About a year ago I wrote:

a large part of being a good diver: having the basic stuff as taught on the OW course absolutely perfected, before worrying about anything fancy.

This was a link in a chain of thoughts that lead me inexorably from a cenote in Mexico in January that year to GUE Fundamentals, and that will hopefully see me proceed deeper (and darker) into the GUE world. But I get ahead of myself.

B & I landed in Malta, dropped our gear off at TechWise and spent the next day being tourists, exploring Valletta. There was still a day before the course began so I got in a couple of fun dives, at Circewwa on the reef and the wreck of the Rozi. Here are the stats:

The SAC is still higher than I’m used to but now I don’t think it’s just lack of fitness; it’s also over-using my lungs for buoyancy as I settle into new gear, namely the twinset and the membrane drysuit. I started off with 4Kg of V- and P-weight but felt light as I breathed the gas down on the first dive, so added 2Kg more for the second dive, also topping up the twinset with a decant cylinder. I am very happy with TechWise; they are a polished operation with slick logistics, and we’ll definitely be back there.

The following day it was time for the course to begin, we réndèz-vous’d with John Kendall bright and early (well 8:30am) at the dive centre and met our teammate Steve, a PADI Tec Trimix instructor working at TechWise and Dave of Siren Diving, an instructor intern and our intrepid cameraman for the next few days. One of the most powerful techniques of GUE training is the video feedback after each dive. Day 1 started with a lecture on the history and ongoing mission of GUE (much of which B and I had heard before on the Primer) then over to the National Swimming Pool for the swim test and some practice of trim and back kick without any kit on. The tests we all passed without too much drama. Then back to the dive centre for a workshop on equipment configuration. There were not too many changes to make to my kit, but I did gain a bungee loop on the back of my primary light head, and a “working boltsnap” on my right shoulder D-ring. Finally it was the GUE EDGE pre-dive checks. Over the next 3 days, we would do 6 dives of approximately an hour each. The water ranged from 15-17℃, I wore a 3mm hood and no gloves, with merino baselayer and PBB+ undersuit, mostly fine but a little chilly by the end of each dive.

Day 2 covered the 4 forwards propulsion techniques, frog, modified frog, flutter and mod flutter, of which we did circuits on a line laid out by Dave, followed by a team ascent with minimum deco, 1 minute @ 3 metres. We did the same again on the second dive, and at the end drained our cylinders to 40 bar and performed weight checks by attempting to hold a stop at 3m. I lost a kilo, bringing me down to 5Kg, 3Kg V- and 2Kg P-weight. We also did lectures on gas planning and practiced several goes of the S-drill on the surface. This is a far more sophisticated affair than the PADI drill, requiring coordination between the donor and the OOG diver. I mean to practice it a lot with B until it is second nature. A specific takeaway for me is that while it is far easier to see the team hovering a couple of feet above, it makes things much more difficult for them, and makes drills nearly impossible. Got to break the DM habits!

Day 3 included a lecture on deco and oxygen toxicity, and practicing the valve drill on the surface. John explained something that had been puzzling me, that this is not what you would actually do in a failure situation, it is just an exercise to build up muscle memory. In the water we practiced the basic 5 skills: reg remove and replace, reg exchange, primary donate, mask clear and mask remove and replace. These all sound trivial to any diver but believe me they are not at the level GUE expects, maintaining perfect trim and buoyancy. In my DM I learnt to perform skills to “demonstration quality” but I am well below the GUE standard and will need to work hard on my “platform”, which is the ability to maintain your position in the water, motionless, even when task loaded. The video shows that even when I am unaware of it, my feet are constantly moving as I struggle to remain stable. We practiced the S-drill in the water as a team of 3, two doing the drill and one acting as a reference for depth and also maintaining orientation to navigate to the exit. We did more propulsion work, both forwards and backwards and helicopter turns (in place). This time the team ascents were performed with one diver OOG. Steve observed afterwards that B’s “you and you watch me” signal comes across more as “you and you… fuck off!” 🙂

I had heard stories about GUE instructors playing pranks simulating failures by making off with e.g. stage bottles without the student noticing due to being task fixated, but JK managed to snaffle the boltsnap from my primary light while it was in my hand (!)

The final day introduced DSMB usage (hence the loop and extra boltsnap) and no-mask swimming. The latter was fascinating to watch on video; without a mask and being guided by a teammate, everyone showed much better buoyancy and trim, proving that we all can do it, once we relax. We brought all the skills together: valve drills and flow checks, then team ascent with an OOG diver and the third team member deploying a DSMB. All the course dives so far had been conducted on the house reef, but today the weather closed in, we tried the first dive of the day around the headland but it was still very rough (and involved climbing over a fence wearing a twinset to get there). That and the exit were the only times my injured ankle really affected me; I was terrified getting out in the swell that my foot would be caught between two rocks. That wasn’t pleasant at all. The second dive – the 6^th overall – we headed over to Manoel harbour and the X127 for. This was basically a repeat of dive 5 but to a (slightly) higher standard. We had a lecture on DCI, and the exam and final debrief at the end of a 12-hour day.

I achieved a Recreational pass, which is pretty much what I was expecting. All the pieces are there, they just need to be executed on a solid platform, which I have yet to develop. I have aspirations towards Cave 1† but I am under no illusions as to the gap between what I am presently capable of and the skills needed to do all of these drills in an overhead environment with silt on the bottom, let alone linework or operating a camera. There isn’t any point in me doing any more training I understand now until I have gotten the Tech pass, and that is simply a matter of finding teammates to practice with, and putting the hours in, then a checkout dive with JK or another instructor. I’m looking forwards to it! After that, GUE mandates 25 dives to bed the skills in before more training, something other agencies would do well to adopt.

UPDATE 2^nd November: Tech pass!

† Jury’s out on Tech 1 or continue with IANTD’s syllabus.