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GUE History: Towards A New and Unique Future (2004)
Here in this 2004 white paper, Jablonski presents the rationale, controversy, and evolution of the DIR system, discusses the rise of alternative DIR groups and how they differ from GUE, and charts out a new direction for the organization, all of which makes for fascinating reading for diving history buffs.
The Evolution of DIR
by Jarrod Jablonski, Preface by Michael Menduno
Preface
Standardization of equipment, gases and dive protocols are accepted and viewed as the norm in military and commercial diving. However, the idea of creating standards for sport diving teams in order to improve their safety and performance was, to say at the least, controversial in the 1990s when technical diving was just emerging. But that’s exactly what George Irvine, then the director of the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP), and training director Jarrod Jablonski, did with the development of their groundbreaking “Doing It Right” (DIR) system of diving, which evolved from the earlier “Hogarthian” approach to cave diving developed by WKPP co-founder Bill ‘Hogarth” Main.
There’s little doubt that the DIR system garnered even more controversy as a result of Irvine’s pugnacious “my-way-or-the-highway” online persona, which arguably detracted from DIR’s importance. Jablonski went on to establish Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) in 1998, with the DIR system at its core. In fact, GUE’s membership magazine “QUEST” was originally named dirQUEST.
By 2004, Jablonski and Irvine’s system inspired the rise of a number of DIR groups around the world, each unaffiliated with GUE, and each with its own focus and nuance. This created some confusion and additional controversy surrounding what constituted GUE standards in comparison to other DIR groups. As a result, Jablonski authored an article titled, “Toward A New and Unique Future,” in the Summer 2004 issue of dirQUEST, which is reprinted below. Following that issue, the “dir” was dropped from the title of magazine, which was renamed “QUEST.”
In his treatise, Jablonski recounts in some detail the need, evolution, and clarification of GUE’s DIR standards, as well as discussing the rise of alternative DIR groups, the confusion that it caused, and the decision to take GUE in a new unique direction. His thesis makes for fascinating reading for diving history buffs like me.
In addition, he made several notable points which struck me as I read it. First, Jablonski pointed out that DIR was misunderstood from the beginning. Specifically, that it was NOT an indictment of non-DIR equipment configuration or practices, but rather an effort to promote uniformity among dive teams. There is more than one way to “do things right.” The key is to decide on a standard and stick with it.
Second, Jablonski concluded that DIR was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of being GUE. In other words, GUE was bigger than DIR and encompassed a wider set of standards and practices. Those included the practice of “civility,” which was likely added in response to Irvine’s actions at the WKPP.
Interestingly, when viewed today, GUE’s standards have clearly demonstrated their robustness. In fact, one could argue that many of GUE’s standards, such as a pre-dive checklist, streamlined equipment, nitrox vs air, cylinder marking and gas switching protocols, as well as more conservative gas parameters—OK, not everyone has bought into helium beyond 100 ft/30m, yet—have been extremely successful in that they have largely been adopted by the technical diving community. Here’s what Jarrod Jablonski had to say back in 2004.
The article makes for fascinating reading for diving history buffs like me.
Toward A New and Unique Future
by Jarrod Jablonski, GUE Founder and President
The history of underwater exploration is filled with striking personalities and noteworthy actions. However, underwater exploration took on a new form with the emergence of scuba diving. Initially driven by commercial and military interests, underwater exploration using scuba grew to include sport divers, who embraced underwater exploration as their life’s passion and who sought to develop the best tools possible to complement their exploration needs. While the sport was in its infancy, and choices were limited, these divers did not vary greatly in terms of their equipment and configuration.Furthermore, given that training options at the time were also limited, these divers also shared very similar techniques.
As more people took up scuba diving, however, variation in equipment, training, and equipment configuration grew. With ever-growing numbers of people finding pleasure in open water, no decompression diving, a collective identity emerged reflecting the interests of recreational diving participants. An entire industry would soon follow to serve these interests. Concurrently, another identity would take shape, one tied to a group of divers, some coming from within recreational diving, some from without. These divers pushed the limits of recreational diving, exploring increasingly more demanding environments; e.g. caves, deep wrecks and ice. Over time, these two groups would diverge and each would follow its own trajectory. The somewhat vague (in part arbitrary) categories of “technical” and “recreational” diving can be used to describe these two trajectories.
