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--=====================_29266228==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed On April 27& 28 VBtech divers took the DIR Fundamentals class. The class came about during the fall when Tom Sawicki (a member of the VBtech group) had plan to go out of state to take the class and see if he could become a GUE instructor. The class date he was looking at collided with planned deep dives we had. So I told him we would have Andrew just come to us to teach the class and I would take it also. Tom was one of the first divers to be cave and trimix trained by JJ and Ted Cole when GUE was formed, so the class would be a refresher for him. For those of us who had no cave or training of this kind it was very enlighting, but to me not unexpected. I will give a run down on the class ,my thoughts about the training, changes that should be made to the class, and btw way no one died. I just wanted you to start reading this. When you read this report keep in mind this class is seen though my eyes and the facts that I state can be backed up with emails to prove it, without a doubt Andrew is one solid diver and is the only diver to ever show me things that exceed my own thinking for very deep dives. Tom and I began emailing Andrew requesting dates for the class, we asked for a date in late Feb or the first weekend in March. We also asked Dave Widen to be in the class with us, the group was then completed by invite by those loyal to our group and enough skill to flow with the class, as it turned out this was not necessary because unless you are already trained in DIR fundamentals you surely will not do good in the class. Andrew emailed us that he was booked on those dates and sent us alternative dates, I accepted the dates April 26-28 and sent Andrew an email to pencil us in. Well some how a RB class was put on our date and Andrew wanted to send someone else to teach the class, I checked the GUE instructor list and the guys didn't exist on the list and I never heard of them. Tom and I talked it over and I contacted Bob Sherwood whom I met at BTS last year and I knew he really dived so I emailed him and he was not open on that date. So Dave went to the horses mouth with our problem, Trey assumed Dave was asking for some kind of a cutting of corners and Trey sent a blistering email ( figure that) back, I stepped in and said we had tried to get someone up here to teach the class and our date got over booked and no one else we wanted was available. The kicker was when I told him I didn't even need to take the class and was only doing it to help Tom and Dave. I must have struck a nerve and Trey must have some pull because we got this email right away: From: "Andrew Georgitsis" <andrewg@fi*.co*> To: "Capt JT" <captjt@mi*.co*>, <trey@ne*.co*>, <dwiden@co*.ne*> Cc: <trey@pi*.ne*>, "Jarrod Jablonski \(E-mail\)" <JJ@gu*.co*>, "Tom Sawicki \(E-mail\)" <tsawicki@od*.ed*>, "James M. Cobb \(E-mail\)" <cobber@ci*.co*>, "Todd Clagett \(E-mail 3\)" <toddclagett1@ea*.ne*> Subject: RE: Thoughts & Training Support Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 18:20:25 -0800 JT I am working very hard to get there for the orginal date of April 26,27,28th. I am in the middel of cancelling a bunch of my commitments. Please be patient should have final word by tommorow. If it doesn't work out I will be working on another date. Thanks ANdrew Well now, we got the instructor we wanted on the date we wanted, but at what cost? Nothing like putting a target on your back now is it. Now it was a matter time before the class, I didn't give it any thought. Andrew would be joined with Mike Kane whom I have dived with before and he had stayed at my home before, so I invited them both to stay with me during the class. I have never met Andrew before, but someone said he looked a little old and was balding. I did no extra or special training to prepare for the class nor did I change my gear, with the exception of putting Sherwood knobs on my doubles as one had spilt. Kane had emailed me and others with divers wanting to get in on the class none were even answered, it was full and closed to outsiders. We set the limit of 10, it was our class and no one else. Now you can imagine how mad I got when I received an email from Kane with there flight numbers and times with a message that a student from Israel would be joining the class. The emails were flying in our group and I fired off an email back of displeasure of adding a student to our class without permission, Kane emailed back to say he had called Andrew and found that this was not a student but a representative of the Israel Government and would be evaluating the training of GUE for becoming the only training agency there. April 26 arrived and the class was set to be at LDC 7pm to 10 or 11pm lecture. Dave Widen picked the guys up at the airport and we all met at LDC. Now imagine my surprise when I came into the room to find that Andrew is neither old nor balding, but 30 something, 6' 5" and thin as hell. The guy looked like he hadn't eat a steak in weeks, you guessed it, he's a vegan........ I got a grip on my ego and placed it in my pocket, I am now a student for the weekend. Anyway the lecture was informative and covered various parts of diving. Soon the lecture covered boat diving technique and soon a debate began to form. I stopped debating over his proposed method of diving a wreck and as he continued to explain how his group "SCRET" had a chase boat for each team in the water, he had helped me win the debate and didn't know it, not one of us nor as a group do we have enough money to put into diving, for every team, a manned chase boat for every dive we do. Meaning for us we would need at least 4 chase boats, 1 dive vessel, and 11 crew. That shouldn't be much, 8-10,000 a day should cover that. The discussion turned to jonlines and quickly a post on quest became the topic, seems there are 2 dumb asses around, a KC on the east and a KC on the west. There were other things that the lecture covered, boat entry, depth, team, ect. He even told us of a dive he did