I’m officially a scuba instructor!
We started the IE with theoretical tests. The five dive theories, and general standards and procedures. I did way better than expected. We also got our assignments for the classroom presentation, confined water presentation and open water presentations. So after the tests we went back to prepare for the classroom.
I got a subject from the rescue diver course. It was harder than usual to prepare the presentation, mostly because the subject wasn’t that easy to talk about. But in the end I managed. I got home around midnight and fell right asleep.
Day two started with the classroom presentation at eight. I did my thing and ended up with a full score on that presentation! I was really happy about that, but I had to put that away since we only had a few hours to prepare and practice our confined water presentations.
My skill for that was hovering. I went through every possible thing that could go wrong, and every problem I could get assigned, and finally realised I wouldn’t be able to prepare more than I already had.
So we went off to the pool.
I once again scored really high on the presentation.
And once again I had to swallow my joy since I needed to focus on the mini-skill circuit. 5 skills that had to be demonstrated correctly. Out of 25 possible, I scored 24. And then we were done for the day.
I celebrated with a beer, and started working on my open water presentations. The one that most people fail on. I spent a few hours trying to perfect it, and realised once again I can’t spend all night on it. So a few from the school dragged me to a presentation about Manta Ray’s, including some world class scientists talking about it. Really cool, and just what I needed to relax!
The third and final day.
Started off really early with a coffee, and off we went. At 7 we started our briefings on the beach, and then had to wait for the other group consisting of 7 candidates to do their briefings.
Then we got out on the boat and in the water. At this time I was just about as nervous I could get. But as soon as we got down under the surface it all started to feel better. I was in my right element once again.
We went through all the candidates presentations, and got to me. I had to skills to conduct, fin pivot oral inflation and compass navigation, reciprocal heading.
Not THAT bad, but still harder than some other candidates. But I got through it, found what I thought was the problems, and we got up on the surface.
But it’s not over there. We immediately did our rescue #7 exercises, and got up on the boat to prepare our debriefings.
Once on the shore we debriefed, then had to wait around for what felt like forever to find our scores.
The examiner called on us one by one, and one by one we got out of there with a huge smile on our faces. We all passed!
We finished up with some photos and short interviews, and then went back to the school. We’re finally done.
The party that night is about the only thing I’m not going to write about. Let’s just say that none of us acted very professionally, and with good excuses as well. 😉
But my journey doesn’t end there. I just signed up to do my MSDT, and that will start this Thursday. I’m looking at Deep, Wreck, Nitrox, O2 Provider and Night. And I’m really looking forward to it.
Other than that I’m looking to get employed as soon as possible. So if any of you need a passionate instructor eager to learn and work hard, let me know! You can get a hold of me through my profile here on The Scuba News.
I am sure you will all join me in congratulating Robin on becoming a scuba diving instructor and wish him all the best in his new career.
Lee, The Scuba News