Given the different orientations of recreational and technical divers, it should come as no surprise that different training practices, equipment choices, and configurations would emerge to answer to the wants of each. The evolving idea of what it meant to be “recreational” led to some divergence regarding what one needed to know to remain safe during dives of minimal difficulty. As a result, dive training tended to become shorter, with minimal treatment of topics such as gas planning, breathing gas concerns, decompression, and crisis management. Likewise, this shift led to greater variation with respect to equipment choices and to how this equipment would be configured.
However, the needs of technical diving generally required greater knowledge of these areas, more precision, more attention to detail, refined skills, practiced crisis management, a sound configuration, and well-crafted and well-maintained equipment. Conventions foreign to the recreational diving community, such as the “thirds rule,” the use of a long hose and a redundant regulator, emerged specifically to address the needs of the technical diver. However, in time, it became apparent that the more precision and proficiency that was required to pursue exploration-level technical diving, the more the need for a unified system. That’s because it was impractical, if not impossible, to operate efficiently as a team if individuals were not functioning under a common set of constraints.
Regardless of environment, there is substantial variation among divers with respect to both the value they place on efficiency and how intensely they seek to extend the limits of their diving practice. I would argue that the position that divers take on issues of efficiency is largely tied to the nature of their diving. For instance, it is clear why early divers did not consider standardization an urgent need. That’s because their diving was less aggressive and thus less likely to demand a high level of efficiency.
However, as diving became more aggressive and more complex, the benefits of precision and efficiency become progressively more obvious; individuals undertaking such dives quickly realize the benefit of standardizing nearly all aspects of their diving to make it more efficient. So, when evaluating different equipment configurations—from those used in the early days of underwater exploration, to those representing “Hogarthian” ideas (discussed below), to the evolving principles of “Doing It Right”—it is useful to keep in mind the importance of efficiency in dealing with complexity.
As a greater number of divers (both recreational and technical) discover the value of efficiency as a means of improving the quality of their diving, standardization in training and equipment, seems the likely future of the practice of diving. The public first became aware of the movement toward standardization and of its value, when the Hogarthian diving system became popular. This scheme was composed of a rough set of ideas and equipment recommendations that served as useful standards for measuring desirable aspects of diving equipment configurations.
Cultivated by a small collective of cave explorers, i.e., Bill Gavin, William “Hogarth” Main, Lamar English, George Irvine, and myself, the idea behind this “system” was that there were preferred methods of configuring equipment, and that these methods had a profound effect upon diving efficiency. Bill Main invested considerable time seeking the most streamlined configuration possible, which resulted in his middle name being chosen to represent the overall system.
Though useful, the Hogarthian system did not require a specific piece of equipment or a particular configuration. Therefore, it did not provide divers with an objective diving standard that would ensure efficiency in the water and was thus limited in its utility. However, by promoting the idea that a careful selection of equipment and configuration could substantially impact the success of a dive, Hogarthianism introduced a dynamic new paradigm to divers and encouraged them to seek improvement through minimalism and streamlining. Armed with this new perspective, many divers (myself and the above explorers included) sought to assemble the most efficient equipment configuration possible, often sharing our findings with the public at large.
Rather than provide divers with an objective standard to assemble their configuration, Hogarthianism offered a loosely-knitted set of ideas or philosophy that, in the interest of diver efficiency, promoted an ethos of careful gear selection. However, the lack of an objective standard did not permit divers to understand what exactly constitutes a Hogarthian diving configuration. Instead the “system” varied according to how different advocates of Hogarthian diving saw the links tying together equipment, streamlining, and efficiency.
This disparity of opinion, along with Hogarthianism’s singular emphasis on equipment (versus general diving practice) led to considerable confusion among the diving public (it was extremely difficult to standardize what, was largely subjective in nature). Eventually it became clear that both a more complete system and greater standardization were needed. To be as useful as possible, the components of the system would need to be objectively arrived at and standardized. George Irvine and I, having worked extensively with the Hogarthian system, and having written at length about it, worked toward this new paradigm. We named this new paradigm “Doing It Right” or DIR.
As the first holistic scuba diving system ever crafted, “Doing It Right” began to gain significant popularity in the mid-1990s; a key component of its success was the detail and care that guided its growth. By adhering firmly to standardization, DIR initially faced opposition from diving quarters that saw the loss of “personal preference” as a notable sacrifice. Even so, with the gradual recognition that it is impossible for a team of divers to be efficient in the water without notable uniformity in equipment, training and configuration, opposition began to erode and continues to erode to this day. That’s because divers have begun to realize that there is a significant penalty in terms of wasted energy and effort for stubbornly seeking to maintain an individual “style.” Why reinvent the wheel alone when there is a proven system that ensures safety, efficiency, and success in the water?
