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To Ben and others interested in cave training:
A few people have added their thoughts, I'd just like to expand them
a little with my experience. I posses a Full Cave TDI c-card and I am
level 2 trained (equivalent to full cave + some) with GUE. I have seen
reluctance to accept my TDI card, which is a standard 'full-cave' card,
in Florida. Mike Bruic up at Madison has recently turned away TDI-
card carrying divers, and has stated that he will not accept TDI
certification.
Now for GUE, as they seem to be the target of some misconceptions:
I personally have dived with JJ, Ted Cole, Tamara Kendall. You will be
hard pressed to find a more accomplished set of divers. They are
opinionated, and with very good reason - they are at the forefront of cave
diving, and between them and the rest of the GUE instructors they have
tried just about every configuration you can imagine when it comes to
cave diving. They have settled on what is the best system - with the
number and type of dives that they regularly perform, they'd be pretty
stupid not to ...
That said, there is NO biting anyone's head off on the courses. All is
explained patiently, and all questions are tolerated. In some cases,
where I have raised an issue concerning a piece of equipment, JJ
has taken the time to do an experiment in water with me to test my
concern. Needless to say, I was convinced.
It takes longer to become full cave trained with GUE than the other
agencies. Each of level 1 (like cavern +intro + extra) and level 2
(full cave + extra) is a week. On level 1 we made 14 dives. On level 2
we made 12 dives, nearly all being between 60 and 100 minutes in
duration. All dives are thoroughly debriefed and no punches are
pulled ... you are told precisely how you have performed, and where
you must improve.
As for the issue of the number of dives should you have ... I must say
it depends. I took level 1 with not much over 100 dives. 100 is their
minimum I think, but before being accepted for the training, they will
make a full assessment of your entire diving history and your attitude.
Others may need more, others I know should not be placed within
100 miles of a cave despite having over 2000 dives.
I appreciate where George and others are coming from - implying
that many more dives are required. I would just add that a minimum
of 100 is for Intro Cave only, and the guidance and training received
on a GUE course at that level will go a long way to keeping you alive
in your non-cave diving, enabling you to log up many more 'normal'
or 'tech' dives hopefully without killing yourself, preparing you for
Full Cave at a later date when you have more experience.
Check out www.gue.com for full details. While you're at it, check out the
NACD, NSS-CDS, and IANTD web-sites and compare what they say.
However, if you want the quickest, cheapest route to full cave
certification, without being told what is the best equipment configuartion,
then there are plenty of instructors throughtout Mexico and Florida who
will be only too willing to help.
Hope this helps,
Ian
And no, I have no commercial interest in GUE or any related
organisation, other than the desire to see a good thing succeed.
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