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 I think we were all ready to be done but the excitement of the last day superseded that feeling.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 »
If you think about it, the idea of adding helium to a compressed breathing gas mix seems pretty ingenious. It has a super low atomic mass so it’s far less dense than oxygen and nitrogen, it’s an inert gas, it’s easily soluble in the body which makes it good for perfusion, and it makes you talk funny under water. Seriously… 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 »
October 26, 2021 I woke up feeling rested which actually surprised me considering I have have struggled in previous classes to get good sleep and not have tons of anxiousness. I remarked to myself “Day 2 here we go”. I got out of bed and gathered my things in what now had become a routine. I made some Tim Hortons… Read more »
October 25, 2021. I woke up before my alarm feeling rested and content. I was in a really good headspace despite feeling anxious and nervous about the week ahead. The stress of just getting to Vancouver to even start Tech 2 was long gone, and now I could focus on what needed to be done. Guy had mentioned the day… 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 »
I took GUE DPV 1 May 2018, which certified me to use a scooter in open water but not in an overhead environment. That being said, I have less interest in scootering in open water than I have in caves for now. So the real goal even back in May, was to get cave DPV certified in the near future…. Read more »
It was 3am on Sunday July 22nd and Tina and I were wide awake desperately trying to sleep. Marley woke up around 2am because of a storm and was bumping around, crashing into the walls and closet door. She’s a 14 year old Golden Retriever, that’s totally blind, and hates thunderstorms. So when she gets upset, she wanders aimlessly around…. Read more »
It was the morning of Saturday the 21st of July, 2018. We were up earlier than Kirill and Per, but as we started moving around both of them woke up shortly after. We gathered our stuff for the day and put some drinks in the cooler. Everyone had their undergarments in the dryer from the night before. We we… Read more »
I got off work early, the truck was already packed from the night before, so all we had to do was put food in the cooler, load the dogs, and head south. It was Thursday July 19th and our fourth day of Tech 1 was in the morning. We rented an Air BnB a few miles from pompano dive center… Read more »
Ahhh Blue Grotto. By now we are intimately familiar with this place. Virtually all of our GUE classes have started here (except for cave 2). It’s a great place to train and the facilities are very nice. Picnic tables, covered pavilions, showers, and nice bathrooms. The downside is that It’s also fairly crowded on the weekends with… Read more »
Tina and I have been putting off Tech 1 for a while. Partly because we both felt like we didn’t need it, and partly because we didn’t think we were ready. But as much as we cave dive and feel somewhat proficient in that, we also realize that we had a major deficiency for diving in the ocean doing the… Read more »
Technical and cave diving has always seemed to be such a distant goal for us. I can remember the feeling I had when starting to discover Global Underwater Explorers back in 2013 while living in Houston. I was in awe of the divers that I would watch in videos. They just made it look so easy and fun. They had… 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 »
You can’t go into any of the the local High Springs dive shops and not see a DPV (DIver Propulsion Vehicle or a scooter as they are commonly called), sitting, waiting, begging to to be fondled inappropriately. Scooters represent a level of diving that we just didn’t think we would be at a few short years ago. Not to mention… Read more »
Cave 2 has been a different class compared to other GUE classes we have taken. The challenges were there, the struggle with new skills were there, but the learning was different. Mark and Mer gave us the tools to make good decisions underwater; in a positive and controlled way. Of course there are a number of ways to deal with… Read more »
It’s the 4th day of Cave 2 training. We are sore and tired. Our fingers are chewed up more than normal. I suppose it’s because of trying to mess with gear in the cold and dragging extra equipment that we aren’t used to in the caves. So far class is going ok. It’s certainly challenging and fun. But at the… Read more »