Because DIR’s insistence on standardization is frequently misunderstood, it sometimes becomes a source of tension among divers. That’s because some see the insistence on uniformity as an indictment of practices that do not abide by DIR principles. However, there is nothing essentially hostile or critical about DIR; in its most basic form, it is ultimately pragmatic, promoting the concept of uniformity within and among teams of divers.
Because DIR’s insistence on standardization is frequently misunderstood, it sometimes becomes a source of tension among divers. That’s because some see the insistence on uniformity as an indictment of practices that do not abide by DIR principles. However, there is nothing essentially hostile or critical about DIR; in its most basic form, it is ultimately pragmatic, promoting the concept of uniformity within and among teams of divers.
To be fair, there is a certain degree of legitimate tension generated by imprudent advocates of DIR. Having personally benefited from the system, they take it upon themselves to become almost evangelical in their promotion of what they understand to be its tenets. Nevertheless, this is not an intrinsic weakness of DIR; all successful movements have their zealots.
By crafting a set of objective standards meant to regulate diving practice, DIR triggered a paradigm shift in diving, one that will forever modify the way that divers evaluate their diving. It is now part of our ethos to believe that divers acting cohesively and with shared purpose are more efficient. Nonetheless, considering standardization in isolation is unfair to the system’s holistic approach.
DIR Principles
As a well-defined, standardized system, DIR was designed to maximize efficiency across multiple environments in order to promote safety and fun. Among its key principles are:
Unified Team
Central to the DIR diving system is the concept of a unified team. This system pairs divers of similar capacity within an environment that they are properly prepared for. Teams of individually capable divers produce a level of safety and efficiency beyond what is capable while diving independently. Few things are as rewarding as diving within a group that maintains a similar degree of care and focus. Any diving activity where the concept of a team is marginalized will always fail to maximize its potential with respect to fun and safety.
Preparation
For DIR, preparation for diving involves five primary components. These are: pre-dive preparation, mental focus, physical fitness, diving experience, and dive planning. Divers who try to circumvent any of these areas are not adequately prepared for the dive and stand a good chance of experiencing reduced comfort, a missed dive opportunity, or even a dangerous situation. With ill effects, far too many divers assume that dive preparation begins the day or even hours before the dive.
Streamlined Equipment
The elements comprising a standard DIR equipment configuration have been endlessly discussed and are now well known. For those seeking more information on this subject, please refer to my book, “Doing it Right: The Fundamentals of Better Diving.”
In short, the DIR configuration was designed to work in a majority of situations and to ensure safety and promote a diver’s efforts, not undermine them. Streamlined and minimalist in nature, the DIR configuration was designed to maximize divers’ efficiency while minimizing their risk. Items should not hang free or protrude from divers’ bodies, increase drag or cause entanglements.
Balanced Rig
The DIR rig is a carefully weighted rig; one that ensures that while divers are not over-weighted, they are able to hold a decompression stop in the face of a catastrophic gas loss. This requires a careful assessment of the component parts of one’s configuration, and how these each impact statically and dynamically, on the buoyancy characteristics of the configuration as a whole.
Cylinder Labeling
DIR embraces the uniform practice of marking cylinders with the Maximum Operating Depth (MOD) in a clear and easily identifiable manner, and utilizing only this data to identify bottles. This practice prevents divers from becoming accustomed to unreliable identification procedures.
Standard Gases
DIR promotes reliance on standard gas mixes for all phases of diving. “Standard gases” help to insulate divers from the risks of inappropriate gas ratios, provide a common platform for cylinder marking and gas mixing, ensure team symmetry, and vastly simplify decompression logistics.
Conservative Gas Parameters
DIR promotes conservative gas parameters for all phases of diving. Among these are: Equivalent Narcotic Depths (END) of less than 100 ft/30 m, the partial pressure of oxygen (P02) during the working phase of the dive of 1.4 ATA or less, and P02s of 1.6 ATA or less for decompression. To offset the toxic effects of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, DIR recommends the liberal use of helium together with the conservative use of oxygen.
