Dive logs 146-155 (17/07/06-13/08/06)
I’ve not posted dive logs for quite a while, so here are details of the last 10 dives I have done:
Dive Number: 146
Date: 17/07/06
Location: Sunabe (Fab Curry -> Ark Dive)
Time in: 08:43
Time out: 09:26
Bottom time:43 mins
Max depth: 20.8m
Weight:3kgs
Exposure protection:Shortie, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore
Temperature: Air - 29C, water - 27C
Starting air pressure: 197
Ending air pressure: 79
Dive buddies:Lindsey, Brian
Comments: A nice, 1-way dive with Linds & Brian. Vis wasn’t amazing & there’s far too much litter about at the moment. Am hoping it’s because of the recent typhoon. Everyone’s air consumption is excellent now. Passed the Ark Dive exit after 14 minutes - right on time
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 105:25
Dive Number: 147
Date: 17/07/06
Location: Sunabe (Fab Curry)
Time in: 10:37
Time out: 11:17
Bottom time: 40 mins
Max depth: 19.8m
Weight: 3kgs
Exposure protection: Shortie, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore
Temperature: Air - 31C, water - 27C
Starting air pressure: 190
Ending air pressure: 88
Dive buddies: Lindsey, Brian
Comments: Headed left from Fab Curry. There was some nice coral down there and Linds saw a cuttlefish at the start of the dive. Not a lot else to report from this one.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 106:05
Dive Number: 148
Date: 17/07/06
Location: Kadena North
Time in: 12:36
Time out: 13:26
Bottom time: 50 mins
Max depth: 11.3m
Weight: 3kgs
Exposure protection: Shortie, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore, surge
Temperature: Air - 32C, water - 27C
Starting air pressure: 182
Ending air pressure: 96
Dive buddies: Lindsey, Brian
Comments: OW Dive 3/4. DM work for Brian with Linds and another guy watching to see how it all works. We saw a small to medium sized eel before it shot away and hid from us. Students were fine at all skills, including the CESA.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 106:55
Dive Number: 149
Date: 17/07/06
Location: Kadena North
Time in: 14:13
Time out: 14:54
Bottom time: 41 mins
Max depth: 10.3m
Weight: 3kgs
Exposure protection: Shortie, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore, surge
Temperature: Air - 23C, water - 28C
Starting air pressure: 183
Ending air pressure: 109
Dive buddies: Lindsey, Brian
Comments: AOW - Nav. I led Linds on her Nav dive - the last one needed for her AOW. She made a perfect square and spotted a hidden cuttlefish that everyone else missed. Her diving has come on a hell of a lot since we started diving together.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 107:36
Dive Number: 150
Date: 18/07/06
Location: Bolo Point / Zampa Misaki
Time in: 08:33
Time out: 09:12
Bottom time: 39 mins
Max depth: 46.2m
Weight: 3kgs
Exposure protection: Shortie, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore, waves, current, surge
Temperature: Air - 29C, water - 29C
Starting air pressure: 194
Ending air pressure: 43
Dive buddies: Brian
Comments: Dive 150, and a personal depth record was set. Also a new site and a hell of a current. Wasn’t able to appreciate the depth as we were fighting conditions as soon as we got below 18m. The site is nice, with lots of swim-throughs and plenty of fish.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 108:15
Dive Number: 151
Date: 18/07/06
Location: Maeda
Time in: 10:35
Time out: 11:27
Bottom time: 52 mins
Max depth: 44.7m
Weight: 3kgs
Exposure protection: Shortie, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore
Temperature: Air - 32C, water - 27C
Starting air pressure: 196
Ending air pressure: 55
Dive buddies: Brian
Comments: Much calmer conditions at Maeda. Went to a similar depth, but good conditions made it much more enjoyable. Both computers went into deco, but we worked the time off slowly on ascent.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 109:07
Dive Number: 152
Date: 19/07/06
Location: Onna
Time in: 17:28
Time out: 18:17
Bottom time: 49 mins
Max depth: 19.7m
Weight: 3kgs
Exposure protection: Shortie, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore
