Matt Rowe and Arturo Marchand lead East Atlantic Divers. Our approach is standards-driven, calm, and detailed—helping divers build repeatable fundamentals and reliable team habits.

What GUE Means to Matt, Arturo, and the East Atlantic Divers Team

At its core, GUE is about fun—real fun—earned through preparation, discipline, and competence. Yes, GUE is deeply rooted in conservation, exploration, and a rigorous educational framework, but what that ultimately gives divers is capacity: the ability to dive more, dive better, and enjoy more of the underwater world with confidence and control.

GUE doesn’t promise shortcuts. It gives you tools. Those tools are built on a philosophy that values:

• Physical fitness for diving (including no smoking)

• Experience and real diver capacity—not just certifications

• Clearly defined narcotic and oxygen limits

• Non-negotiable safety rules (gas planning, reserves, guidelines, bailout)

• True team diving

• Equipment and procedural standardization

• Risk awareness and mitigation

• A commitment to excellence

• Developing thinking divers, not button-pushers

These principles aren’t abstract. They translate directly into safer, more relaxed, more enjoyable diving—and into teams that function predictably under pressure.

As Divers

For us, GUE means freedom. Freedom to travel anywhere, connect with the local GUE community, shake hands, gear up, and go diving—because we’re all operating from the same playbook. Same standards. Same expectations. Same mindset.

That shared foundation allows us to relax and actually enjoy the dive: the quiet moments, the flow, the problem-solving, the laughter, the occasional shenanigans, and the friendships that form when everyone on the team is pulling in the same direction.

As Students (Still)

One of the things that keeps us grounded as instructors is staying in student mode ourselves. GUE is a relatively small organization, and that’s a feature, not a limitation. It keeps quality high, instructors accountable, and standards consistent.

GUE’s training philosophy accelerates learning by giving divers a proven path—cutting through years of inefficient trial and error. The goal isn’t to check boxes; it’s mastery. Skill, comfort, confidence, and competence are developed together, so divers have the mental bandwidth to focus on why they’re underwater in the first place.

Returning to student mode regularly keeps us honest, sharp, and deeply connected to what our own students experience during training.

As Instructors

From a teaching perspective, GUE provides one of the most thoughtfully constructed training systems in diving. Complex skills are broken down into manageable pieces. Practice is valued. Standards are transparent and published. Expectations are clear.

The curriculum is flexible enough to meet students where they are—new divers and highly experienced divers alike—while still holding the line on fundamentals. Each class and each dive can be tailored to student goals without compromising standards.

Equally important: GUE instructors are active divers. Explorers. Thinkers. People who are constantly refining the system and pushing it forward. That culture matters.

The Bigger Picture

GUE exists to safely explore and protect the underwater world while raising the bar for education, research, and exploration. It bridges the gap between recreational divers, explorers, conservationists, and scientists—and invites divers to be more than just consumers of experiences.

GUE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to developing skilled divers, advancing underwater research, promoting exploration, and safeguarding the integrity of the aquatic world.

For Matt, for me, and for East Atlantic Divers, GUE isn’t just a training agency. It’s a framework for how we dive, how we teach, and how we show up for our teammates—above and below the surface.