DIR - WHY?

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by Ahmed Adly

Yes, a great one is needed to bring balance to the force.....

[yoda]
Ah, easy it is the dark side you think?
[/yoda]

[Ahmed Adly]

Originally Posted by Adrian Kelland

[yoda]
Ah, easy it is the dark side you think?
[/yoda]

Long live the dark side.

[Andy the Coastie]

Originally Posted by CALLISTO

Just knew when I saw the title of the thread how this would end up .....and the same old people ....A certain coast guard etc ....Yawn

God knows what my job has got to do with it, and FYI , i'm on leave.

However, when I enjoy reading comments like this, means that someone has found a passion in the WAY they want to dive.

Originally Posted by Mal Bridgeman

[color="DarkRed"]

I then went diving with some GUE trained divers who impressed me no end with their procedures, their comms, their awareness, precision in buoyancy and trim. I then did a trimix course with Al & Clare of this parish which showed me more of what I was missing.

As i'm a solo diver and will not want to take up cave diving,,,, then it's not my route...... JUST coz i'm not a so-called DIR diver, doesn't mean that i can not enjoy reading other peoples enjoyment .

[Garf]

Just to clarify something from earlier in case it was badly worded. I was in no way suggesting that DIR divers do not make mistakes. I'd be the (very) last person to be able to claim that

I was objecting to the simple assumption that they are wearing kit that looks DIRish ergo they are DIR.

They were blatently behaving like tossers if they were kicking the coral apart, but a tosser is a tosser, regardless of who trained them.

So, to return to the question - how do you actually tell for certain, I'd bounce that back at you. How do you tell for certain someone in trained from by any agency. Guess you'd have to speak to them. DIR divers are allowed to speak to "lesser" mortals as long as we have obtained written permission from Florida first.

[steveharriss]

..and I wasn't suggest bashing into coral was exclusively confined to DIR divers either

The point I was trying to make was that the amount of kit was complete overkill for the dive in question.

My buddy on the dive sprung to the same conclusion as me, DIR divers, as did others who had seen the pair once we'd surfaced. It's a sad fact that whilst it is entirely possible that neither was a paid up, card carrying member, their appearance and skills in the water (I wasn't being facetious when I said that their buoyancy and trim was excellent) led to that conclusion.

As we were in no position to make introductions, had I been any nearer I'd have pointed out their mishap, it was surely a reasonable question to ask how anyone can positively identify them as DIR if you discount their obvious extra training and kit configuration.

[Bardo]

Originally Posted by steveharriss

..and I wasn't suggest bashing into coral was exclusively confined to DIR divers either

The point I was trying to make was that the amount of kit was complete overkill for the dive in question.

Ah yes but that's purely subjective, surely? I have a friend, for example, who is a BSAC Advanced Instructor and he constantly tells me that using a twinset for a 50m dive is 'overkill' - this, in my opinion, is nothing short of f*cking madness. From his perspective, though, a single + pony is more than adequate for this type of dive.

Now if you're saying that they were loaded down with stages then I'd guess that they were either in training or were simply practicing skills to keep themselves sharp or to prepare for a bigger dive. Nothing wrong in that, if you ask me - it's the numpties that don't practice skills and then get themselves in trouble on a 85m dive that I wonder about...

As Garf has suggested, did you bother to talk to them or did you just *assume* they were DIR? Who knows - you may well have been right but then you may also have been wrong... to the uneducated eye, techie divers can often look very similar and there are plenty of techie-types out there that use many of the same techniques and configuration. The point that I'm trying to make is that making assumptions gets peoples backs up just as much as a blanket 'they couldn't have been DIR if they f*cked up' statement! It works both ways...

Originally Posted by steveharriss

My buddy on the dive sprung to the same conclusion as me, DIR divers, as did others who had seen the pair once we'd surfaced. It's a sad fact that whilst it is entirely possible that neither was a paid up, card carrying member, their appearance and skills in the water (I wasn't being facetious when I said that their buoyancy and trim was excellent) led to that conclusion.

As we were in no position to make introductions, had I been any nearer I'd have pointed out their mishap, it was surely a reasonable question to ask how anyone can positively identify them as DIR if you discount their obvious extra training and kit configuration.

Without actually talking to them, you can't - it's as simple as that. Looking good in the water isn't the sole preserve of DIR divers, you know...

[GLOC]

I'll one to the list that has been covered previously and concerns a trip that Howard and I have just been on and he will be writing up shortly.

"Acceptance and 'adherence' to specified kit configurations and techniques"

Howard and I went for some social and diving this weekend in Germany. Other than the being buggered around by BA (T5 and a broken aircraft), we went diving with a variety of german and dutch divers with borrowed cylinders and scooters with no kit compatibility issues at all and minimal briefs other than to cover the GUE EDGE or the basics of it.

We were all singing from the same songsheet and it was brilliant fun. No worries about what we were going to do, who was going where, what certain light signals meant, what kit was being carried where and we were using the same gases and therefore we had the same deco schedules.

It was like being with a global set of friends who know what you want to do. Long may it continue.

[Garf]

Originally Posted by GLOC

It was like being with a global set of friends who know what you want to do. Long may it continue.

Ok, now I'm definitely gonna puke

[Clare Gledhill]

Originally Posted by GLOC

I'll one to the list that has been covered previously and concerns a trip that Howard and I have just been on and he will be writing up shortly.

"Acceptance and 'adherence' to specified kit configurations and techniques"

Howard and I went for some social and diving this weekend in Germany. Other than the being buggered around by BA (T5 and a broken aircraft), we went diving with a variety of german and dutch divers with borrowed cylinders and scooters with no kit compatibility issues at all and minimal briefs other than to cover the GUE EDGE or the basics of it.

We were all singing from the same songsheet and it was brilliant fun. No worries about what we were going to do, who was going where, what certain light signals meant, what kit was being carried where and we were using the same gases and therefore we had the same deco schedules.

It was like being with a global set of friends who know what you want to do. Long may it continue.

Bingo

[Howard Payne]

I resisted posting a serious answer to this thread coz i knew it would end up being a bunfight.

Its all bollox - all the people that are arguing like cat and dog on this thread get on like a house on fire in real life.

What divides us is so much smaller than what binds us together.

It's just a tool to do a job not a religion. GUE / DIR in the UK is like an excellent dive club - nothing more

About a hundred people at most - what a load of fuss.

Dive whatever way you like - if you want to know how we dive - there are plenty of people who you'll find to be very supportive and generous with their time.

We don't have the monopoly on good divers - there are plenty of non GUE / DIR divers who walk the walk.

By the same token - I don't know many of our mob who aren't first class.

You wouldn't guess that the weather's crap and all the diving's been sh*t canned would you?