Its Official !!!

I have now got my unique PADI PRO number - 338695 .... OMG !!! Cant believe I have remembered that already .

 

 

 

I've only gone and done it ...

That's right folks - I've done it !!!

I'm a PADI PRO !!!

I'm a Divemaster. 

Many thanks to everyone who helped me throughout the course - you know who you all are - too many to name here. 

I said way back in January that I wanted to get it sorted by the time I go to Bali (Nov. 2013). And I have !!  

D(M) Day

Well tomorrow (Oct 12th 2012) is D-Day. Hopefully after a hard long slog I will become a divemaster !!

Just have to navigate my way through the skills circuit then I'm done - and on course for my deadline of November 9 (when I'm off to Bali)

I shall blog more after I'm a DM (with all the thanks etc !!!). 

EAP

I cheated a little on my Emergency Action Plan - I used the EAP I used for my Resuce Course (but obliviously added more detail to it)

I was impressed !!!

Assessments

Part of the DM Course I had to have several assessments of a variety of things

Assisting with OW students in confined water

Assisting with OW students in OW

Leading certified divers,just to name 3. 

I learnt a lot from these especially the OW students in OW as we were in Stoney Cove and the viz was shockingly sh*te (under 1m in places). I has to be on the ball there !!

Waterman Skills

Ok the biggest things I wasn't looking forward to were the waterman skills

400m swim

800m swim

15 minute tread

But I passed all them with ease !!!

The swims weren't as bad as I thought and the last 45 seconds in the tread were the worst !!!

Other skills were 100m tired diver tow and kit exchange whist buddy breathing. 

Nearly There

Well not updated this blog in a while so here is a big update after a weekend of divemastering !!


Last bank holiday weekend I was up at Capernwray doing my divemaster stuff !!!


Started on the Saturday with  bit of DLD - Discover Local Diving with fun divers

On sunday it was a bit of Assisting certified divers on ConEd

This bit was fun !!! It was assisting on the Rescue Course ... Love assisting on that course. 

Skills Signed Off

This past Saturday, myself and 2 other DMT's got a lot of skills signed off by scoring 4 and 5's

The skills were

• Equipment Assembly
• Buddy Check
• Deep Water Entry
• 5 Point Decent
• Equipment R+R on Surface
• Equipment R+R underwater

More skill sessions to come and a chance to get even more signed off

Another 5 !!!!

Got another 5 points on the 15m tread water skill on the DiveMaster course. So that's 2 skills done both scoring maximum points.

All I need now is 5 points out of the 3 remaining skills (400m swim, 800m swim and Equipment exchange whist buddy breathing)

My next skill will be the equipment exchange whist buddy breathing (5 points please) then the killer swims wont be crucial to success,

So how bad was the tread water .... hard work - especially the last 2 minutes with hands out the water.. wouldn't like to do that again in a hurry !!!

Weekend of DM things

Ok so this past weekend I was up at Capernwray and got a good few things sorted on my DM Course. 

Dive Site Set Up & Management 

Sorted this ( I think)

Dive Site Orientation 

Gave my first Dive Site Orientation to loads of students and loads of divers and all the instructors came over too. 

Enjoyed it but got a few points to add next time 

Next I was assisting on an Open Water Course, so I could gain an knowledge of what goes on under the water. 

So a valuable weekend. Missed out on leading certified divers on a dive but that's next time !!! And next time will be for FUN !!

More progress

Well today I've been at the glorious Stoney Cove doing DM stuff. 

We had a crack at 

Dive site set up and management

Dive Site Orientation

Search and Recovery Scenario 

and Rescue Scenario 

Although I had previously dined these I did then again to get better practise. 

Had a better time tying knots this time. 

Next week is Capernwray  where I will let loose with real students on a dive site orientation. 

Following that its more theory on chapters 6-9 and a HSE presentation. 

Followed by more skills !  

See you next time 

Loads done this weekend

What a weekend. Done loads on the DM course.

Search and Recovery. 

This involved tying knots and lifting an object with weight bags. This also involved giving a briefing on tying a knot and a search pattern. 

I had to use the U shape search pattern and tying the Bow Line knot. 

 

Rescue Scenario

 

For this I had to "rescue" an unresponsive non breathing diver who was face down in the water. 

This brought back memories from the Rescue Course. 

Not the best rescue but it was ok for this part of the course. 

Mapping Project
 

Myself and Jay were tasked with a mapping project at Capernwray. We had to find and then mark the saucer and the pigs with SMB's and then take bearing to and from these points to other fixed objects (like the heli2, plane or Diving Bell)

To be honest it was easier than I thought it would be. The only trouble we had was to find the saucer !!!

