First OW student certified - yay I’m on my way!
Well, considering the weekend has been beautiful, I haven’t been diving as much as I’d have liked. A lack of buddies this weekend has meant that I was only able to do training dives with one of my OW students. Fortunately though, it was the girl who’d had problems last week, so it was good to get some one-on-one teaching with her. I picked her up on Saturday morning and on the way to get gear we were talking about diving. She was openly nervous and a little scared about getting back into the water after her “incident” last time. But I knew that I had to get her into the water ASAP afterwards, otherwise she’d be one of those students who never actually finish their diving course.
So we got her a BCD and wetsuit and headed straight out onto the Sunabe seawall for Open Water Dive 2. She asked if she could practise the skills on the descent line at about 1m down before we went all the way down. I said that wouldn’t be a problem with her mask skills (partial & full mask flood & clear). The first time she did it she went to the surface, but the reason was more psychological than physiological. I told her to keep calm and assured her that water wouldn’t go up her nose unless she breathed in through it. She practised further by putting her head in the water at the surface and breathing from the reg.
After a couple of attempts she was fine, and we descended to about 8m. The first skill she did was a fin pivot, which she managed to do almost instantly. Her weight was right on, so she only needed a little air in her BCD to get buoyant. I could tell she was still a little nervous so we headed for a swim along the reef. There were some beautiful soft corals around, and after a while, I could tell she started to calm down a little and actually enjoy the dive. We then returned to the descent line and I asked her to do the mask skills. I could tell she was really nervous about doing it, but she did the skills slowly and methodically, and without any problems whatsoever. We finished the dive doing an AAS ascent to the surface. She was so relieved when we got to the top that she’d been able to do the mask skills, and hadn’t panicked or had any problems. You could tell her confidence was starting tocome back into her diving.
We did Open Water dives 3 & 4 on Saturday morning too. There was a mask removal & replacement skill that my student was nervous about, but once she’d practised it a couple of times at a very shallow depth, she went underwater and performed it at almost demonstration speed and quality. Her buoyancy control is great and as long as I can get her coming out diving, she’ll become a regular diver I’m sure. She passed the Final Exam over lunch and I was very excited to hand her a certification card as my first certified Open Water diver.
I’ll hopefully get the other divers finished next weekend and then this girl can come along and get some more experience underwater. Even if she’s just there watching the other go through their skills, it’ll be a good opportunity for her. So that was my main news story for the weekend. Only 24 more certs now until I get to MSDT status. It may seem like a lot, but I’ve got a few courses coming up over the next couple of weeks. With a bit of luck I’ll knock off those certs before long, especially if I add some Specialty courses into the mix once I’ve got some more certified OW divers. Will be in touch later in the week, but until then take care and dive safely.
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Congrats Dave,
One down, twenty four to go!