GUE Diving
To a careful reader, a casual review of diving history will reveal a movement toward greater standardization. DIR’s place in history is assured, given its role in introducing a new paradigm to the diving public, one where standardization provides divers with the key to efficiency, safety, enjoyment and success. Though there is still variation among divers, in time, the desire for proficiency will force them to migrate toward a known paradigm that through its insistence on standardization, ensures phenomenal success in both extreme diving projects and in recreational applications. For this reason, the trajectory that the history of diving will follow will speak volumes to the impacts of the DIR movement.
With all great movements, comes inevitable corruption and fragmentation. Today, DIR has spread to every corner of the globe, with self-appointed DIR groups emerging in dozens of different countries. Given their physical separation, their lack of centralized direction, their own specific agendas, beliefs, power struggles, and constraints, these satellite groups cannot help but to promote a version of DIR that is uniquely their own. Many of these “versions” of DIR bear little resemblance to the original, however well-intentioned and devoted to the founding principles of DIR these groups may be.
The unavoidable division of DIR is the result of many factors, ranging from breakdowns in channels of communication, to differing interpretations, to personal agendas, to private experiences, to power plays, to simple disagreements among proponents. As individuals and groups adopt DIR they will often make choices very different from those that I and other founders of DIR would have made. As a result, it is necessary for us to recognize that DIR will be repurposed by those it has influenced in ways that serve their own interests. Nonetheless, in the end, I believe that these systems that adopt DIR can only benefit the future of the diving industry. Even so, I believe that to enhance the safety, fun and efficiency we sought to ensure when we first started to build DIR, it is necessary for us to ensure greater standardization across additional domains.
From the outset I believed that divers’ training, their equipment, their configuration, their knowledge, and their skill set should all contribute to greater safety and enjoyment in the water. That was the reason I founded GUE. The DIR system is at the core of GUE training. That is not surprising, given the extent to which my efforts helped to shape both DIR and GUE. However, with the passage of time, GUE has shaped its own identity, one that is not identical to that of DIR. And though being DIR is a necessary condition of being a GUE diver, it is not a sufficient condition; it is not enough.
There is more to being a GUE diver than being DIR. Among other things, it entails a standardized measure of competence (training), a commitment to civility, and also to non-smoking, aspects to which DIR in-itself does not speak.
There is more to being a GUE diver than being DIR. Among other things, it entails a standardized measure of competence (training), a commitment to civility, and also to non-smoking, aspects to which DIR in-itself does not speak. Over time, GUE vice-president and long-time DIR supporter Dr. Panos Alexakos and I came to see that there was really no way to reign in the growing number of interpretations by DIR advocates; it would be a waste of resources and energy to struggle with them over the correct interpretation of DIR. With this in mind, we have struck out on a new road, a distinctly GUE road that looks fondly upon DIR as the foundation that can empower the organization toward a new and unique future.
Did you enjoy this article? Watch the original DIR 2004 DVDs now on GUE.tv.
Jarrod Jablonski is an avid explorer, researcher, author, and instructor who teaches and dives in oceans and caves around the world. Trained as a geologist, Jarrod is the founder and president of GUE and CEO of Halcyon and Extreme Exposure while remaining active in conservation, exploration, and filming projects worldwide. His explorations regularly place him in the most remote locations in the world, including several world record excursions at 300 ft to cave penetrations in excess of 24,000 ft/7 km; these dives include bottom times of 12 hours with total immersions near 30 hours. Jarrod is also an author with dozens of publications, including three books and more forthcoming, as well as several awards for lifetime achievement, including the 2018 DAN-Rolex Diver of the Year, 2016 Eurotek and 2015 Golden Trident. He successfully completed his first Ironman in April 2019.
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Twenty-five Years in the Pursuit of Excellence – The Evolution and Future of GUE
Founder and president Jarrod Jablonski describes his more than a quarter of a century long quest to promote excellence in technical diving.
by Jarrod Jablonski. Images courtesy of J. Jablonski and GUE unless noted.
The most difficult challenges we confront in our lives are the most formative and are instrumental in shaping the person we become. When I founded Global Underwater Explorers (GUE), the younger version of myself could not have foreseen all the challenges I would face, but equally true is that he would not have known the joy, the cherished relationships, the sense of purpose, the rich adventures, the humbling expressions of appreciation from those impacted, or the satisfaction of seeing the organization evolve and reshape our industry. Many kindred souls and extraordinary events have shaped these last 25 years, and an annotated chronology of GUE is included in this issue of InDEPTH. This timeline, however, will fail to capture the heart behind the creation of GUE, it will miss the passionate determination currently directing GUE, or the committed dedication ready to guide the next 25 years.
