Move along nothing to see

Surprised - Probably not.

I started to write this a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to put down as I went along why I have decided to do the GUE fundamentals course as I suspect a few people are going to ask why.  I think my diving history is well documented so I am not going to repeat any of that, but just a quick note to mention that I have been diving 12 years and done about 650 dives.

However since late 2005 I have not enjoyed diving, I have gone diving but not really enjoyed it I know the reasons why but again I am not going to go into those.  It wasn’t until I had the pleasure of buddying Mal Bridgeman on a trip to Cornwall in the summer of 2006, I looked at Mal during the dives and thought - god I am crap :( Mal wasn’t DIR at this time but dived in a DIR stylee, he was effortless and I was, not to put too finer point on it rubbish.  During the weekend I suffered torch envy so when I returned home I was off to the dive shop for a bigger light, that was the first of many kit changes. 

Mal and I had a long standing arrangement to buddy up again for a trip to the Farnes in the September, as I was going to be diving with Mal and knew I would have a good buddy I arranged to make some quite significant kit changes just to see what the difference might be, there has been much talk of bungeed v non bungeed wings for years so Mal said he would lend me a wing to try out.  For those who don’t know I have been diving inverted twins for about 3 years which obviously wasn’t going to work with the wing and my hoses, so I suspect to much amusement of others on the trip I changed just about every piece of kit I could except the regs.  Yes I know people will say the sea is not somewhere to try out kit changes, but I did give a few people a good laugh and talk of the dark side was covered over a few beers, my response was don’t be silly

The trip didn’t go quite to plan we only got 2 dives in as we were blown out on the Sunday, but Mal suspected I was over weighted and was good enough to arrange a day at Stoney the following month.  Again I wrote about this at the time, taking 7kg off my weight belt was quite a shock but felt great. Over the next couple of months I was lucky enough to dive with some very experienced divers, Andy Woodside and Andy Carroll were very supportive and obviously Mal was still there with encouragement even though most of the time I didn’t think it was going to plan - what plan I don’t have one :wink:  At this point I should mention Clare who was also giving encouragement from the sidelines, Mal was doing his GUEf course with Clare at the end of January with his friend Mike and Dianne (Madfish) and there was talk of me joining them but there was no way I was going to be doing that, after all I had only just started down this road and I had no idea where I was going. 

I had a long phone chat with Clare on the way home from Capernwray one day, so long in fact I was home and I think we talked all the way.  It was a this point I talked myself in to choosing a date but we agreed I didn’t have to commit until a planned weekend at the end of February, I would make a decision based on how much I had progressed over the last couple of months.  The weekend didn’t go as well as I had planned and the targets I had set myself had not been achieved, I left the water in tears I hope nobody noticed.  Mal and Dianne were there again telling me to just go for it, after all that is what the course is for - Clare would teach me the skills and I would try and show some progression during the course.  I drove home feeling knackered and dejected, I went to work the following day not knowing what I was going to tell Clare, she wanted a decision - yes or no.  I wrote an email and then left in it the drafts box until I plucked up the courage to send it, during the morning Clare posted that she had set up a new website and I sat trawling through the information when I came across an article, “Head games of Diving by B R Wienke, this one article changed my whole mindset.  The decision was made, the date is April 20th.

March 13th, 2007 Posted by Fiona | Diving | one comment