Temperature: Air - 32C, water - 27C
Starting air pressure: N/A
Ending air pressure: N/A
Dive buddies: Lindsey
Comments: Last ever dive in Okinawa with Linds, and we went to one of our favourite sites. She had a couple of problems with equalization, but we still managed a really relaxing and enjoyable dive. Another of my good dive buddies leaves Okinawa, and another one who will be sorely missed.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 109:56
Dive Number: 153
Date: 26/07/06
Location: Sail Rock, Thailand
Time in: 13:25
Time out: 14:02
Bottom time: 37 mins
Max depth: 22.8m
Weight: 3kgs
Exposure protection: Rashguard, boots
Type of diving: Salt, boat, waves, current
Temperature: Water - 30.1C
Starting air pressure: N/A
Ending air pressure: N/A
Dive buddies: Derek
Comments: An average dive to start my time in Thailand. Poor vis and a strong current in parts made conditions less than ideal. There were lots of fish, but give me Maeda, Onna or the Keramas any day of the week.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 110:33
Dive Number: 154
Date: 08/08/06
Location: Chaweng Beach, Thailand
Time in: 15:04
Time out: 15:28
Bottom time: 24 mins
Max depth: 4.5m
Weight: 3.2kgs
Exposure protection: Rashguard, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore
Temperature: Air - 31C, water - 30.3C
Starting air pressure: N/A
Ending air pressure: N/A
Dive buddies: Imran, Steve
Comments: AI Training dive. Skills performed: Efficient fin kicks (PPB), Fin Pivot (LPI). A flawless dive, marks-wise. Very pleased with my performance. Awful vis though - the worst I’ve ever been in.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 110:57
Dive Number: 155
Date: 13/08/06
Location: Chaweng Beach, Thailand
Time in: 14:05
Time out: 15:20
Bottom time: 75 mins
Max depth: 5m
Weight: 3.2kgs
Exposure protection: Rashguard, boots
Type of diving: Salt, shore
Temperature: Air - 30C, water - 29.8C
Starting air pressure: N/A
Ending air pressure: N/A
Dive buddies: John
Comments: OWSI Training Dive. Skills performed: Weight removal & replacement at the surface, 5-point descent. 5/5 on both skillls. Could have been a bit cleaner on some things though and have definite areas to improve on.
Total dive time (hrs:mins): 112:12
PADI IDC - last day tomorrow… then the real business begins!
We’ve got another 2-day update for you today. I’m still not feeling 100% (although 24 hours without food has done me a lot of good I think) and last night I wasn’t really in the literary mood. But today I’ve got some time on my hand and the pressure is off marginally, for a day at least.
So let’s have a look at the past couple of days, and what better way to start than with yesterday. Well Saturday started very well for me, getting texts during the night saying that Wigan had come from behind at half time to beat Leeds at Headingley 20-18. That’s a great win considering the opposition, and everything that happened on Monday with the salary cap. If we hadn’t have had those points deducted, we’d have been in 7th place on Friday night and with the playoffs as a possibility. As it happens, survival is still the priority and hopefully results will go our way this weekend. So I got to the World Resort in relatively good spirits and ready for my presentations. I had the unenviable task of demonstrating and evaluating the CESA in the pool, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might have been. I didn’t think things were perfect though, so I was pleasantly surprised that I’d got full marks in that presentation. I seem to keep exceeding my expectations, but then again that isn’t a major thing to do as I never let myself get overconfident about things. That leads to complacency, which inevitably leads to failure. But more on that in a second. Most people did well in their presentations, with some people netting excellent scores too. So with morale pretty high we dried off and headed up to the classroom for our second prescriptive teaching presentation, and the last presentation we’d make before the IE. I certainly was aiming to end on a high note.
