IANTD Essentials Instructor in Luxembourg

Please welcome Sebastien Wilem as a New IANTD Essentials Instructor in Luxembourg.

I am truly happy to have him on board, we dove, practice together and I enjoyed it.

Good Luck and keep the good work!

Georges Gawinowski

IANTD USA SE Training Director

Advanced Wreck Diving

We have been waiting for an Advanced Wreck Manual for a long time, IANTD heard us, and published a new manual.
Even if I really liked the old wreck manual workbook, it was such a nice pedagogical tool for the student, we needed an update.
The content is informative it follows an experience type of education. The manual has been written by Joseph Citelli, Michael Barnette, Peri Blum and, Joseph Dituri. It is more than a course manual, it is a tool that the instructors are going to use to engage discussion, understand new techniques, and learn from other mistakes.

Discover the new Manual
During REACT 2012 organized by Cave Excursions, we displayed some IANTD materials and I was happy to see the new book for the first time. First impression, I knew the manual was coming and was happy to have a glimpse at it when we had our office next to  IANTD HQ in Miami.
I was waiting for the chapters about "what can go wrong and how to correct mistakes when they happen?" These chapters have been written by people practicing wreck diving all the time and it is a rich teaching approach for the students.

I discovered also a new way of deploying a lift bag with the help of a buddy, I will practice that some time.

I became a cave diver more than a wreck diver by choice, but when I dove in Marseille France in the mid 90s I was intensively wreck diving so I know that mistakes can happen and diving natural sunken wrecks can be a hazardous activity. These dives are still in my heart even though today I live in Cave country and teach cave diving. I will be using the IANTD Advanced Wreck Manual as a new tool with my students on my next Rebreather Advanced Wreck course.

The manual is available on our website.

Georges Gawinowski
IANTD Regional Training Director

CCR cave and Technical cave diving

CCR Cave diver and Technical Cave diver are similar diver programs. CCR Cave involves the use of a rebreather whereas Technical Cave diver program is done on open circuit. Even though they look different the concept and preparation of these programs are really close. Let me explain...

These programs are made for people who wish to extend their cave exploration experience. With the basics being already "assimilated" with a lot of practice and experience, it is a natural route to continue the cave diving learning experience.

It should be in fact pretty "easy" for the student to be certified. As Instructors we can state that the student is ready when he/she decides to go towards advanced diving.

Some surprises may come along the way.

When we teach these more technical levels some students have not enough practice of the rebreather emergency skills, and/or no practice of the cave awareness during past cave exploration dives and, as an instructor we must review all of these basics before the course.

However, good surprises come along also when the students have been practicing a lot, they have understood that cave diving demands mental, physical and technical preparation, with a good technique and a good attitude.

I had good surprises these past months and I thank my students for the job they did. 

Georges Gawinowski

IANTD Regional Training Director

New IANTD Essentials Instructors in Asia

WDT dive is welcoming our new IANTD Essentials Instructors in Asia.
Please welcome:

Tan Xiaolong in China.

Li Huaitsangi Huaitsang in Taiwan

David Sam Collett in Philippines

Good Job and Good luck

Georges Gawinowski

IANTD Essentials Instructor Trainer

(On the picture Left to right, Li Huaitsangi, Georges Gawinowski, Tom Mount, Li Huaitsangi).

Cave divers and Essentials Divers from China

WDT Dive had the privilege and honor to teach IANTD Technical divers from The National Museum of China.
After 10 days of intense teaching, we are proud to announce 100% accomplishment with our Essentials divers class and cave diver program. The candidates showed a great skills, professionalism, with a remarkable attitude, even when facing stress and getting tired after long days.

I was happy to work with my fellow and respected instructors Tom Mount, John Jones, Jim Wyatt, Maxim Kuznetsov. I also would like to thank the great staff at Cave Country Diving who helped with fills. It was great to assist Tom Mount again!

In the pictures:

Tom Mount, John Jones, Jim Wyatt, Max Kuznetsov and Georges Gawinowski greeting our new certified divers.

CCR Trimix course

We have just finished a CCR trimix diver and Instructor course. After 7 days, 450 minutes in water training for our CCR trimix diver candidate and 550 minutes for our CCR trimix Instructor cross-over. WDT Dive would like to congratulate our new IANTD CCR Trimix Instructor in Las Vegas. Steve Schafer from Lake Mead Technical Divers has been a Trimix IT with IANTD for a long time already.
Congratulations also to our new CCR trimix diver James Killion from K Productionz who is an experienced O/C Trimix diver and Cave diver. James has developed good skills but most importantly a great attitude about training.
We never stop learning and every step guides us to new discovers everytime.
Great job guys! Looking forward to diving with you again.

Georges Gawinowski 

IANTD US South East Training Director

NSS/CDS Workshop 2012

The NSS/CDS workshop 2012 will be held this year in Live Oak, Florida.
This is good news for us since it is the home now of our WDT Dive facility and we will be there. WDT Dive is a NSS/CDS Facility. We teach most of the NSS/CDS training programs including Cavern diver, Apprentice Cave diver, Cave diver, CCR Cave diver and we supply NSS/CDS material.

See you there!
Safe cave dives

"you dive like you train"
Georges Gawinowski
NSS/CDS CCR cave Instructor

Gear Configuration

"Everything old is new again" Quote of the Essentials Manual by Georges Gawinowski.

One of my buddies gave me an old IANTD Technical diving configuration video from the 90s. That video was coming with the old Technical Diver Encyclopedia which was superb!

Tom Mount was presenting the basics of his technical diver gear configuration, clean, dependable, redundant, streamline, and understandable. That was good! This is realistic, everything made sense.
Billy Deans was showing his wreck diver configuration with a lot of back-up equipment for the type of diving he was doing, Lamar Hires was already showing his Sidemount configuration!! Larry Green talked about stage tanks and Jarrod Jablonski was demonstrating Hogarthian configuration.

This is simply beautiful! I share this DVD with all my Technical divers students. I think it is very important to be reminded and let people know about this tool. Thanks to you gentlemen, nowadays we have nice, dependable, redundant equipment configurations.

Georges Gawinowski
IANTD USA SE Training Director

CCR Megalodon Training

January 2012 was a very interesting month. I traveled to new places and had exiting dives.
Lake Mead is located in Las-Vegas in the middle of the desert, diving there feels like you are diving back into history. The water is cold, dark but very clear if you do not disturb the bottom. Advanced Teck diver level recommended. We do not want to take a lake for granted. But what a great place to train.

We had a great class. Congratulations to the 5 new CCR Megalodon divers:
- Tia
- Aaron
-Todd
-Kevin
-Xavier

Las-Vegas has now a new IANTD CCR Megalodon Instructor: Steve Schafer.

Special thanks to Steve Fannel, great diver and Photographer

You can dive Lake Mead with Lake Mead Technical Divers

IANTD Essentials network grows

The IANTD Essentials Instructors network is growing, we had an Instructor course at our WDT dive facility in cave-country last November.
Congratulations to our news Instructors:

Belgium: Patrick Vanstralen.
Caribe: Santo Domingo: Denis Bourret, Ramon Betancourt.
France: Romain Lhoste
Korea: Lee, Min-Ho
Spain: Francisco jose martinez Gonzalez, Antonio Jose vico Beltra.
USA: Steve Schafer

Please visit our website for informations regarding the Essentials course.

Safe dives.
Georges Gawinowski