in 28ft seas, now being on the ocean a great deal myself, I know you can always find a fool to take you somewhere, but how did they get both on the same boat. 28ft seas, I have been in 10-12ft seas and diving is nearly fatal getting back on the boat. I sure hope I heard that wrong and he meant 12ft seas or rollers with 30 sec intervals. Now, the things that really were the best, Andrew knows his shit, he was able to show me by lecture and position how to have proper buoyancy control. I fully understood every word he used to explain all the pieces of the puzzle to help me achieve this. Could this be true, would I finally get it this time, yes,yes, rule 6 is within my gasp. Then Andrew states"chief, I cannot make you a good diver in 2 days, just show you the bar". Saturday morning came early and the group headed for lake Rawlings a 2hr plus ride. We arrived to find it was a mad house of OW1 and the likes you have never seen, we do not train there only in the winter months as the instructors who come to use the lake are usually the worst kind. We even saw one guy teaching from the dock in plain cloths and the divers (I guess they were students) would come over to him and he would tell them what to do. We put down a couple of tarps and brought our gear down, Kane step on another guys tarp and got yelled at. Well for the next 3 or so hrs Andrew had us readjust our gear, cut all snaps and stuff off. My harness was so tight it felt very uncomfortable. All this was done while in our drysuits and only back plates on. We zip tied our regs on the plates and did S drills, man it was hot. He explained everything wrong with every dry suit. I found that NO drysuit is up to par. We had to keep going down to the water cool off. We practiced all the fin kicking techniques on our stomachs, the class was so far above anything else being done at the lake that others just stood and watched. During one drill he asked us if we would do 3 man teams, I have experienced and see felled 3 man dive teams and said I did not want to do that. Everything he was about to explain about 3 man teams I already knew, we would be doing some of our in water skills with 3 man teams and we would fail....... 3 man teams are the hardest to dive, only those that practice this can use it to its fullest potential, a safer dive, those that just do it will always put one diver at risk. Part 2 coming...... I am working on part 2 and will post it as soon as I can, all will fall into place in the end. I have also updated my site to include photos from the class go to the photo gallery www.capt-jt.com "You can't learn to dive on the net, sooner or later you have to get in the water" Your Guide to Great Wreck Diving along the East Coast & more Web Site http://www.capt-jt.com/ Email captjt@mi*.co* --=====================_29266228==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <html> On April 27& 28 VBtech divers took the DIR Fundamentals class. The class came about during the fall when Tom Sawicki (a member of the VBtech group) had plan to go out of state to take the class and see if he could become a GUE instructor. The class date he was looking at collided with planned deep dives we had. So I told him we would have Andrew just come to us to teach the class and I would take it also. <br> Tom was one of the first divers to be cave and trimix trained by JJ and Ted Cole when GUE was formed, so the class would be a refresher for him. For those of us who had no cave or training of this kind it was very enlighting, but to me not unexpected. I will give a run down on the class ,my thoughts about the training, changes that should be made to the class, and btw way no one died. I just wanted you to start reading this. When you read this report keep in mind this class is seen though my eyes and the facts that I state can be backed up with emails to prove it, without a doubt Andrew is one solid diver and is the only diver to ever show me things that exceed my own thinking for very deep dives.<br> Tom and I began emailing Andrew requesting dates for the class, we asked for a date in late Feb or the first weekend in March. We also asked Dave Widen to be in the class with us, the group was then completed by invite by those loyal to our group and enough skill to flow with the class, as it turned out this was not necessary because unless you are already trained in DIR fundamentals you surely will not do good in the class.<br> Andrew emailed us that he was booked on those dates and sent us alternative dates, I accepted the dates April 26-28 and sent Andrew an email to pencil us in. Well some how a RB class was put on our date and Andrew wanted to send someone else to teach the class, I checked the GUE instructor list and the guys didn't exist on the list and I never heard of them. Tom and I talked it over and I contacted Bob Sherwood whom I met at BTS last year and I knew he really dived so I emailed him and he was not open on that date. So Dave went to the horses mouth with our problem, Trey assumed Dave was asking for some kind of a cutting of corners and Trey sent a blistering email ( figure that) back, I stepped in and said we had tried to get someone up here to teach the class and our date got over booked and no one else we wanted was available. The kicker was when I told him I didn't even need to take the class and was only doing it to help Tom and Dave. I must have struck a nerve and Trey must have some pull because we got this email right away:<br> From: "Andrew Georgitsis" <andrewg@fi*.co*> <br> To: "Capt JT" <captjt@mi*.co*>, <br> <trey@ne*.co*>, <br> <dwiden@co*.ne*> <br> Cc: <trey@pi*.ne*>, <br> "Jarrod Jablonski \(E-mail\)" <JJ@gu*.co*>, <br> "Tom Sawicki \(E-mail\)" <tsawicki@od*.ed*>, <br> "James M. Cobb \(E-mail\)" <cobber@ci*.co*>, <br> "Todd Clagett \(E-mail 3\)" <toddclagett1@ea*.ne*> <br> Subject: RE: Thoughts & Training Support <br> Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 18:20:25 -0800<br> JT <br> I am working very hard to get there for the orginal date of April <br> 26,27,28th. I am in the middel of cancelling a bunch of my commitments. <br> Please be patient should have final word by tommorow. If it doesn't work out <br> I will be working on another date.