I don’t remember a time that I was not in, around, and under the water. Having learned to swim before I could walk, my mother helped infuse a deep connection to the aquatic world. I was scuba certified in South Florida with my father, and promptly took all our gear to North Florida where I became a dive instructor at the University of Florida. It was then that I began my infatuation with cave diving. I was in the perfect place for it, and my insatiable curiosity was multiplied while exploring new environments. I found myself with a strong desire to visit unique and hard-to-reach places, be they far inside a cave or deep within the ocean.
My enthusiasm for learning was pressed into service as an educator, and I became enamored with sharing these special environments. Along with this desire to share the beauty and uniqueness of underwater caves was a focused wish to assist people in acquiring the skills I could see they needed to support their personal diving goals. It could be said that these early experiences were the seeds that would germinate, grow, mature, and bloom into the organizing principles for GUE.
The Pre-GUE Years
Before jumping into the formational days of GUE, allow me to help you visualize the environment that was the incubator for the idea that became GUE’s reality. By the mid-1990s, I was deeply involved in a variety of exploration activities and had been striving to refine my own teaching capacity alongside this growing obsession for exploratory diving. While teaching my open water students, I was in the habit of practicing to refine my own trim and buoyancy, noticing that the students quickly progressed and were mostly able to copy my position in the water. Rather than jump immediately into the skills that were prescribed, I started to take more time to refine their comfort and general competency. This subtle shift made a world of difference in the training outcomes, creating impressive divers with only slightly more time and a shift in focus. In fact, the local dive boats would often stare in disbelief when told these divers were freshly certified, saying they looked better than most open water instructors!
By this point in my career, I could see the problems I was confronting were more systemic and less individualistic. In retrospect, it seemed obvious that key principles had been missing in both my recreational and technical education, not to mention the instructor training I received. The lack of basic skill refinement seemed to occur at all levels of training, from the beginner to the advanced diver. Core skills like buoyancy or in-water control were mainly left for divers to figure out on their own and almost nobody had a meaningful emphasis on efficient movement in the water. It was nearly unheard of to fail people in scuba diving, and even delaying certification for people with weak skills was very unusual. This remains all too common to this day, but I believe GUE has shifted the focus in important ways, encouraging people to think of certification more as a process and less as a right granted to them because they paid for training.
The weakness in skill refinement during dive training was further amplified by little-to-no training in how to handle problems when they developed while diving, as they always do. In those days, even technical/cave training had very little in the way of realistic training in problem resolution. The rare practice of failures was deeply disconnected from reality. For example, there was almost no realistic scenario training for things like a failed regulator or light. What little practice there was wasn’t integrated into the actual dive and seemed largely useless in preparing for real problems. I began testing some of my students with mock equipment failures, and I was shocked at how poorly even the best students performed. They were able to quickly develop the needed skills, but seeing how badly most handled their first attempts left me troubled about the response of most certified divers should they experience problems while diving, as they inevitably would.
Diving Fatalities
Meanwhile, I was surrounded by a continual progression of diving fatalities, and most appeared entirely preventable. The loss of dear friends and close associates had a deep impact on my view of dive training and especially on the procedures being emphasized at that time within the community. The industry, in those early days, was wholly focused on deep air and solo diving. However, alarmingly lacking were clear bottle marking or gas switching protocols. It seemed to me to be no coincidence that diver after diver lost their lives simply because they breathed the wrong bottle at depth. Many others died mysteriously during solo dives or while deep diving with air.
One of the more impactful fatalities was Bob McGuire, who was a drill sergeant, friend, and occasional dive buddy. He was normally very careful and focused. One day a small problem with one regulator caused him to switch regulators before getting in the water. He was using a system that used color-coded regulators to identify the gas breathed. When switching the broken regulator, he either did not remember or did not have an appropriately colored regulator. This small mistake cost him his life. I clearly remember turning that one around in my head quite a bit. Something that trivial should not result in the loss of a life.
