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Founded | 1998 |
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Type | 501(c)(3) Nonprofit organization |
Focus | research, exploration, science and education |
Location | |
Area served | Worldwide |
Revenue | Membership and donations |
Website | www |
Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) is a scuba diving organization that provides education within recreational, technical, and cave diving. [1] It is a nonprofit membership organization based in High Springs, Florida, United States. [2] [3]
GUE was formed by Jarrod Jablonski and gained early prominence in association with the success of its well-known Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP), which now has the status of a nonprofit affiliate of GUE. [4] Jablonski, the president of GUE, promoted the ideas of "Hogarthian" gear configuration attributed to William Hogarth Main, and the "Doing It Right" (DIR) system of diving, to a global audience. [5] [6] Following the WKPP's introduction in 1995 of a standardized approach to gear configuration and diving procedures, there was a significant reduction in diving incidents within the Woodville Karst Plain cave system. [4]
The standardized approach is the basis of the diver training program of GUE, marking an important difference from the programs of other recreational diver training organizations. [7] [8] GUE also focuses on protecting the maritime environment. The most popular GUE course is GUE Fundamentals, which is designed to introduce the GUE system to non-GUE divers and is the pathway to technical courses. [9] Further courses are offered in recreational, technical, and cave diving, as well as instructor courses.
GUE is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization formed to promote education, conservation, and exploration of the aquatic realm. The organization was formed by Jarrod Jablonski and a small group of educators, explorers, and diving instructors. The founding members sought to build upon the history of the Cousteau Society by creating a diverse network of satellite organizations. In this way, local advocates help GUE establish detailed diver training, vibrant exploration, and sustainable conservation initiatives. When GUE was formed it was co-located with Extreme Exposure dive store. However, Extreme Exposure has subsequently changed locations, which has allowed for further growth of GUE. [10]
The GUE board of directors includes The Explorers Club fellow Jarrod Jablonski, entrepreneur Robert Carmichael, researcher Todd Kincaid, Corey Jablonski, Gideon Liew, Richard Lundgren, and Sam Meacham. [11] [12] [13]
Among the diving community, GUE is known for a rigorous style of training that diverges from other diver training organizations[ clarification needed ][ citation needed ] and seeks to establish high levels of diver proficiency by extending training time, establishing objective performance criteria, and requiring requalification among its instructors and divers. [14] GUE diver training started with technical cave and technical diving classes, expanding into recreational training while refining its most popular class known as GUE Fundamentals.[ citation needed ] GUE also adheres to a standardized equipment and procedural system, which it claims enhances diver safety and efficiency by reducing confusion and helping divers act as a team. This latter training component is a controversial aspect of GUE training,[ citation needed ] as it stipulates a fairly strict set of guiding principles. GUE's founder, Jarrod Jablonski, was a long-time proponent of a standardized system known as Hogarthian diving and also a key architect in the Doing It Right (DIR) system, [15] which extends the scope of standardized diving equipment and procedures.[ citation needed ]
In February 2016, the British Sub-Aqua Club confirmed that a review has been completed on how to integrate GUE divers into BSAC branches. [16]
As of May 2017, GUE offered 26 courses in four subject areas. [17] [18]
GUE obtained CEN certification from the EUF certification body in 2013 for the following diver grades:
The best known of GUE's satellite organizations is the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP), which is a non-profit affiliate of GUE. [4] GUE members are engaged in science and exploration projects conducted by the WKPP. This collaboration helped encourage the state of Florida to budget more than 200 million dollars toward the development of enhanced wastewater treatment practices as means to enhance ground water protection and support the conservation of Wakulla Springs State Park. [21] GUE has launched a global conservation project known as Project Baseline to document the condition of global aquatic environments. [22]
Some of the organization's notable outreach projects have included:
GUE instructors regularly host "Introduction to GUE" workshops aimed at promoting the Global Underwater Explorers approach to diving. [8]
GUE publishes a quarterly journal, Quest, as well as a number of books and videos related to their philosophy of diving. These are generally available through their website, other online retailers and bookshops. [36] [37] [38]
GUE also began publishing annual reports in 2016 to provide the public with a better overview of community dive projects, Project Baseline activities, and GUE training and operational information. [39]
Technical diving is scuba diving that exceeds the agency-specified limits of recreational diving for non-professional purposes. Technical diving may expose the diver to hazards beyond those normally associated with recreational diving, and to a greater risk of serious injury or death. Risk may be reduced via appropriate skills, knowledge, and experience. Risk can also be managed by using suitable equipment and procedures. The skills may be developed through specialized training and experience. The equipment involves breathing gases other than air or standard nitrox mixtures, and multiple gas sources.
