It’s really great when a plan works and thanks to the help of a few instructors and some keen and willing students, today’s ambitious plan ran like clockwork!
To maximize the time available we met at Cromhall punctually at 9:00am. Those getting air or Nitrox were asked to arrive a bit earlier. Everyone was there in good time, so after signing in and paying, in the wind and rain we headed to the ‘beach’ end to get underway.
All of us except Taz, Ari and Taz’s friend Koko had been there before. I (Tim) welcomed everyone and did a quick briefing.
Preparations
The first wave was to be David with Chris doing the 4th Ocean Diver lesson; meanwhile Claire was with Tim doing the 6th (and her final) Dive Leader lesson. Both lessons were successfully completed 🙂
The second wave (after an hour surface interval) was to be Luke and Claire with Chris doing the 3rd Sports Diver lesson; meanwhile Taz was with Tim doing the 1st Sports Diver rescue lesson, with Rob kindly playing casualty and David providing shore cover/assistance. Once again all was successfully completed 🙂
The third and final wave was Chris doing the 5th and final Ocean Diver lesson with David; meanwhile Rob led Taz and Luke with the Navigation elements of the 4th Sports Diver lesson and Tim led the DSMB elements. Doing S04 together like this was brilliant because we were all swimming in each others stirred up low visibility. This made the navigation exercise much more challenging and realistic 🙂
The nice thing was, while all this was going on, Ari and Koko were keeping busy swimming and snorkeling above us. Ari was even filming some of it, so we look forward to seeing that 🙂
Let the lessons commence!
So in summary what we achieved today:
- David successful completed OO4 & OO5 to finish off his Ocean Diver qualification. Well done David 🙂
- Luke successfully completed SO3 & SO4 towards his Sports Diver qualification. Well done Luke 🙂
- Claire successfully completed DO6 to finish off her Dive Leader qualification and SO3 (on Nitrox) to complete her Nitrox training (to be able to use it on her holidays). Well done Claire 🙂
- Taz successfully completed SO1 & SO4 towards his Sports Diver qualification and in doing so commenced his training with our club. Well done Taz 🙂
- Rob broadened his instructor experience. Well done Rob 🙂
Kitting up & sharing experiences
- Well done also to Ari and Koko for swimming, snorkeling and filming today’s events.
- Congratulations to Luke and Claire (Mr & Mrs) on their first dive together.
- Welcome to Taz, Ari and Koko on their first visit to Cromhall.
- Special thanks to Chris and Rob who without which this wouldn’t have happened.
Some final words of wisdom from Tim on the correct posture to start a limbo dance 😉
The weather was mostly wet and windy but being at an inland sheltered water site this wasn’t a problem. Another group present mentioned they had been to Brixham the day before but had had to abandon diving as the vis was so bad. While it was sad for them it was a comfort to us to know we were in the best place.
What a busy day but what fun and how rewarding. Here’s looking forward to the next one 🙂
Cheers
Tim
Diving Officer