Also disturbing was the double fatality of good friends, Chris and Chrissy Rouse, who lost their lives while diving a German U-boat in 70 m/230 ft of water off the coast of New Jersey. I remember, as if the conversation with Chris were yesterday, asking him not to use air and even offering to support the cost as a counter to his argument about the cost of helium. And the tragedies continued: The loss of one of my closest friends Sherwood Schille, the death of my friend Steve Berman who lived next to me and with whom I had dived hundreds of times, the shock of losing pioneering explorer Sheck Exley, the regular stream of tech divers, and the half dozen body recoveries I made over only a couple years, which not only saddened me greatly, but also made me angry. Clearly, a radically different approach was needed.
Learning to Explore
Meanwhile, my own exploration activities were expanding rapidly. Our teams were seeking every opportunity to grow their capability while reducing unnecessary risk. To that end, we ceased deep air diving and instituted a series of common protocols with standardized equipment configurations, both of which showed great promise in expanding safety, efficiency, and comfort. We got a lot of things wrong and experienced enough near misses to keep us sharp and in search of continual improvement.
But we looked carefully at every aspect of our diving, seeking ways to advance safety, efficiency, and all-around competency while focusing plenty of attention into the uncommon practice of large-scale, team diving, utilizing setup dives, safety divers, and inwater support. We developed diver propulsion vehicle (DPV) towing techniques, which is something that had not been done previously. We mostly ignored and then rewrote CNS oxygen toxicity calculations, developed novel strategies for calculating decompression time, and created and refined standard procedures for everything from bottle switching to equipment configurations. Many of these developments arose from simple necessity. There were no available decompression programs and no decompression tables available for the dives we were doing. Commonly used calculations designed to reduce the risk of oxygen toxicity were useless to our teams, because even our more casual dives were 10, 20, or even 30 times the allowable limit. The industry today takes most of this for granted, but in the early days of technical diving, we had very few tools, save a deep motivation to go where no one had gone before.
Many of these adventures included friends in the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP), where I refined policies within the team and most directly with longtime dive buddy George Irvine. This “Doing it Right” (DIR) approach sought to create a more expansive system than Hogarthian diving, which itself had been born in the early years of the WKPP and was named after William Hogarth Main, a friend and frequent dive buddy of the time. By this point, I had been writing about and expanding upon Hogarthian diving for many years. More and more of the ideas we wanted to develop were not Bill Main’s priorities and lumping them into his namesake became impractical, especially given all the debate within the community over what was and was not Hogarthian.
A similar move from DIR occurred some years later when GUE stepped away from the circular debates that sought to explain DIR and embraced a GUE configuration with standard protocols, something entirely within our scope to define.
These accumulating events reached critical mass in 1998. I had experienced strong resistance to any form of standardization, even having been asked to join a special meeting of the board of directors (BOD) for a prominent cave diving agency. Their intention was to discourage me from using any form of standard configuration, claiming that students should be allowed to do whatever they “felt’ was best. It was disconcerting for me, as a young instructor, to be challenged by pioneers in the sport; nevertheless, I couldn’t agree with the edict that someone who was doing something for the first time should be tasked with determining how it should be done.
This sort of discussion was common, but the final straw occurred when I was approached by the head of a technical diving agency, an organization for which I had taught for many years. I was informed that he considered it a violation of standards not to teach air to a depth of at least 57 m/190 ft. This same individual told me that I had to stop using MOD bottle markings and fall in line with the other practices endorsed by his agency. Push had finally come to shove, and I set out to legitimize the training methods and dive protocols that had been incubating in my mind and refined with our teams over the previous decade. Years of trial and many errors while operating in dynamic and challenging environments were helping us to identify what practices were most successful in support of excellence, safety, and enjoyment.
Forming GUE
Forming GUE as a non-profit company was intended to neutralize the profit motivations that appeared to plague other agencies. We hoped to remove the incentive to train—and certify—the greatest number of divers as quickly as possible because it seemed at odds with ensuring comfortable and capable divers. The absence of a profit motive complemented the aspirational plans that longtime friend Todd Kincaid and I had dreamed of. We imagined a global organization that would facilitate the efforts of underwater explorers while supporting scientific research and conservation initiatives.
I hoped to create an agency that placed most of the revenue in the hands of fully engaged and enthusiastic instructors, allowing them the chance to earn a good living and become professionals who might stay within the industry over many years. Of course, that required forgoing the personal benefit of ownership and reduced the revenue available to the agency, braking its growth and complicating expansion plans. This not only slowed growth but provided huge challenges in developing a proper support network while creating the agency I envisioned. There were years of stressful days and nights because of the need to forgo compensation and the deep dependance upon generous volunteers who had to fit GUE into their busy lives. If it were not for these individuals and our loyal members, we would likely never have been successful. Volunteer support and GUE membership have been and remain critical to the growing success of our agency. If you are now or have ever been a volunteer or GUE member, your contribution is a significant part of our success, and we thank you.
