Gang
Just a quick update from Poland. Yes, GUE conducted the first ever DIR Fundamentals in Poland. We had a total of 12 students over two courses conducted at Hanza Lake on the North eastern side of Poland close to the border of Poland and Lithuania. Very very interesting country to be in. I landed in Warsaw and spent the day site seeing and watching my host Maciek (and Sebastian ) eat some strange soup (see the pictures on www.5thd-x.com). The following day I gave a Britannic/DIR presentation to 50 + people in Warsaw. After which we drove for 7 hours North East to this lake district. I conducted two, three day fundamental courses back to back with a wide variety of experience in background from all the students. (TriMix Instructor Trainers to Advanced Openwater) All did extremely well but needed to practice a lot. As this type of training is totally new to Poland and this was the first of the courses, many in the class have being trying to be DIR (as best as the could gather from the internet) but without the proper training and guidance they were a little misguided. These courses really helped them see where they were going wrong, where they were at and how they could get on the right path. The pictures are worth a thousand words. After the classes I went north to Gdansk/Gdynia do some Baltic Wreck diving. The area I was in was full of wrecks, I mean like a few thousand. So we had tons to choose from. I did some shallow diving with the class students and had a great time. Thank you Robert and Maciek. Friday night I did another Britannic presentation in the city hall of Gdynia. The vice president of the city is an avid diver and allowed us the venue and he and other noteworthy from the area attended. The presentation was very well attended at around 70+ people. Turned out to be an excellent trip to Poland and want to thank my host Maciek and Sebastian. I will be back in May of 2005

Andrew Georgitsis
GUE Technical Training Director