Cave-diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. It may be done as an extreme sport, a way of exploring flooded caves for scientific investigation, or for the search for and recovery of divers or, as in the 2018 Thai cave rescue, other cave users. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave-diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations with redundancies such as sidemount or backmounted twinset. Recreational cave-diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves planned decompression stops. A distinction is made by recreational diver training agencies between cave-diving and cavern-diving, where cavern diving is deemed to be diving in those parts of a cave where the exit to open water can be seen by natural light. An arbitrary distance limit to the open water surface may also be specified.
The National Association of Underwater Instructors is a nonprofit association of scuba instructors. It primarily serves as a recreational dive certification and membership organization established to provide international diver standards and education programs. The agency was founded in 1960 by Albert Tillman and Neal Hess. NAUI is headquartered in the Tampa, Florida area with dive and member instructors, resorts, stores, service and training centers located around the world.
Recreational diving or sport diving is diving for the purpose of leisure and enjoyment, usually when using scuba equipment. The term "recreational diving" may also be used in contradistinction to "technical diving", a more demanding aspect of recreational diving which requires more training and experience to develop the competence to reliably manage more complex equipment in the more hazardous conditions associated with the disciplines. Breath-hold diving for recreation also fits into the broader scope of the term, but this article covers the commonly used meaning of scuba diving for recreational purposes, where the diver is not constrained from making a direct near-vertical ascent to the surface at any point during the dive, and risk is considered low.
The buddy check is a procedure carried out by scuba divers using the buddy system where each diver checks that the other's diving equipment is configured and functioning correctly just before the start of the dive. A study of pre-dive equipment checks done by individual divers showed that divers often fail to recognize common equipment faults. By checking each other's equipment as well as their own, it is thought to be more likely that these faults will be identified prior to the start of the dive.
Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The name scuba is an anacronym for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus" and was coined by Christian J. Lambertsen in a patent submitted in 1952. Scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas, usually compressed air, affording them greater independence and movement than surface-supplied divers, and more time underwater than free divers. Although the use of compressed air is common, a gas blend with a higher oxygen content, known as enriched air or nitrox, has become popular due to the reduced nitrogen intake during long or repetitive dives. Also, breathing gas diluted with helium may be used to reduce the effects of nitrogen narcosis during deeper dives.
Scuba Schools International (SSI) is a for-profit organization that teaches the skills involved in scuba diving and freediving, and supports dive businesses and resorts. SSI has over 2,500 authorized dealers, 35 regional centers, and offices all over the world.
The Woodville Karst Plain Project or WKPP, is a project and organization that maps the underwater cave systems underlying the Woodville Karst Plain. This plain is a 450-square-mile (1,200 km2) area that runs from Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico and includes numerous first magnitude springs, including Wakulla Springs, and the Leon Sinks Cave System, the longest underwater cave in the United States. The project grew out of a cave diving research and exploration group established in 1985 and incorporated in 1990.
Buddy diving is the use of the buddy system by scuba divers. It is a set of safety procedures intended to improve the chances of avoiding or surviving accidents in or under water by having divers dive in a group of two or sometimes three. When using the buddy system, members of the group dive together and co-operate with each other, so that they can help or rescue each other in the event of an emergency. This is most effective if both divers are competent in all relevant skills and sufficiently aware of the situation that they can respond in time, which is a matter of both attitude and competence.
A silt out or silt-out is a situation when underwater visibility is rapidly reduced to functional zero by disturbing fine particulate deposits on the bottom or other solid surfaces. This can happen in scuba and surface supplied diving, or in ROV and submersible operations, and is a more serious hazard for scuba diving in penetration situations where the route to the surface may be obscured.
