The first thing I should say before going any further is not to read too many blogs and writeups about T1. Going into the course with preconceptions, will only slow you down getting where you need to be. You should probably stop reading now.

The story begins in October last year when JK mentioned on his Facebook that he would be teaching at Techwise in Malta again the following March. Within hours a team had formed for Tech 1, GUE’s equivalent of Normoxic Trimix. I began preparing soon afterwards, taking advantage of my GUE membership to download the course materials, got my Fundies upgraded to Tech pass, did a dive trip to the Red Sea. Why T1 given that I already have ART which takes me to 48m and 15 mins deco? Isn’t this an expensive way to get another 3m? Not if you see your diving future as diving with GUE teams and participating in GUE projects. Then it makes perfect sense.

I am not going to write too much about the course; all 3 of us got Provisional ratings for reasons that JK explained in the debriefing that were entirely fair and accurate. A number of things conspired against us such as unseasonably bad weather in Malta that greatly restricted our choice of sites and blew us out altogether for 2 days; would that have made a difference to the end result? Well an extra 6 or 8 hours in the water couldn’t have hurt, but there is no point wondering what-if. We all have detailed plans going forwards to upgrade to full passes which I hope we will all manage in less than the 6 months allowed by GUE. We learnt all the skills, it will just take a little time to bed them in and get fluent in operating as a team. In the meantime we all have Rec3 cards (which allow 40m max depth, 21/35 backgas and a 32% stage for deco).

I will say tho’ that the gap between Fundies exit point and T1 entry point was much bigger than I expected; the 25 dives between courses that GUE requires, really do need to be in comparable conditions to the next course, and maybe should be 50 dives. Speaking for myself only, I did most of mine in the bright clear water of the Red Sea, where visual references for depth and natural navigation were plentiful, and I struggled with the task loading of executing the new skills “in the blue” with limited viz. It is actually surprisingly hard to use a teammate (+ gauge + compass) as visual reference, especially in a current, what tends to happen is vertical and directional oscillations ensue as each individual diver overcorrects. That too will come with time and a few more dives.

For future reference, the water was around 14℃, I wore merino baselayer and my Santi BZ200 undersuit, with 3Kg of v-weight. I started out with a lightweight hood and 1.5mm gloves but was glad I’d also brought a 5mm hood on the longer (2-3 hr) in-water times, near the end of which I was getting quite cold. Also very glad of my p-valve…