As a GUE Facility, Tech Asia has it's thinking closely aligned with GUE's approach to diving. We understand what GUE Divers need from us.
When we were first exposed to GUE a lot of things just made sense and clearly were going to make our diving easier. For instance don't dream up your own hand signals that nobody else can follow, or put everyone in the water with completely different decompression gases.... Use all the same ones. It's really rather hard to argue against these types of practices and to some might seem obvious...but tech diving hasn't always been that way...
The rigidity of GUE's dive training perhaps turns some divers away but maybe they haven't quite grasped the reason for it. GUE is as much about Exploration and Conservation projects as it is about training. Some would even say the training arm only exists to produce a pool of divers who can work easily together on GUE projects, regardless of where they come from because they all learned exactly the same way. Take divers from South Korea, Singapore, Sweden, Australia, the UK and the States and put them in a cave in the Philippines and it all will work fine is the theory. And we have seen this to be true.
But far be it from us to speak for GUE themselves. Better you visit www.gue.com or have a conversation with one of the instructors we work with to learm more.
Tech Asia is a Facility that hosts GUE courses and provides a place where GUE Divers will find themselves looked after. Our home Instructor is Miko Zulueta from Manila, and we also have very close ties with Gideon Liew, Kyungsoo Kim, Su Eun Kim and others.
GUE has courses now for entry level divers but what we see most commonly asked for and taught are still the Fundamentals, the Tech 1 and Tech 2 courses. DPV, Rebreather, and other special areas do crop up as well. We're a popular choice with instructors because everything is so easy for them and for their students here. Even for Tech 2 level dives the sites are very close and no time gets wasted on travel. Our staff know what is needed and produce accurate mixes quietly behind the scenes taking the pressure off the instructor. Equipment gets taken care of and little issues like drysuit seals causing a problem are easy for us to handle. Specailized items like inflation bottles and regulators are available to rent so you don't have to fly your own. Just the way it should be in a GUE Facility!
More often than not, Instructors put a group together and suggest to the class that it be run here, then we just handle the logistcs. However if you don't have anything set up yet and contact us about training we'll attempt to match you up with other candidates or slot you in to something that we know to be scheduled. We'll introduce you to the instructor concerned to work out the details in this case.
GUE Instructors post on a Worldwide Calendar which may help you, you can view it here.
The full standards for each course are also downloadable at this link.
Different instructors charge slightly different rates. Roughly speaking the tuition fee for Fundamentals ramges from USD650-750.00, Tech 1 about USD2,000-2,250.00 . This is between you and the instructor and should be paid to them direct. They may also charge some travel expenses to the class which again vary from one to another and your share will depend upon the number or people involved. We can look after bookings and travel arrangements but the payment of expenses are between you and your instructor. There is also an online registration fee which your instructor will explain.
Tech Asia adds a facility fee to cover diving, plus gas, and this is payable to us. Equipment rental other than tanks and weights, is not included. There can be some slight variations caused by group size and actual gas used but you can expect that the following broadly will apply :
Diving Accident Insurance is highly encouraged. We have a well developed emergency assistance plan but in the unlikely event you needed medical assistance this can be expensive. Dive Assure offers comprehensive primary insurance for technical divers, any depth and gas, either for short term or annually.
Examples of coverage available are :
You can review it and sign up here :
Anything that you can't find here, just contact us and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. We hope to see you soon at Tech Asia!