Tom Mount was an American pioneering cave diver and technical diver.
Jarrod Michael Jablonski is a pioneering technical diver and record setting cave diver as well as an accomplished business owner and operator. These business operations include Halcyon Manufacturing, Extreme Exposure Adventure Center and Global Underwater Explorers. In July 2021 Jablonski launched and now operates the world's deepest pool at Deep Dive Dubai. Jablonski is one of the main architects behind the 'Doing It Right' system of diving.
Diver training is the set of processes through which a person learns the necessary and desirable skills to safely dive underwater within the scope of the diver training standard relevant to the specific training programme. Most diver training follows procedures and schedules laid down in the associated training standard, in a formal training programme, and includes relevant foundational knowledge of the underlying theory, including some basic physics, physiology and environmental information, practical skills training in the selection and safe use of the associated equipment in the specified underwater environment, and assessment of the required skills and knowledge deemed necessary by the certification agency to allow the newly certified diver to dive within the specified range of conditions at an acceptable level of risk. Recognition of prior learning is allowed in some training standards.
William "Bill" Hogarth Main is a cave diving pioneer who is best known as a developer in the 1980s, and the namesake of, the "Hogarthian gear configuration" that is a component of the "Doing It Right" (DIR) holistic approach to scuba diving. According to Jarrod Jablonski, the Hogarthian style "has many minor variations, yet its focus asserts a policy of minimalism." The configuration was refined in the 1990s, partially through the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP), established in 1985 and considered among the most aggressive cave diving initiatives in the world.
Doing It Right (DIR) is a holistic approach to scuba diving that encompasses several essential elements, including fundamental diving skills, teamwork, physical fitness, and streamlined and minimalistic equipment configurations. DIR proponents maintain that through these elements, safety is improved by standardizing equipment configuration and dive-team procedures for preventing and dealing with emergencies.
The history of scuba diving is closely linked with the history of the equipment. By the turn of the twentieth century, two basic architectures for underwater breathing apparatus had been pioneered; open-circuit surface supplied equipment where the diver's exhaled gas is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit breathing apparatus where the diver's carbon dioxide is filtered from the exhaled breathing gas, which is then recirculated, and more gas added to replenish the oxygen content. Closed circuit equipment was more easily adapted to scuba in the absence of reliable, portable, and economical high pressure gas storage vessels. By the mid-twentieth century, high pressure cylinders were available and two systems for scuba had emerged: open-circuit scuba where the diver's exhaled breath is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit scuba where the carbon dioxide is removed from the diver's exhaled breath which has oxygen added and is recirculated. Oxygen rebreathers are severely depth limited due to oxygen toxicity risk, which increases with depth, and the available systems for mixed gas rebreathers were fairly bulky and designed for use with diving helmets. The first commercially practical scuba rebreather was designed and built by the diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. His self contained breathing apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with an estimated 50–60% oxygen supplied from a copper tank and carbon dioxide scrubbed by passing it through a bundle of rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash. During the 1930s and all through World War II, the British, Italians and Germans developed and extensively used oxygen rebreathers to equip the first frogmen. In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented a free-swimming oxygen rebreather. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA, an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus," which became the generic English word for autonomous breathing equipment for diving, and later for the activity using the equipment. After World War II, military frogmen continued to use rebreathers since they do not make bubbles which would give away the presence of the divers. The high percentage of oxygen used by these early rebreather systems limited the depth at which they could be used due to the risk of convulsions caused by acute oxygen toxicity.
Cave diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. The equipment used varies depending on the circumstances, and ranges from breath hold to surface supplied, but almost all cave diving is done using scuba equipment, often in specialised configurations with redundancies such as sidemount or backmounted twinset. Recreational cave diving is generally considered to be a type of technical diving due to the lack of a free surface during large parts of the dive, and often involves planned decompression stops. A distinction is made by recreational diver training agencies between cave diving and cavern diving, where cavern diving is deemed to be diving in those parts of a cave where the exit to open water can be seen by natural light. An arbitrary distance limit to the open water surface may also be specified. Despite the risks, water-filled caves attract scuba divers, cavers, and speleologists due to their often unexplored nature, and present divers with a technical diving challenge.
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