Out of the 7 presentations, I presented 5th. Don’t know whether it was something in the water or what, but some of the presentations before mine were pretty oridinary to be honest. People were missing out simple things and losing easy points. And then one guy talked about diving with a broken BCD, even though he knew it was broken. That’s just condoning unsafe practices to students and it netted him and instant 1 out of 5. That was pretty silly, but the others could have picked up those points if they had looked at the evaluation sheet carefully and just made sure they’d fulfilled all of the objectives required for full points. Again, one person was saying “Well it doesn’t matter as I still passed”. That is one way of thinking, but ordinary performances like that will make someone an ordinary instructor. There is no way in the world that I am settling for being just “ordinary” after all the effort and thought I’ve put into this. So with those thoughts in mind I made my teaching presentation and got 5 out of 5. An improvement on the previous day’s presentation, a flawless day marks-wise, and a reasonable satisfied Dave went to lunch. The rest of the day was filled with presentations by our Course Director, which were interesting but I will refrain from talking about them on here. Instead, I’ll zoom forward in time to today’s events.
Today was the last day of evaluations in the IDC, and again we headed down to the beach at Chaweng. I don’t know why, but I felt more nervous about these open water presentations than I did for the first ones. Open water presentations always throw up more challenges than confined water ones, and you’ve got to be on your toes constantly. Luckily, I was feeling much better health-wise today and reasonably ready for things. I also had the rather dubious honour of making my presentations first. Better to go first and attempt to set a benchmark than wait and just get more nervous by other peoples’ successes or failures. My briefing went pretty well I think and so I kitted up and headed into the water under blue skies. Swimming out while crazy tourists (damn gaijin!) on jetskis zoom past far too closely is very annoying, but something you’ve got to live with here. I had one surface skill (weight belt removal & replacement) and a 5-point descent. They went ok, although with the surface skill I felt that I’d drifted a bit too much, even though I’d noticed and said we should go back to the group. I really should have been keeping hold of the float or line though. As for the descent, it was acceptable, although I didn’t direct my certified assistant in a way I was satisfied with, and I left them in limbo a little. My skills were then over so I had the rest of the time underwater (about 70 minutes in total) to think over what I’d done and what mistakes I may or may not have made. Got out of the water at around 4pm and was first in line to make my debriefing. I made it and was very surprised when I was told I’d got full marks in both skills. I am definately counting that as my “get out of jail free card”, as I thought I’d done much worse. But once again, I made mistakes and I’ll learn from them. Hopefully I can get to the IE and come up with some performances like that. Everyone did pretty well, although there was a rope skill which the candidates messed up. Our Course Director had a go at us for that and rightly so. It’s something we should be able to do without thinking about it, and even with gloves on it shouldn’t be a problem. I think the thing quite a few people don’t seem to realise is that our Course Director doesn’t just want us to go to the IE with the skills and knowledge to pass. He wants us to go, knowing that we’ll breeze through the exams and evaluations, and excel. Once again it’s the difference between being acceptable and being better than you have to be. I am definately an advocate of the latter, and hopefully I can instill that in the others too.
So, tomorrow is the closing of the IDC, and a final counselling session before the IE starts in 2 days on Koh Tao. Depending on what happens tomorrow, this could be my last blog session for a few days as I don’t think I’ll take my laptop with me. So keep your fingers crossed for me and I’ll be in touch on the 17th with reports on how I did. Take care, and dive safely.
PADI IDC - into the OWSI part now
Firstly, apologies for the lack of a reply yesterday. I was feeling really under the weather all day with a headache and just general aches. As soon as I got back from my course I went to bed for 3 hours and the only reason that I got up was that I had to prepare presentations for today. But today I’m feeling quite a bit better although still not at 100%. Not sure what has caused this little blip in my health, but I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be back on top form.
It was a good job we didn’t have any presentations to give yesterday as I was in no sort of state to give one. It was taking all of my efforts to listen to all of the presentations throughout the day. We had no confined water session yesterday so it was lectures all day. People got a little bored in the afternoon, but the lectures were pretty interesting, especially the Risk Management one. I tried to give some input from the PADI forum in Okinawa I went to with Pat Fousak from PADI Americas, and what I’d learnt from it. Hopefully there will be a full PADI Members’ Forum next year in Okinawa that I can attend.
