typical day .....

Today is a good example of a typical day as a Dive Master Trainee  at UDC.  Don’t get me wrong, every day is totally different, but this is what I would call typical as far as my schedule goes.  

Today was a late start day as I didn’t need to be at the Dive shop until 11:00am. (that actually means that I need to be there around 10:30 so I can get my personal gear set up for 11.)  I had really wanted to get on one of the morning dive boats, but they are always two-tank dives and I just wouldn’t have been back in time as they usually get in closer to 12:00    :o(      I was assisting on an Open Water Course  (a beginner course for someone who has never been scuba diving before) During an open water course the student needs demonstrate that they have learnt the 20 key skills. The class was meeting at 1:00 pm for a demonstration on equipment assembly and for the student’s first two-confined water dives. (which actually take place as one dive)  Confined water dives are dives that take place either in a pool (like at S2K) or in “an open water site that offers swimming-pool like conditions with respect to clarity, calmness, and depth.”  UDC has two locations off of their dock, which act as confined water sites.  Each has a large blue tarp that is held down by large rocks to reduce the amount of sand/silt that is turned up by the students who will be kneeling on it while being tested on skills. (such as demonstrating hand signals, reading their pressure gauges, breathing underwater without their masks on for 1 minute, out of air and 5-point assent).  So each morning these blue tarps that we will be kneeling on need to be swept of sand and debris.  So at 11:00 am Richard (another DMT) and I geared up and began the wonderful task of sweeping the tarps. Ok, so I want you all to close your eyes and imagine that for just one moment.  You are approximately 10 feet underwater (within the first atom of pressure for any of you divers out there) in the ocean (with it’s currents & fishies) hovering on your bellies with brooms sweeping.  After about 30 seconds you can’t see a thing except for blue tarp peeking through all the sand & silt.  It’s actually kind of fun and after about 30 minutes two other DMTs kindly took our places. 

I had about an hour of free time then as we didn’t need to meet Johan (the instructor of the O/W course) until 12:30 for briefing. So I took the time to take a swim without my fins out to the “large boat” and back a few times.  (sometimes I miss swimming without my fins) We use this “large boat” for our test swims as it is almost exactly 100 meters off our dock & is a relatively safe swim path considering dive boats coming & going.  It was really really hot outside today & I was just happy to be in the cool water.  After a few laps I headed up to the UDC bar to see what was on the menu at that moment so I could have some breakfast. (There is usually only one item available at a time, and it can change once or twice over the corse of the day) They were still serving the breakfast bandelaeos YEA!!  (ok, I’m almost 100% sure that I’ve spelt that alllll kinds of wrong, but it’s not like there’s a menu or anything to read! And remember that everyone here has a different accent so who know’s what they are really called) Bandelaeos? are a good example of local backpacker cuisine, and can also be purchased along the street like “street-meat” back home.  You start off with a round piece of flat bread that has a spreading of refried beans, a sprinkle of grated cheese and some chopped onions (sometimes pickled). Then depending on the time of day and/or cart you stop at there is some form for protein. Today is was scrambled eggs, but often you get chicken and ?beef? or ?pork?  (lets go with beef & pork! No other suggestions are welcome!!! ~ thank you!) On the street you can get them for 10 Limps each (about $0.50) At UDC they are about 4 times the size and I think cost 25 Limps.  Add in some hot sauce & they are becoming a staple in my diet!

At 12:30 the four DMTs on the couse (and 2 MSDTs who were shadowing) met with Johan for a briefing on the day’s class. We met up with the students at 1:00 and started by fitting them all with gear (another one of our Jobs as DMTs) once they had their gear Johan began the demonstration and assessment on equipment set-up and we were all in the water just before 2:30. I think we were under for about 45 minutes while the students were evaluated on their skills, and for the majority of that time I was just kneeling behind one student keeping and eye on him, while observing what Johan was doing.  After that we surfaced and swam into deeper water so that the students could perform some surface skills and a tired diver tow. (my chance to lie back and relax)  We were out of the water just before 4:00pm and by 4:30 we had rinsed and re-stocked all of the gear. After a short de-briefing with the students and Johan, class was over for the day… Well to be more actuate I should say that the Open Water class was over for the day… My day was not over quite yet.

At 5:30 I had a lecture scheduled so I quickly ran home to take a shower and grab my textbooks.  The lecture tonight was on Equipment and was held with Guilherme, (aka “G”) who is the resident expert on equipment and tec diving. (He actually built his own semi-closed rebreather from scratch!!!)  It was a great lecture, and a great refresh of the equipment specialty certification course that I took through S2K last year.  Following the 1-hour lecture we had an 20 question exam, and were able to check yet another thing off our list towards becoming certified Dive Masters :o)  We have 5 (or 6?) lecture/exam series as part of the internship in addition to the Knowledge reviews in the DM Text Book.  We have a workbook to help study for the lectures as well as the Encyclopedia on Recreational Diving as support text for pre-study.

At 7:15 we had a briefing with Dick (another Instructor) on the “Tune-Up” dive that we were going to be doing tomorrow morning at 8:00am  (so at the shop by 7:30am….  Won’t be getting much sleep tonight!)  As part of our Internship we need to demonstrate that we can conduct a “refresher” dive for certified divers.  It’s recommended that a diver who has been out of the water for more than 6-months (or is new to that specific diving environment, ie: new to diving in Canadian cold-water) do a tune-up of the 20 basic skills.  Each of us was assigned 4 skills that we will need to demonstrate to the rest of the class, and then we will need to evaluate each of our co-DMTs to see if the skill is being performed appropriately.  (and we know that some of us will be instructed to make mistakes)  I’ve been given    1) Equipment Assembly   2) Fin Pivot   3)  BCD removal/replacement under water  and  4)  Out of Air & Alternate air source assent (which happens to also be the last of the skills that I need to demonstrate at Instructor Quality so I’ll kind of be killing two birds with one stone in that one. ) 

That was all finished by 8:00pm and it was definitely time for food!!!    Underwater Vision (the dive shop next to UDC) was having their weekly wing night, so Mark, Lee & I went over to order us some wings!!!.  Their wings are 8 Limps each  (20 Limps = $1 U$) and are sold in multiples of 6.  I ordered 6 honey-garlic & 6 mediums and then we headed back to UDC to have a beer while waiting the 20 min for our orders to be ready.   We ended the night by bringing our wings back to UDC and hanging out with a bunch of the other DMTs and instructors for a little while.

So that’s about it for the day.  It’s just around 11pm and definitely time to crawl into bed.  I have some reading to do for tomorrows “tune-up” dive so with any luck lights will be out by midnight……   Nighty  Night!!!   


Oh and for those of you who I haven't skyped or pinged in a while...  sorry, but the internet is off and on and I'm infrequently awake & at my apartment these days....   Miss you!!