In the end of November the weather in Sydney is supposed to be shining; its summer, pool, party and Christmas lights fighting the sun for fame at the beach. The particular week of our GUE course though, thunder and lightening decided to party for Gideon Liew's all girlies Tech 1 class. Joining were Kim from Sydney, Tania from Adelaide, and Kjersti from Norway.
Dive Centre Manly, on the northern beaches of Sydney, was the base for our course. Starting up, Gideon came straight off the plane and wasted no time before he ordered us into the water. Shelley beach has an average depth of 6 meters, supposedly confined, but we were met by surge and surf beyond belief. After fighting the currents for hours, no experience diving together beforehand, striving to communicate, no masks, no air, we surfaced to Gideon's dry remark; "there is much to learn ...", accompanied by an "I have seen worse" with an unmistaken scent of lie added with disbelief - what had he gotten himself into? Three strong headed women, all of us wanting to take charge, none of us yet capable, he was up to a treat... and we were too. Our first day ended with a heartbreaking video session, and an attempt of encouragement from Gideon; "There is lot of things that happened that was good" uttered with his trademark; the everlasting smile. Unfortunately, when pushed to be more precise on the first day's "good experiences", he could only find one; "For example I understood that you need dry-runs on the valve drills..." Thanks Gid, just what we needed to hear...
|
 |
Day two, three and four are somewhat of a blur. First dry runs in thepark, then four hours in the water every day, not a diver in sight,all other dives and classes cancelled due to the weather, but Gideon's Sirens were still fighting the same current, the same surge, adding tothe scenario a fair bit of thunder, some lightening and of course theseductive lure, not of the Sirens but of Gideon's restless smile. Having fought the swell and current to exhaustion before diving down, we felt the CO2 hit just in time for the line to "accidentally" get caught in the valves, the mask suddenly to be gone, and to get one of those nasty unreparable manifold failures, all of the faults happening of course only because we gave Gideon way to many openings to play the role of faith...
|
 |
Watching the video the second day Gideon already told us "dude, we've got issues", followed up by a "You should be sure that I'm willing to give you as much of my time as you are willing to spend." We had already lost one dive due to the weather, and we didn't see it becoming better anytime soon, so we turned our five day course into a six days one, all of us happily agreeing that we wanted and needed it. Gideon of course thrilled to be in the company of his Girls for a little longer. Video sessions continued to be devastating for self confidence, crucial to our learning experiences, and sometimes unbelievably funny; as Tania commented on the her rescue of "toxed diver" Kjersti; "That's awful, it looks like I'm humping her", Gideon smilingly replying; "Its fine by me - as long as you like it."
Day five the weather wouldn't allow us to get outside the harbour, we had to dive the river, and our mission was to search for a (non existing) wreck. Having a visibility of a short twenty cm, barely seeing the bottom before we avoided hitting it, the visibility gave us its own little course in team awareness. The river however didn't hammer us with the strength of its current, and likened to our other dives; it was a joyride without comparison. It started to dawn on us;
we were actually assimilating some of the lessons Gideon tried to teach us, we were actually doing some of the stuff a little more right!
Having our four hour in water sessions followed by theory on the boat, in the bus, the class room, with our meals and coffees, we made some good twelve hour days out of our course. In one short week Gideon managed to teach us more than we ever thought possible to absorb: Characteristics, dangers and not to forget pleasures of oxygen, nitrogen, and helium, swirling deco theories and elegant formulas of ratio deco, team awareness, positioning, and anticipation of team mates needs and reactions, and of course the additional DIR girlies curricula including avoidance of divers' hairdo (remember to use
conditioner before you enter the water), the different sizes and use of diapers (try small flows), and tips for avoidance of nail destruction during valve drills (simply cut them beforehand). All of this while Gideon relentlessly claimed this was only the most necessary, small, small building blocks, our much wanted tickets to learn more... And we believe him.
|
 |
Day six the Girls were ready for the final dive, pure pleasure, this time there would be no Gideon placing disruptions in our way, and we were thrilled with excitement. Not until six o'clock in the morning did we know if there would actually be a dive; that is if the boat would take us outside the harbour. Eight o'clock we were all ready to go; as we donned all our gear on the Long Reef beach and swam (!) out to the waiting boat; Tania commenting; "the concept of boat diving just got a whole new dimension..." Working our way to the dive site, the surf was still high, the surge higher, and the current heavy. At the site the captain had to throw the anchor five times (sic!) before he hit the spot (he might have been doing it wrong...), each of the throwing out and hauling ins making us worry that we wouldn't get the dive after all. Finally everything was set. We jumped into the water and started our descent to the Coolooli, a steel dump wreck off Long Reef. At six meters the surge was off, at twenty meters the current silenced, and from there and down we met paradise. Looking, astonished by the clarity of the underwater world, not that the viz was especially great, but for those of us that have previously dived deep on air, the seeing of the whole wreck, the clearness of the details, the actual remembering of them, it was awesome; helium is no doubt our new won friend! Thank you Gideon, for introducing him ;-)