October 30th, 2021 I woke up feeling great, I was well rested and ready to crush the last day. I think we were all ready to be done but the excitement of the last day superseded that feeling. And in truth I was feeling somewhat anxious about leading the last dive but I was looking forward to plunging one last… Read more »
Friday, October 29th 2021 I woke up excited for the day but also very anxious. The weather was looking beautiful. The rain we had all week was long gone and the sun was already burning off the morning dew. Today would be our first experience dive and the first “real” Tech 2 dive, with real obligated deco. All the previous… Read more »
October 27, 2021 Day 3 already? I remember thinking as I ate my oatmeal and had some coffee. I was feeling good, rested, and healthy. I believe a big part of this was making sure I had energy dense yet “clean” foods to eat during the week. Salads for dinner with some kind of protein, snacks like nuts and fruits,… Read more »
It was the morning of October 24th 2021, the day before Tech 2 was scheduled to begin. I slept great and I was well rested. It was really nice that I had a free day to relax with no real agenda but I did want to dive. During dinner the previous day, a few people had talked about going for… Read more »
I desperately needed to sleep. I tried my best to turn my brain off but it just wasn’t happening. I tossed and turned and got more annoyed as realized I had to be up in only a few hours. At one point might have gotten an hour of actual sleep, but the rest was just dozing. I was too hopped… Read more »
The Canadian boarder opened up just a few short weeks prior to my scheduled departure. Tech 2 was a go, however it wasn’t just a matter of hopping on a plane and showing up. During the days leading up to my flight, I had a checklist of things to accomplish, including to schedule a PCR test (required to fly internationally/enter… Read more »
Since I started my journey in diving and my discovery of GUE in 2013, I’ve always viewed Tech 2 as the pinnacle of GUE dive training. Sure, one could argue that PSCR (RB80) and CCR2 are widely considered capstone courses in the GUE curriculum, but as far as open circuit diving goes, Tech 2 is probably it. And to be… Read more »
I have been diving a lot, but also it’s been a whirlwind of training the past 4 years. Much of my desire to get more training has to do with being confident to take on bigger dives, utilizing more gear, and wanting to see new things. Also the way that most GUE classes are structured, is that most of… Read more »
We’ve been wanting to dive Peacock III or P3 as it’s called for quite some time. This cave system is adjacent to Peacock I or P1, in Peacock springs state park in North Florida. It’s considered a more advanced cave dive because of a number of factors. First, the system often siphons, which means it gently sucks you into the… Read more »
It’s been just about 6 months since Cave 2 and we have been busy diving as much as we can. Tina and I have spent a fair amount of time exploring a little bit of Madison, a lot of Peacock, and a lot of Ginnie springs. We pretty much try a different dive or try to see something new every… Read more »
It’s almost bedtime on Christmas day 2017 and Tina and I are about to start our Cave 2 class in the morning. We are staying at a house near Fort White, just a stones throw away from High Springs. The class will be roughly 8 hours of field and in water drills for 5 days. This is the pretty standard… Read more »
Tina and I decided that we needed a change to shake things up a bit. We had been tossing around the idea of moving out of Texas for a little while, but it was always a fleeting discussion. Let’s face it, moving sucks! The process is stressful and the comfort of living and working in a familiar area turns into chaos of… Read more »
Wow what a difference a year makes. This time last year Tina and I did our last wetsuit dive with the CHUM club at the Blue Lagoon Dive Lake in Huntsville TX. It was memorable because we had already ordered our drysuits but were just waiting for them to arrive. The water temp last year was 49° F and we… Read more »
We find ourselves at the end of another year. Where does the time go? Since becoming a diver in 2010; this year, above all the previous years has been the craziest. It’s also a year that we didn’t get to do much fun diving despite having been in the water a lot. The training and gear changes have basically… Read more »
Wanting to eliminate weather as the main determining factor to where and when we could dive, we decided on making the jump from wet to dry. After weighing pros and cons of all available dry suits on the market we chose Santi. Since dry suits are a big financial commitment and involve a bit of a learning curve, we… Read more »
In August 2014, we were fortunate enough to dive in a hidden treasure within the Gulf of Mexico. The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is situated ~115 miles directly south of the Texas/Louisiana coast. Encompassing 56 sq. miles (36,000 acres), the sanctuary contains incredible reef systems that are absolutely teaming with life. After an overnight trip in calm seas… Read more »
The C.H.U.M Club AKA City of Houston Underwater Mariners (chumclub.org) does a yearly challenge called the Dive A Month (DAM) and the rules are pretty simple: Basically a member of the club needs to complete 1 dive per month for an entire year. Unfortunately for 2014 we only started our diving season in June because of some other commitments. However… Read more »