Originally Posted by Tigerbeach
Because you used my response, I'll try to answer your questions.
Snorkels: are not used. It is a piece of gear on your L/H side that will just get caught up in anything you might happen upon during your dive. When at the surface you have a reg with gas in your tank, why not use it?
The back plate with wing BC: it's purpose is to allow the diver to "trim out" in the water. What this means is that the most efficient diver is one that is horizontal in the water. When horizontal, one will not likely damage the reef you might be diving, stir up the contents of the bottom of diving environment (provided fin technique is good), better gas consumption due to the decreased work load of a "streamlined" diver (think your hand out the window in the wind-stream while driving down the road), is much more stable in the water, more effective "off-gassing" during safety stops or Deco stops (imagine a 6 ft. diver holding depth gauge at eye level, his/her lower body is 3 or 4 feet lower, how much less effective is the off-gassing in an environment where 1 or 2 ft. is significant). There are more reasons, but there are some of them.
The "Long Hose back up regulator". FIRST, the long hose is the primary regulator, and is being breathed by the diver. The back-up is on a bungee necklace and is accessible by just putting ones head down and popping into breathing orifice. The reason is simple, the panicked or out of gas diver will go for the reg in your mouth (because they know it works, your breathing it!). The long hose applies to a multitude of situations where the divers may not be able to be "cheek-to-cheek". It allows for confined spaces/areas, such as wrecks, caves, coral formations, etc.
This leads to last question. Is it a cave only application? No, absolutely not! What is frequently clouded over by the discussions of gear, it's configuration, and placement, is their purpose and function of this system. First and fore-most it is a (notice I didn't say "THE") philosophy and practice for safe diving. It was developed as a result of accident investigations. Diver responses and reactions were the impetus for this system. In the "techno" age that we live in, it is a simple, striped down, using only the bare essentials needed to dive "safely", with out all the gadgets found on today's divers, that weigh them down and cause additional panic when under stress or duress. It is a system predicated on the team. There is safety in the redundancy and resources found within the team. It is meant to have safe divers, who are in turn happy divers. There is a lot more to it than just this, but that is the basis for all that is to follow.
The GUE training, which follows this philosophy, is a tough, demanding, exacting, and very rewarding course of training. As the student you will be humbled, stretched, pushed, in ways you could never imagine. The result is highly aware, capable, and proficient diver.
How is that for a simple answer?
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