The challenges of the early years gave way to steady progress—always slower than desired, with ups and downs, but progress, nonetheless. Some challenges were not obvious at the outset. For example, many regions around the world were very poorly developed in technical diving. Agencies intent on growth seemed to ignore that problem, choosing whoever was available, and regardless of their experience in the discipline, they would soon be teaching.
This decision to promote people with limited experience became especially problematic when it came to Instructor Trainers. People with almost no experience in something like trimix diving were qualifying trimix instructors. Watching this play out in agency after agency, and on continent after continent, was a troubling affair. Conversely, it took many years for GUE to develop and train people of appropriate experience, especially when looking to critical roles, including high-level tech and instructor trainers. At the same time, GUE’s efforts shaped the industry in no small fashion as agencies began to model their programs after GUE’s training protocols. Initially, having insisted that nobody would take something like Fundamentals, every agency followed suit in developing their own version of these programs, usually taught by divers that had followed GUE training.
This evolving trend wasn’t without complexity but was largely a positive outcome. Agencies soon focused on fundamental skills, incorporated some form of problem-resolution training, adhered to GUE bottle and gas switching protocols, reduced insistence on deep air, and started talking more about developing skilled divers, among other changes. This evolution was significant when compared to the days of arguing about why a person could not learn to use trimix until they were good while diving deep on air.
To be sure, a good share of these changes was more about maintaining business relevance than making substantive improvements. The changes themselves were often more style than substance, lacking objective performance standards and the appropriate retraining of instructors. Despite these weaknesses, they remain positive developments. Talking about something is an important first step and, in all cases, it makes room for strong instructors in any given agency to practice what is being preached. In fact, these evolving trends have allowed GUE to now push further in the effort to create skilled and experienced divers, enhancing our ability to run progressively more elaborate projects with increasingly more sophisticated outcomes.
The Future of GUE
The coming decades of GUE’s future appear very bright. Slow but steady growth has now placed the organization in a position to make wise investments, ensuring a vibrant and integrated approach. Meanwhile, evolving technology and a broad global base place GUE in a unique and formidable position. Key structural and personnel adjustments complement a growing range of virtual tools, enabling our diverse communities and representatives to collaborate and advance projects in a way that, prior to now, was not possible. Strong local communities can be easily connected with coordinated global missions; these activities include ever-more- sophisticated underwater initiatives as well as structural changes within the GUE ecosystem. One such forward-thinking project leverages AI-enabled, adaptive learning platforms to enhance both the quality and efficiency of GUE education. Most agencies, including GUE, have been using some form of online training for years, but GUE is taking big steps to reinvent the quality and efficiency of this form of training. This is not to replace, but rather to extend and augment inwater and in-person learning outcomes. Related tools further improve the fluidity, allowing GUE to seamlessly connect previously distant communities, enabling technology, training, and passion to notably expand our ability to realize our broad, global mission.
Meanwhile, GUE and its range of global communities are utilizing evolving technologies to significantly expand the quality and scope of their project initiatives. Comparing the impressive capability of current GUE communities with those of our early years shows a radical and important shift, allowing results equal or even well beyond those possible when compared even with well-funded commercial projects. Coupled with GUE training and procedural support, these ongoing augmentations place our communities at the forefront of underwater research and conservation. This situation will only expand and be further enriched with the use of evolving technology and closely linked communities. Recent and planned expansions to our training programs present a host of important tools that will continue being refined in the years to come. Efforts to expand and improve upon the support provided to GUE projects with technology, people, and resources are now coming online and will undoubtedly be an important part of our evolving future.
The coming decades will undoubtedly present challenges. But I have no doubt that together we will not only overcome those obstacles but we will continue to thrive. I believe that GUE’s trajectory remains overwhelmingly positive, for we are an organization that is continually evolving—driven by a spirit of adventure, encouraged by your heartwarming stories, and inspired by the satisfaction of overcoming complex problems. Twenty-five years ago, when I took the path less traveled, the vision I had for GUE was admittedly ambitious. The reality, however, has exceeded anything I could have imagined. I know that GUE will never reach a point when it is complete but that it will be an exciting lifelong journey, one that, for me, will define a life well lived. I look forward our mutual ongoing “Quest for Excellence.”
