Rescue Training and the missing Duck !

We are now in week four of the Divemaster internship, and all is going well!

This week I have been given the opportunity to lead a couple of dives, and also giving the dive briefs. I’m getting more comfortable doing so; both my leadership skills as my briefing skills are improving. I also learned that the pacing of a dive is another crucial part of leading a dive. The excitement appears to overwhelm and you forget that it’s not a race to get to a certain point.

We went for a dive to Poco Naufragio with Nick and Aiden, two of Dive and Sea's regular customers. Pete, Kim and Nick did a deep dive, whilst Aiden (who is an Open Water Diver) and I stayed within 18 meters. We saw a couple of Stingrays, and numerous of the regular aquatic life in Tenerife. We also got to see a Black Moray Eel, I will have to remember his location to give him a visit again next time.


At the end of the week, Kim completed her PADI Rescue Course, well done Kim. Teide Divers, Jackie and Phil, joined us, for yet another extremely entertaining day.
I had forgotten how much fun the Rescue course was. I now have fonder memories of this rescue course.

On one of the training session’s our assignment was to find a missing diver, using Duckie (the dive centres’’ rubber duck) as the missing diver. Phil and I were eager to get in the water, locate Duckie and get her to the surface. Without any hesitation, we got in the water as quickly as possible. Unfortunately not doing what we were trained to do; "Stop, Think then Act".

Phil jumped in (fins and mask on), grabbing the closest BCD he could find, which turned out to be Kim's BCD, an extra extra small!
Somehow he managed to slip into it, but then he tried to descend, but forgot to put on a weight belt, as he normally uses integrated weights in his own BCD. He couldn’t do anything!!

Meanwhile, I had also jumped in the water without thinking first, and forgot to put on my fins, soon finding out that there was no way to free dive with a wetsuit on, without any fins. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to wearing fins, and rely on them entirely. I got back out of the water to get my fins, while Phil was still struggling with Kim’s BCD.
By the time I got my fins on, Phil was almost kitted up, and we were of for our second try.
This time we soon found Duckie, but we could have saved ourselves a lot of time by taking a moment to Stop, Think and then Act.
Perhaps next time we will listen to Pete!

Kim and I also completed our mapping exercise,  I wanted to do a hand drawing of the information and Kim insisted on a computer generated one. To be fair, it does look better than my sketched one.

This week we completed a number of our stamina tests, including:

100m Tired Diver Tow – 4:05 minutes (score: 3 out of 5)
400m Swim – 6:03 minutes (score: 5 out of 5)
800m Snorkel -16:55 minutes (score: 3 out of 5)
15 Minute Tread; last two minutes with your hands out of the water. – score: 5 out of 5

We got the chance to practice our skills independently in the pool. We still need a lot of work before we can properly demonstrate how to do the skills. But no worries, slowly but surely, we are getting there.

More updates from me later on my adventures here in Tenerife.