Let’s see… where did I leave off….. Thursday morning I was able to relax a bit and get some personal stuff done as I didn’t need to be at the dive shop until around 11:30. The Open Water class that I was assisting on was scheduled on Martini’s Law (one of UDC’s boats) at 1:00pm and there was some prep work that needed to be done. Student’s gear needed to be pulled and bundled, tanks needed to be loaded onto the boat, we needed to verify that the boat was stocked with extra gear, drinking water, first aid kit & emergency oxygen. The students arrived around 12:00 and after the boat was fully loaded the class met for briefing around 12:30. (the students also needed to complete their 15 minute float test before we could set off.) It was my turn to do the boat briefing that day, and I think that it went quiet well. Each time a boat leaves the dock the lead dive master (or a DMT when you are in training) gives an introduction to the captain, and reviews with the passengers boat safety, protocols and procedures for the trip. As DMTs we should give 3 practice boat briefings and then will be evaluated on one for one as part of our certification. Once at the dive site, each of us DMTs were assigned a student to be buddies with, as these were uncertified divers, this meant that we needed to stay in arms reach of our students and were responsible to keep them safe on the dive. We geared up & proceeded to reviewed the 5-step buddy check with our students. In the 5-point buddy check you review the following: BCD (Buoyancy Control Device, or our Jacket), Weights, Releases, Air, & Final ok. (Begin With Review And Friends is the PADI way of remembering, but since being on the island I’ve learnt a few other creative ways of remembering…. Brunette Women Really Are Fun is the only PG one I can share here) After the buddy check we all got into the water and did a Buoyancy check on our students.
A buoyancy check is to see if you are neutrally buoyant (properly weighted) for the dive. In this check we have our students (with Regs in their mouths) breath in a full breath of air and fully deflate their BCDs. If they are neutrally buoyant they should sink down so that their mask is approx. 50% submerged, then when they release the air from their lungs they should begin to slowly descend. (We hold on to them when they do this check as students) It turned out that when my student did his buoyancy check he was overweighed (which makes it harder to dive in some ways) so I had him take one of the weights off of his weight belt and give it to me. It turned out that the weight on the end of his belt (and the easiest to get off) was a 4lb weight… and into my BCD that went….. along with the extra 4lbs that I was also carrying in my BCD. DMTs are required to carry two extra 2-lb weights in the pockets of their BCDs so that they can easily pass them on to students at any point in the dive if they may need them. (Tanks are more buoyant empty then they are when full, and students often has trouble adjusting for this) So I got to do the dive wearing 8lbs more than I should have been.. .fun! Not really an issue, but I will admit that it took me a few minutes to adjust myself. It really helped when I re-distributed the weight so that I had 4lbs on each side rather then 2 and 6!!
I was quite impressed with my student, as he had a fairly easy time adjusting to our weightless environment. He lost buoyancy a few times and began ascending to the surface, but mostly he was able to compensate on his own with me only giving him directions by hand signal. Only once did I need to physically slow his assent and ‘drag him back down’… Some of the other DMTs had a rougher time of it and spent most of the dive bouncing up and down between 20 and 40 feet. Dive two went equally well and the students spent some time on this dive kneeling on a sand patch performing some of the 20-skills at depth. I’m not allowed to take my camera on dives when I’m working, (for obvious reasons) but I’d love to shadow an open water class before I go so that I can get some “Underwater Classroom” shots. It’s so surreal sometimes under there. Imagine Johan (the instructor) kneeling at the front, the students kneeling facing him in a semi-circle, and us DMTs kneeling between each of the students, but back about 5 feet.... and all of us gently swaying in the surge. :o) It’s like the perfect combination of my teaching background and my love of diving!! The boat returned us to UDC around 4:00 and after we restocked all of the gear, and met as a class for a quick de-briefing & the O/W class was done for the day. It was a great day, but I was exhausted!! Diving while watching students the way we needed to is fairly stressful and tiring. At 5:30 I had a lecture on Decompression Theory, so I spent the free hour that I had hanging out at the UDC bar socializing and unwinding from the class dives.
The evening’s lecture was lead by Dick and was quite interesting. In part of the lecture we reviewed the history of the Navy Diving Tables (which I already knew had been written in blood) and looked at how various pieces of technology (such as the ERDPml and dive computers) are helping us to be more accurate and extend our diving times in comparison to the original tables. After the lecture came the exam, which was no big deal except for the tedious multi-dive tissue code questions which we were forced to work out using the actual tables and not our ERDP. They were easy enough, we were all just so tired, and it was at least 7:00pm at that point. All I can say is thank goodness for computers!!! May I never have to use those double-sided tables again! :O)
Friday morning started early as our Open Water course was scheduled on Martini’s Law at 8:00am. I arrived at the dive shop just before 7:00am and we began to prep the gear and boat for the class. The first dive of the day went very well and I was impressed to see how much improvement each of the students had already made from just a day or two ago. They were becoming aware of were they were in the water and were (for the most part) able to maintain relatively neutral buoyancy. At the end of the 2nd dive (last dive of the program) we had about 10 minutes left and Johan let us all have some fun. While on a sand patch, we all took off our fins and got to play around for a bit. Without fins on it’s relatively easy to stand upright and to literally Walk around on the bottom of the ocean. I imagine that it’s a lot like what it would be like to walk on the moon. You can hop around, and even jump up and do summersaults in the air… or I guess I should say water. I’m not sure who had more fun, the DTMs or the O/W students :o)
Friday afternoon I was technically scheduled to be in the water doing equipment skills with Johan, but he kindly agreed that it had been a long week and that I should hop one of the afternoon boats and get out for a “Fun Dive” instead. YEA!! I rushed home to grab my camera, and loaded my gear onto Old Tom (another boat) for a 1-tank afternoon dive. It was exactly what I needed!!! Later that afternoon we met back up with the O/W students for final de-briefing and so that Johan could issue them their certifications. They were all soo happy, it was great to be able to watch & help on their journeys! We all celebrated by going out for dinner at R.J.’s and I tried Wahoo for the first time (nice, mild white fish – yummy!)
Yesterday and Today I have been enjoying some much-needed downtime. Today I went out on the 8:00am boat for two dives and joined some DMTs who were Lion Fish Hunting. (I’ll explain that another time) I took my camera and the coral watch slates so that I could do a coral survey. This afternoon I wandered around town and took some photos. Tomorrow I hope to get out diving in either the morning or afternoon and then I believe I have an O/W course that will be starting in the evening and going through the rest of the week. I just can’t believe how quickly the time is going here. I’m desperate to extend my time, but I know that I really can’t do that. I have a few days flexibility, and may look into staying a couple more days, but I need to be back in Canada by March 11th at the latest…. Which is approaching way tooo quickly!!!! Below are a few photos from my dives the last few days…. (dive sites: Airport Caves & The Aquarium) Click over to my Flickr page to see more.
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