Today was a contrast though, and with plenty of chances to do things. We started the day with confined water presentations, and I had the skill that nobody really likes to do - the CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent). I did fairly well on it, although with the second person I had to evaluate, I missed their problem. They had to make a continuous “aaahh” sound while they were swimming. With this student there were bubbles coming out of the regulator but no sound. I missed the lack of sound and so therefore only got 4.4 out of 5. Not perfect, but then again not a score that I’m really upset with either. We then went straight from pool work into our prescriptive teaching presentations. This basically means we are explaining to students the answers to questions they had missed in knowledge reviews or final exams. The presentation went alright, although I made a couple of mistakes and so got 4.3 out of 5. Again, I’m not so disappointed with that, but hopefully tomorrow I can learn from my mistakes and make it a flawless day again. We had lectures this afternoon, including one on teaching children. That was interesting for me, as it’s very possible that I’ll be doing something along those lines in the future. I’ll probably do some Discover Scuba Diving courses for the students at my school, and maybe for a teacher or 2 if any are interested. As for the other ALTs, I’ll probably go straight into teaching Open Water courses if I can, as they will be much more useful for those guys. Then to finish the day off we did our physical exercise for the IDC, which consisted of an 800m swim. That wasn’t as bad as I thought, although my Force Fins are not too great for surface swims, although I glide along under water.
And that’s about it for now. I’ll report back tomorrow with more news and views. Take care, keep reading and dive safely.
P.S. Thought I’d just chime in with a few recommendations. Firstly is the website of the day, and a must-read for any divers out there. It’s a tragic story about a guy in South Africa pushing the diving limits to retrieve a body at the bottom of a cave. It’s long, but is easily worth it:
http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200508/dave-shaw-1.html
The next 2 are recommendations in Koh Samui itself. First off is a restaurant called La Bodega. It’s located in Bang Rak - if you turn onto the ‘Ghost Road’ at Captain Caveman, it’s about 50m down on your left. A big variety of food, excellent prices and friendly service too. Highly recommended. The second place I will vouch for is Ploy Massage, which is just at the entrance to Big Buddha in the north of Koh Samui. If you want a quality massage at an excellent price, then please head there. You won’t be disappointed.
Day off from our IDC - back to my old habits
After 4 days of lectures, pool sessions, exams and assessments, today has been a free day. Everyone bar one person decided that they would celebrate a job one-third done by having a few drinks out in Chaweng. As it happened, it was a hell of an eventful night for numerous reasons.
We headed to our usual haunt, La Bodega, for dinner. The main chef at that restaurant cooks up some great quality food and the prices are superb for the dishes you get. We had a few drinks and then over the course of the evening more people from the IDC joined us. Our Course Director also came out for a tipple, or too, which was welcomed. After our meal and a few drinks at this place, we then headed to the main street of bars in Chaweng, Soi Reggae. A couple of the group knew people at one of the bars so we headed there for an hour or 2. And this is where things started to go a little strange. First of all, one of my good friends on the IDC spent most of the time at this bar kissing a Thai girl. In the meantime people played pool, chatted with the waitresses and basically waited for them to come up for air so we could move onto the next place!
Finally they managed to part themselves from each other and we all headed to Reggae Bar at the end of Soi Reggae. As per usual, the music was loud and the clientele… controversial. So we fitted in pretty well! When we’d got drinks and found a place to perch ourselves, I started chatting to one of the guys’ girlfriend. She was pretty much paralytic but was intent on dancing, so I basically had to act as a prop for her. Considering I’d had a few drinks, my reactions when she started to fall over were pretty quick! I also took on the role of unofficial chaperone as some Italian guy kept trying to pull her away from everyone, thinking she was a standard bargirl. So we danced for a little while before we went back to our spot and I started talking to a friend I knew. I looked back and this girl was in tears. I went over to her and she really was balling her eyes out. She was saying how much she’s not a good person and how her boyfriend doesn’t love her. I set about trying to reassure her while I got one of my friends to find her boyfriend and get him over here to take care of her. She was really drunk and pretty much deadweight when I had her in my arms. After what seemed like an age her boyfriend came over so I gestured to him to come and take care of her. He just looked at her, shook his head and walked out of the place! Me and my friend were just stunned and completely at a loss at what to do. A couple of people said that I should have just left her as she’d have been able to look after herself. But she couldn’t stand without assistance. I’m sorry, but regardless of what profession a woman has, when she’s in this state she needs someone to look after her. If I hadn’t have, then I have no doubts that some guy would have ended up taking advantage of her. So I told her that I was going to make sure she got home safely.