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Jarrod is an avid explorer, researcher, author, and instructor who teaches and dives in oceans and caves around the world. Trained as a geologist, Jarrod is the founder and president of GUE and CEO of Halcyon and Extreme Exposure while remaining active in conservation, exploration, and filming projects worldwide. His explorations regularly place him in the most remote locations in the world, including numerous world record cave dives with total immersions near 30 hours. Jarrod is also an author with dozens of publications, including three books.
A Few GUE Fundamentals
Similar to military, commercial and public safety divers, Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) is a standards-based diving community, with specific protocols, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and tools. Here are selected InDEPTH stories on some of the key aspects of GUE diving, including a four-part series on the history and development of GUE decompression procedures by founder and president Jarod Jablonski.
Anatomy of a Fundamentals Class
GUE Instructor Examiner Guy Shockey explains the thought and details that goes into GUE’s most popular course, Fundamentals, aka “Fundies,” which has been taken by numerous industry luminaries. Why all the fanfare? Shockey characterizes the magic as “simple things done precisely!
Back to Fundamentals: An Introduction to GUE’s Most Popular Diving Course
Instructor evaluator Rich Walker attempts to answer the question, “why is Fundamentals GUE’s most popular diving course?” Along the way, he clarifies some of the myths and misconceptions about GUE training. Hint: there is no Kool-Aid.
As you’d expect, Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) has a standardized approach to prepare your equipment for the dive, and its own pre-dive checklist: the GUE EDGE. Here explorer and filmmaker Dimitris Fifis preps you to take the plunge, GUE-style.
The Flexibility of Standard Operating Procedures
Instructor trainer Guy Shockey discusses the purpose, value, and yes, flexibility of standard operating procedures, or SOPs, in diving. Sound like an oxymoron? Shockey explains how SOPs can help offload some of our internal processing and situational awareness, so we can focus on the important part of the dive—having FUN!
Standard Gases: The Simplicity of Everyone Singing the Same Song
Like the military and commercial diving communities before them, Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) uses standardized breathing mixtures for various depth ranges and for decompression. Here British wrecker and instructor evaluator Rich Walker gets lyrical and presents the reasoning behind standard mixes and their advantages, compared with a “best mix” approach. Don’t worry, you won’t need your hymnal, though Walker may have you singing some blues.
Rules of Thumb: The Mysteries of Ratio Deco Revealed
Is it a secret algorithm developed by the WKPP to get you out of the water faster sans DCI, or an unsubstantiated decompression speculation promoted by Kool-Aid swilling quacks and charlatans? British tech instructor/instructor evaluator Rich Walker divulges the arcane mysteries behind GUE’s ratio decompression protocols in this first of a two part series.
The Thought Process Behind GUE’s CCR Configuration
Global Underwater Explorers is known for taking its own holistic approach to gear configuration. Here GUE board member and Instructor Trainer Richard Lundgren explains the reasoning behind its unique closed-circuit rebreather configuration. It’s all about the gas!
GUE and the Future of Open Circuit Tech Diving
Though they were late to the party, Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) is leaning forward on rebreathers, and members are following suit. So what’s to become of their open circuit-based TECH 2 course? InDepth’s Ashley Stewart has the deets.
Diving projects, or expeditions—think Bill Stone’s Wakulla Springs 1987 project, or the original explorations of the Woodville Karst Plain’s Project (WKPP)—helped give birth to technical diving, and today continue as an important focal point and organizing principle for communities like Global Underwater Explorers (GUE). The organization this year unveiled a new Project Diver program, intended to elevate “community-led project dives to an entirely new level of sophistication.” Here, authors Guy Shockey and Francesco Cameli discuss the power of projects and take us behind the scenes of the new program
Decompression, Deep Stops and the Pursuit of Precision in a Complex World In this first of a four-part series, Global Underwater Explorers’ (GUE) founder and president Jarrod Jablonski explores the historical development of GUE decompression protocols, with a focus on technical diving and the evolving trends in decompression research.
Tren Maya is on the Wrong Track! An Update.
Doping for Depth
Configure Me This: The Annotated Sidemounter
Hydrogen, At Last?
The Who’s Who of Sidemount
Hyperbaric Chambers Are Turning Away Divers. Will There Be One Nearby When You Need It?
The Aftermath Of Love: Don Shirley and Dave Shaw
Let There Be Mix!
