so that maybe A-list sites like Davidson Rock are do-able?

+1, yes, let's go out and have A-list fun.

Laurynn

Oh, and Koos . . . the answer is Cave 1. Silty heaps of rusted metal in deep, murky water just can't -- CAN'T -- compete with the wonders that lie in the Mexican caves!

I sent koos a longer list of tech1 vs. cave1 considerations, but generally with cave1:

- you need to practice line work first
- you could use a bit of failures practice, but you'll get 5 days of that
- no need for super precise mid-water buoyancy skills

and with tech1:

- you need to nail down midwater buoyancy and skills without any reference
- you should have a bit of exposure to line work
- you'll need more prep on failures since there's less time to learn those in class

its probably a more progressive approach to just do some intro line work, go take cave 1, use that as prep for all the failure scenarios in tech 1, then get the midwater polish on, and then take tech1.

YMMV considerably, tho.

Thanks for all the advice, I think I might just take the C1 route early next year sometime..

Now I need to go lay some line

we can always do midwater work while yer waiting to do cave 1... i mean theres lots of that and some cool wrecks right here in your back yard... no need to wait to work on that i know at least a couple of us will be drifting around the sound communing with the plankton

Hey, if you ever want to go for line laying practice, I'm there! Running line is one of the only things in diving that has come easily to me, and that I've gotten consistent compliments on. But I am ALWAYS happy for an opportunity to practice!

kdupreez wrote:Thanks for all the advice, I think I might just take the C1 route early next year sometime..

Now I need to go lay some line

Maybe we should do it together.

Me too ... I need the practice. Got another cave class coming up in May, and I haven't done any line work in a while.

Hey, maybe we can put all that junk on the north side of Redondo to good use and use it for line drills.

Anyone?

... Bob (Grateful DIver)

Grateful Diver wrote:Got another cave class coming up in May

What class is this Bob?

Sounder wrote:

kdupreez wrote:Thanks for all the advice, I think I might just take the C1 route early next year sometime..

Now I need to go lay some line

Maybe we should do it together.

Sounder, are you thinking of taking Fundementals so you can go the GUE cave route?

kdupreez wrote:Thanks for all the advice, I think I might just take the C1 route early next year sometime..

Now I need to go lay some line

Just remember to real it up after you lay it!!

CaptnJack wrote:

Grateful Diver wrote:Got another cave class coming up in May

What class is this Bob?

I'm doing a side-mount class with Rob Neto in Marianna ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)