We headed to the Green Mango for a little while and then to Solo Bar. She was adament that she wanted to go to these clubs, despite being really tired. We stopped for some food first and she confided in me quite a few things about her relationship and how she felt about it. When we got to this club, she just about passed out on my shoulder. I spent a few minutes trying to get her to wake up/regain consciousness, which was a little scary. At about 4 I decided we were going to call it a night and we got a moped taxi back home. Her boyfriend’s bungalow was next to mine and fortunately he had left his door wide open. So we said goodnight and I told her that if she ever needed to chat then she could come and talk to me. It felt just like when I was at school and university, when I would look after the really drunk girl and make sure she got home safely. She did get home without harm though so I was pretty satisfied with what I had done.
So it was a very strange night. Today I did the PADI Standards exam which I think went pretty well. There was just one question that I can’t for the life of me find the citation to support the answer, but apart from that I was pleased with it. I’ll report back on how I did in that test tomorrow, as well as results of my 800m swim test. If you never hear from me again then I died about halfway through it! Take care, dive safely and please leave comments if you like what you read.
PADI IDC Day 4 review - back on form
After yesterday’s disastrous confined water presentation, I had a pleasing day today and regained some form. It’s restored some much-needed confidence in myself and my abilities, and going into the second half of the IDC course, I am confident that nothing is beyond me in this course.
The day started with the theory exams; there were 5 exams with 20 questions in each exam (physics, physiology, dive equipment, general skills & environment, and the Recreational Dive Planner). I went into these exams feeling pretty good about them - I’ve done well in my practise exams and think I understand all of the concepts involved. We were given 2 and a half hours to complete but it is always disconcerting when you finish after an hour and a half. But I’d checked my answer and submitted them to my Course Director. Managed to get 100% on each exam, and was more than satisfied with that as not too many people do as well as that. Everyone passed the exams, albeit with a couple of people just scraping through the physics exam. I’ve asked to get more papers so I can get more practise in - the worst thing that could happen now would be for me to think that the hard work is done and that I can rest on my laurels. I don’t think I’ll let that happen, but this is a useful way to make sure it doesn’t
So that went well, and after a very nice lunch at the World Resort on Koh Samui, we headed off to Chaweng Beach for the Open Water Skill Evaluations. I was given 2 presentations to give: from the Advanced Open Water course, Efficient Fin Kicks; and from the Open Water course, Fin Pivot - Low Pressure Inflator. I gave my briefing and then it was time to get into the water. There wasn’t much depth (max was about 4m) but the visibility was shocking. It was easily the worst I’d ever been in (about 2m) and was really disconcerting to start with. Apparently that’s a good day for that area though, with visibility usually around 1m and sometimes less. People who live and dive in Okinawa should really consider themselves lucky, with the amount of good shore diving there is. We went down in 2 groups, with me being in the second group. While the first group was under, we did simulated rescue scnearios (as we may be tested on this in the Instructor Exam). Then it was my turn to go down. I headed down to the line and did my skills. I felt that they went well and I had no big problems (apart from nearly losing my lesson preparation slate). Got back to shore and did a debriefing, and then waited for a review of my performance. Providing I hadn’t unknowingly broken any rules, I was expecting around 4ish out of 5. I was very pleased when I was told that both presentations were a perfect 5 out of 5. That topped things off, and made today a flawless day. Confidence is back up and I’ll be raring to go in the OWSI part of the IDC course after tomorrow.
But I am not getting ahead of myself. This was just one part of my course, and I’ve got to keep these standards going for the rest of the course. I’ve shown what I can do when I’m fully determined and completely on my game. As long as I’m always on top of things during my presentations then there’s no reason why I should lose silly marks for missing things out. I’ve got my prompts on lesson plans and slates, and I just have to follow them.
So tonight I’m going to have a drink or 2 to celebrate a job well done. But not too much though; I’ve got a PADI Standards exam to do tomorrow and I need to pass that so that I can officially be an Assistant Instructor. Then it’s the rest of the IDC course, the IE for two days, and hopefully my instructor certification! Take care everyone, and dive safely