Friday, July 26, 2013

PADI Rescue Course, EFR and DSD's.......... and days off :)

I can’t believe I’ve been here for two weeks already, it’s been going really quickly and I keep forgetting what day it is and getting mixed up on what day I did things!
I’ve not done as many dives this week as last week which is a shame, but I’ve done loads of other things that were exciting.

On Monday morning, I was in the pool helping with a PADI Discover Scuba diving session for the first time.
When the DSD students went out to do their open water dive, I stayed in the dive centre and started studying my PADI Rescue diver manual.
Later that afternoon, I watched the video for the Emergency First Response course with Gerado, Thiess, Malene and Ann.
I had a day off on Tuesday, I had a lie in which I enjoyed.  I treated myself to Mcdonalds as well because I hadn’t had one for ages and it has free wifi I could use. I hadn’t used the internet since I arrived so had loads of stuff to tell people and messages to reply to. I also took my laptop down to the Aberdeen steak house to borrow their wifi too, you can get a large beer there for a euro. I think that’s the cheapest beer I’ve ever seen anywhere. I don’t usually drink beer but it’s too good of a deal to not have it!
On Wednesday it was back to diving, we did a deep dive at Poco Naufragio. I enjoyed it , it reminded me of diving at home, which was kind of a nice thing because I was missing home anyway. The second dive we did at Yellow Mountain had much better visibility, and we could swim through a small cave like thing which I really liked. In the afternoon, we watched the video for the PADI Rescue diver course, it was useful because we could actually see for ourselves the things that the manual was describing.
Puffer Fish Tenerife

We went to the Marina on Thursday to do the confined water lessons of the Rescue course, where we learnt how to respond to different diving emergencies like searching for a missing diver and bringing unresponsive divers aboard the boat. I was partnered with Ann, and we had to try and get each other into the boat from the water without using the ladder which was difficult, but everyone else thought it was funny to watch us. I can’t even get myself into the boat without using the ladder and I’m far too weak to drag someone else into the boat! We did the emergency first response course later in the afternoon which was fun. We learnt all sorts of useful things and then we had to react to an emergency scenario. When I got to be an injured person I was told to be a really drunk person. I got to run around sabotaging all of Ann’s efforts to be a good emergency responder (sorry Ann!)  It was really fun to do, but if I was really drunk in an emergency situation I would probably have just sat and cried because everyone was dying.

Emergency First Response

I woke up at 4.30 AM on Friday morning to do a night dive, which I was nervous about, I thought my torch might fail then I’d get lost in the dark. Thankfully this didn’t happen. The dive was an experience but I’m not sure if I liked it that much. After we did our night dive, we went out to do our open water section of the Rescue diver course, we had to find an unresponsive diver and bring them back aboard the boat. Me and Ann struggled again to drag each other onto the boat. My snorkel also disappeared today, I’m guessing it’s somewhere at the bottom of the sea at Yellow Mountain.  As we’d been up so early, we finished early so I decided to go to the pool and do some sunbathing to try and get some sort of colour in my skin because even though I’ve been here for two weeks, the only part of me that has a kind of tan are my hands.

Night Diving Tenerife

We started off in the pool in Saturday morning doing the PADI Divemaster skills practice. There’s quite a bit of work I need to do on my skills, especially the hover because my feet keep floating away from me. After this, we went to the Marina to practice some of the stamina tests which were a 800m snorkel, a 100m tow and to tread water for 15 minutes.
When I was snorkelling about in the Marina, I found it difficult to swim whilst wearing a wetsuit and I was terrified a boat would run me over and I’d get chopped up by the propeller. The 100m tow and the treading water went better, especially the treading water because I’m quite a buoyant person, I just sort of floated there. We also got to practice getting customers ready on the boat for when we get put on boat cover.

Moray Eel Tenerife

I had another day off on Sunday, even though I wanted a lie in I woke up at 7.15 by accident and couldn’t get back to sleep so got up anyway. I didn’t really do that much apart from go swimming and sunbathing, then go down to the Aberdeen for the wifi.
At the end of my second week I’ve learnt quite a lot of new things and experienced new things, like the night dive. I’m also starting to lose track of which day it is as we’re kept so busy!

Melissa (Cassandra)

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