Tired Diver Tow

 

On your marks, set .... Go

3 of us DMT's attempted our Tired Diver Tows at Capernwray and it was a good tow!!
I done this in 1:53 plenty of time to score 5 

Only another 10 points to find out of 400m swim. 800m swim, equipment exchange and a 15minute tread water. 

Happy Days!!

Loads done today !!! More tomorrow

Well my DM course is going good now !!!

Today (sat) done and got signed off the following. 

Search and Recovery

Rescue Scenario

Also went in with students on Dive 2

Tomorrow (Sun) will be doing the Mapping Project and Diver Tow. 

More info to follow. 

Also I tied the knot today !!!

 

A good session today

Divemaster training continues ...


A very good session today, alot of skills done today - top marks on Mask removal !!!

I just need to have more sessions like this

Back to it

After a long period of inactiveness on the DM course, managed to get some stuff done.

So on a wet miserable Bank Holiday Monday, Jason, Rob Y, Sarah and myself were at Capernwray working our way through a couple of workshops

They included Discover Local Diving and Discover Scuba Diving.

We also had a try at Dive Site Orientation. And I took on the Dive Site Set Up.


Jason and myself had the Discover Local Diving workshop and had to plan and brief a dive in Capernwray for 2 qualified divers, whist Sarah and Rob Y had the Discover Scuba Diving workshop to plan and brief.

Then we went to put them in to practice on the 6m shelf - that was harder than it looked !!!

More soon ....

DM course continues

Back to the DM course later this week ... at Stoney in the bloody cold !!!

Lets hope is doesn't snow like it did this past week (at least I wasn't there this week - some think I chickened out)


What will I be doing this week I hear you ask .... well its a bit of

• Workshop A - Dive site briefing and orientation.
• Workshop B - Dive site set up and Management
•  
• Workshop 4 - Discover Scuba Diving in Open Water (dive 1)
• Workshop 5 - Discover Local Diving in Open Water

All sounds interesting !!!

Will blog all about it next week !!!


until then keep diving safe !!!

Skills ..... Skills and more Skills !!!!

Knowledge Review 3 complete today (2/3/13)

Knowledge Review 4 next time ... Date TBC


Pool Session

It was time for skills again today this time at Stratford Leisure Centre.

It was Dive One skills again ... but this time we were signed off with scores of 4/5's

The skills today were

Kit assembly
Kitting up
Buddy checks
Deep water entry
Partial Mask clear
Recover and clear regulator using both methods
Out of Air alternate air source use

All complete successfully !!!

Roll on next time !!!

Getting back on track ...

So after a few weeks off, the DM Course is getting back on track. Course schedule confirmed (although a lot of TBC's again my name - due to my love of holidays)

On Saturday 2nd March (the day before my birthday!!!)  we get things rolling again in Stratford with Knowledge Review 3 and yet more skills - good job i've been practicing them !!!

During the Feb break I read through a few extra chapters in the Divemaster manual and managed to get Knowledge Reviews 4 and 5 complete - so I'm ahead of the game.

As for the Emergency First Responce Instructor course I was thinking of doing ... I decided against it for the time being so I can concentrate on getting the DM course out of the way.

Know your kit !!!

EFRI

Emergency First Responder Instructor course.

Do I or don't I ?

Actually I was thinking about this for a while and kind of got a invite via email to the next course in March.

It would be good to do, although I've got a lot on my plate at the moment with the Divemaster course.

Reply to this blog below and let me know your thoughts.

Thanking Twitter

Well this weekend I was Surface Cover at Stoney Cove, and on the whole it went well - with one exception.

A diver on their Deep Adventure Dive part of the Advanced Open Water course bolted to the surface from about 22m after panicking on a free flow. Luckily a well trained Rescue Diver was with the diver at the time and successfully brought him to the quayside where I was positioned to get the diver out and de kitted. The diver was conscious and breathing .... and talking so that was a good sign.

We ended up at the base camp where emergency o2 was provided to the diver. The diver recovered all most straight away.

Luckily for me I follow

Divers Alert Network

@DAN_America

on Twitter and they recently tweeted about dive emergencies. That prompted me to refresh myself with Dive Emergency procedures and emergency o2 administration.

So if you have a twitter account here are a few twitter accounts you can follow

@Dan_America   https://twitter.com/DAN_America (Divers Alert Network)

@Dan_Europe   https://twitter.com/DAN_Europe

@DivingMDC   https://twitter.com/DivingMDC (Midland Dive Chamber)

@DiversEmergency   https://twitter.com/DiversEmergency (DES-UK)

@Scoobaboosta   https://twitter.com/ScoobaBoosta

and of course you can follow me @robmayor77 https://twitter.com/robmayor77