<br> Thanks <br> ANdrew<br> Well now, we got the instructor we wanted on the date we wanted, but at what cost? Nothing like putting a target on your back now is it.<br> Now it was a matter time before the class, I didn't give it any thought. Andrew would be joined with Mike Kane whom I have dived with before and he had stayed at my home before, so I invited them both to stay with me during the class. I have never met Andrew before, but someone said he looked a little old and was balding.<br> I did no extra or special training to prepare for the class nor did I change my gear, with the exception of putting Sherwood knobs on my doubles as one had spilt.<br> Kane had emailed me and others with divers wanting to get in on the class none were even answered, it was full and closed to outsiders. We set the limit of 10, it was our class and no one else. Now you can imagine how mad I got when I received an email from Kane with there flight numbers and times with a message that a student from Israel would be joining the class. The emails were flying in our group and I fired off an email back of displeasure of adding a student to our class without permission, Kane emailed back to say he had called Andrew and found that this was not a student but a representative of the Israel Government and would be evaluating the training of GUE for becoming the only training agency there.<br> April 26 arrived and the class was set to be at LDC 7pm to 10 or 11pm lecture. Dave Widen picked the guys up at the airport and we all met at LDC. Now imagine my surprise when I came into the room to find that Andrew is neither old nor balding, but 30 something, 6' 5" and thin as hell. The guy looked like he hadn't eat a steak in weeks, you guessed it, he's a vegan........ I got a grip on my ego and placed it in my pocket, I am now a student for the weekend.<br> Anyway the lecture was informative and covered various parts of diving. Soon the lecture covered boat diving technique and soon a debate began to form. I stopped debating over his proposed method of diving a wreck and as he continued to explain how his group "SCRET" had a chase boat for each team in the water, he had helped me win the debate and didn't know it, not one of us nor as a group do we have enough money to put into diving, for every team, a manned chase boat for every dive we do. Meaning for us we would need at least 4 chase boats, 1 dive vessel, and 11 crew. That shouldn't be much, 8-10,000 a day should cover that. The discussion turned to jonlines and quickly a post on quest became the topic, seems there are 2 dumb asses around, a KC on the east and a KC on the west.<br> There were other things that the lecture covered, boat entry, depth, team, ect. He even told us of a dive he did in 28ft seas, now being on the ocean a great deal myself, I know you can always find a fool to take you somewhere, but how did they get both on the same boat. 28ft seas, I have been in 10-12ft seas and diving is nearly fatal getting back on the boat. I sure hope I heard that wrong and he meant 12ft seas or rollers with 30 sec intervals.<br> Now, the things that really were the best, Andrew knows his shit, he was able to show me by lecture and position how to have proper buoyancy control. I fully understood every word he used to explain all the pieces of the puzzle to help me achieve this. Could this be true, would I finally get it this time, yes,yes, rule 6 is within my gasp. Then Andrew states"chief, I cannot make you a good diver in 2 days, just show you the bar". <br> Saturday morning came early and the group headed for lake Rawlings a 2hr plus ride. We arrived to find it was a mad house of OW1 and the likes you have never seen, we do not train there only in the winter months as the instructors who come to use the lake are usually the worst kind. We even saw one guy teaching from the dock in plain cloths and the divers (I guess they were students) would come over to him and he would tell them what to do. <br> We put down a couple of tarps and brought our gear down, Kane step on another guys tarp and got yelled at. Well for the next 3 or so hrs Andrew had us readjust our gear, cut all snaps and stuff off. My harness was so tight it felt very uncomfortable. All this was done while in our drysuits and only back plates on. We zip tied our regs on the plates and did S drills, man it was hot. He explained everything wrong with every dry suit. I found that NO drysuit is up to par. We had to keep going down to the water cool off. We practiced all the fin kicking techniques on our stomachs, the class was so far above anything else being done at the lake that others just stood and watched. During one drill he asked us if we would do 3 man teams, I have experienced and see felled 3 man dive teams and said I did not want to do that. Everything he was about to explain about 3 man teams I already knew, we would be doing some of our in water skills with 3 man teams and we would fail....... 3 man teams are the hardest to dive, only those that practice this can use it to its fullest potential, a safer dive, those that just do it will always put one diver at risk.<br> Part 2 coming...... I am working on part 2 and will post it as soon as I can, all will fall into place in the end. I have also updated my site to include photos from the class go to the photo gallery <a href=3D"http://www.capt-jt.com/" eudora=3D"autourl"><font color=3D"#0000F= F"><u>www.capt-jt.com</a></font></u> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> "You can't learn to dive on the net, sooner or later you have to get in= the water"<br> <br> <font color=3D"#0000FF"><u>Your Guide to Great Wreck Diving along the East= Coast & more <br> Web Site <a href=3D"http://www.capt-jt.com/"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.capt-jt.com/</a><br> Email captjt@mi*.co*<br> <br> </font></u></html> --=====================_29266228==_.ALT-- -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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