GUE Fundamentals and Tech 1, June 2002

10:43pm, Saturday, June 1st, Pag Island, Croatia, Wim and I sit making last minute adjustments to our kit for tomorrow morning. The air is hot and humid with no wind but our room faces the sea with a balcony outside, perfect.

Walking back over the last two days of travelling, our journey was uneventful but long. We left Reeuwijk on Friday afternoon with every piece of scuba gear that we own. A straight drive to Arnhem, down to Frankfurt, and stopping in Nurnburg overnight to pick up Thomas. We arrived at about 10pm, parked the van and proceeded to climb up 5 sets of stairs up to Thomas' apartment. After a short drink we then asked if it was ok to leave the gear in the van. A quick 'no' was Thomas' reply. Wim and I exchanged glances and thought about all the gear we would have to unload and carry up those stairs. In the end we carrying a few suitcases up and took our chances.

Artjo arrived later that night around 12pm, with a few whiskeys we drank to the days ahead and slept till the morning.

We anxiously made our way down to the van in the morning to find everything still ok. Whew! Thomas packed his gear into Artjo's car and we posed for a quick photo before heading off at about 9:30am.

The rest of the journey was uneventful with a few stops to change drivers and so on.

June 2nd, Day one

The day started off with breakfast at 8am and straight into the fundamentals theory. Richard Lundgren was teaching this part of the class with Andrew flying in tomorrow to take over from there on in. After a few hours of theory we then started into the equipment configuration which detailed what was right and what was wrong about each of our set-ups. All of us had to adjust our backplates because they were too far down. If you can just touch the top of the backplate with your drysuit on then this is the correct position. My hose routing on my Scubapro regs needed a small change as well as the hose positioning on my deco bottle. After lunch we completed the swim test and continued with the theory and equipment details for the remainder of the day. After dinner Wim and I did a short dive to check our weighting and balance.

June 3rd, Day two

Andrew arrived today and put us through more equipment configuration changes, fine tuning what Richard had started.It was also the first real diving day for us. An square area was marked off with cave line so we could swim and practice our fin kicks which were shown to us by video. Frog kick, modified frogkick, modified flutter, and backward kick. Each of the teams were then taken to the side to perform a few basic drills such as clearing your mask, regulator removal, and buoyancy check. We were all feeling rather embarrassed at our lack of skills. After refilling our tanks we continued on to safety drills, bubble checks, and valve drills. The safety drill is an out of air scenario where you pass your long hose to your buddy and switch to the necklace. Valve drills involve shutting down your valves in order to isolate problems or opening valves that have rolled off. Don't ask me why I 'killed' myself during this drill by turning both valves off at the same time. I would have sworn it was not me but unfortunately it was all caught on video. Around 12pm after a very long day we crashed into bed.

June 4th, Day three

The day started at 0730 with a bit of breakfast, and into the water. The big difference was we were now starting to be harassed. After lunch we practiced some line running and reel handling at the surface then back into the water. After a long day we break for dinner and watch the whole pitiful thing on video. Very entertaining and revealing to everyone.

June 5th, Day four

Usual routine, weather is a bit stormy today and caused us a bit of difficulty getting into and out of the water. We had Richard with our team today and after the usual drills we started the dive. A new skill to learn was swimming with the loss of your mask. With a single person its not too bad but when all the divers lose the mask it makes for a difficult situation. Especially when I forgot to grab the line or communicate that I had lost my mask. The other two divers thought I still had mine so we basically were swimming around in circles totally blind till someone put us back to the line.

The rest of the days ...

The next day the plan was to dive off of a dock which looked like a ferry harbour. Here we could go down to about 30m so the line drills, and stages started to make a little more sense. We all kitted up with 50% Nitrox stages and continued with the usual drills. After coming back to the surface we made our way over the surface buoy and started the dive. All the dives are now pretty much the same. Starting off with tying off the line with a primary and secondary tie off then proceeding out, tying off as you go along. During the dive some interesting things would happen such as a left post roll off, out of air, lost mask, stages missing, etc. In dealing with each of these situations it is important to remain calm and choose the correct course of action. Many of us made one mistake after another, learning valuable lessons in the process.

All the dives were filming and reviewed at the end of the day. The last day of the course came quite fast but many of us were quite tired from the 15 hours days. For the last dive 5 of us were diving Trimix 30/30. Since you are required to make a Trimix dive to pass the course, we potentially had 5 who could make it.

The dive was supposed to be done from an old fishing boat which proved to be a challenge to organize the gear onto. In the confusion, one of the divers was left behind in the restaurant and was not noticed till we left the dock, that left 4. The boat took us around the side of the island and anchored at 30m. 

Artjo and I completed our dive which consisted of 15 minutes out, 15 minutes in, max depth 36 meters, first stop at 21m for the gas switch to 50%, then 1 minute stops every 3 meters till 6 meters. At 6 meters we did a 4 minute stop and at 3 meters a 2 minute stop. The dive went quite well without any problems. After arriving at the surface we boarded the boat, waited for everyone else to get back then headed back home. Thomas was picked back up at the harbour and we then reviewed the dives.

That night we all met at a Croatian restaurant for a great meal which consisted of lamb, potatoes, and other small appetizers. Being a rustic, country style kitchen, the lamb was served on a huge plate with the lamb head staring directly at Andrew all night. Andrew being a vegan politely declined the offer of any.

T-Shirts were handed out by Kreso's mothers which said, 'I survived Tech 1', after which Andrew and his crew left to start their journey to the next class.

In summary, the course itself was a very intensive and rewarding experience. No other dive instruction that I have every seen or taken comes close to this level. The knowledge passed on by Andrew and Richard was clear, concise, and made sense. It was a privilege to be apart of this training which will directly influence my diving in the years to come.

If you are thinking about a DIR course, do yourself a favour, sign up, get trained, and open your eyes to what is happening around you.