Dry dive November 11th at the London Diving Chamber



What a great time we had in the London Diving Chamber last night.

I met up with Helen, Jon and Marcel to do a 50 meter dry dive.

I now have 5 Instructor Specialities to be able to teach

I finally managed to gain 5 speciality instructor courses now that I'm able to teach, all I need now is to get some people to do the courses and then I can become a Master Scuba Diver Trainer Instructor (MSDT). So please I need some students (Victims) to practice on.




What speciality Instructor courses can I teach:-

Drysuit
Enriched Air (Nitrox)
Night Diver
Emergency Oxygen Provider
Boat Diver
Along with being a Open Water Scuba Instructor I can also do Peak Performance Buoyancy

HSE Medical Passed for another Year

We'll got myself over to the HSE Doctor yesterday for the yearly medical that all diving professionals need within the UK.

Good news is that I'm clear for another year.

London Diving Chamber 50m Dry dive

Well a few of us made it to the London Dive Chamber last night to complete a 40m dry dive, however after a couple of people not turning up this all changed to a 50m dive. Got to say thanks to the guys that didn't turn up the rest of us enjoyed it even more.

Having never been in a hyperbaric chamber before I thought it would be a good idea to go have a look at one, the good people of the London Diving Chamber http://londondivingchamber.co.uk/ offer this for a small fee



Anyway on the list was Lindsey, Chantelle, Angela, Elwyn, Vicki and myelf(Paul). We paid our money and got changed into our jim jams ready to get into the chamber. We was asked to complete a simple test on the surface which would be repeated at 50m to check how we was effected by narcosis. After a briefing about the chamber and also about the dive, we all climbed inside and the doors was shut behind us.


Even though this wasn't a real dive with regards to kitting up and getting wet this was going to be a first for alot of the group including myself down to 50m.
As we started to descend the chamber started tp warm up and we was soon at 15m we had a quick check to make sure that everyone was OK and then it was down even deeper we was soon at 30m , and then it started Chantelle couldn't controll her laughing so we worked out that she was NARKED already and we was only just over half way down. We soon was at 40m and onwards to 50m. After about 5minutes we was down at 50m, we was given a sheet of paper which had some wording on in a set time we had to circle as many L's as possible.

Well this sent certain people over the edge, like Vicki's pen not working at 50m. We started to ascend with the first stop at 12m for 2 minutes then 9m for 6 minutes, followed by 6m for 28 minutes.

After getting to the surface we all completed our logbooks and checked our dive computers mine read 50.2m.

Result for the narcosis test well I scored 25 on the surface and 25 on the bottom.

Where Next ?

Well after completing my PADi Open Water Scuba Instructor Exam in about 10 days I'll be allowed to teach students for the first time.

The next thing I'm looking at is being able to teach some specialities.

On with the PADi IDC

I've now started my PADi IDC (Instructor Development Course) with Blue Ocean Diving , the first 2 days are all classroom based, going through all the PADi standards and understanding how modules and courses are taught.

Tonight is the first pool session watching a presentation to get the feeling and know how it's done.

4th/5th September was a full on more classrom room presentations with my second classroom presentation of the "5 pieces of specialized equipment used for deep diving. After 6 -7 minutes of my talk I was told that I'd achieved the pass rate however I'd managed to get a 4.0, a 3.6 being the minimum pass mark.

The evening session (saturday) was to confined water presentation the first being partial mask flood, and fin pivot using low pressure inflator. Sunday's session was regulator recovery, the second skill was remove and replace scuba unit in water to deep to reach the surface.

Well another pool session last night thought I'd got away without doing another demo from the confined open water, wrong as Justin had man flew I ended up doing "Air from an alternate source I happy with the result I managed a 4.6 even that I got a couple of things wrong. So overall a great result and the marks are going in the right direction upwards.

The IDC is a massive learning curve and you have to be committed to it as you could get anything from any of the padi courses, meaning lots of reading, more revision and more practice.

Passed the EFR Instructor Course

Managed to pass the EFR Instructor course, and it wasn't as bad as what I believed it was going to be. Top marks have got to go to Ryby (Blue Ocean Diving) for keeping it entertaining and fun as it's not the best subject in the world.

EFR Instructor Course

Well the time is fast approaching for the start of my EFR Instructor course, currently I don't know if I'm going to enjoy it or it'll be a total ball ache.

Anyway by the end of the week I should be an EFR Instructor.

PADi Oxygen Provider Certification

I recently spent a enjoyable sunday morning down at Blue Ocean Diving in Maidstone and completed my PADi Oxygen Provider Certification.

This is the perfect addition to the EFR and the PADi Rescue diver courses.

Eastbourne Airshow

After the Alunia dive we headed back into bay at Eastbourne to watch the Airshow as we had plans to dive the Oceana later that afternoon.

This was a great way to let the time go by while waiting for the next dive
All to soon we headed back out to sea for the second dive of the day the Oceana, unfortunately I didn't have enough gas for this dive so I sat it out along with George.

1st Real Boat Dive

It seemed to take ages for wednesday to arrive, ever to slowly did that clock turn, then at 12.00 o'clock we set off to Keri and the boat.

When we arrived at the dive center only a few had turned up so we had a drink and waited , then we started getting the kit ready to be packed into the van for a short trip to the quayside and then unloaded onto the boat.

We walked down the quayside to the boat in the baking heat, I then found out that everyone mucks into get the equipment unloaded onto the boat. After about 15 minutes this was completed and the boat headed out from the quay. The water was clear blue and you could see down to the bottom.

The boat moved up a gear and headed over to Keri Caves, I'd been there a few years ago on sight seeing tour, but never in the water. About 40 minutes later we slowed down and anchored the boat, as I was the least experienced diver onboard we was going off last letting all the other divers go off first,Sabina told everyone that this was a 45 minute dive. I watched as they went off the back of the boat one at a time then disappeared into the blue depths, then it was my time to step off the boat, I placed some air in my BCD and then stepped off, coming up with a mouthful of water, the regulator seemed to be on the small side, however after a couple of minutes we was right to descend, slowly we began to go under, it was amazing it looked to be around 60 feet deep or maybe deeper.

It started with Trial Dive in Greece........!

Well managed to get over to Zante for a summer holiday, not intending on going diving while we was there, on the moday we drove through Keri and stopped for a drink. The diver Center was located in the back of it. We got chatting to a couple of there instructors and it turned out that Andy was from Eastbourne just a few miles from where we live.

Well we ended booking a trial dive each the next day, Sarah hadn't done anything like this before but I knew she'd be fine with it.

The next day arrived we had to be at the dive center by 2.00pm so there was no rush to get to the other side of the island. When we arrived at the dive center we were greeted by Steve and Andy and was told they were our instructors for the day, as Tuesday is there turn round day meaning they nadn't much to do, however all the better for us an instructor each.

We got kitted up and walked across the road onto the beach and then into the sea, it was a cool 21 degs. We got to waist deep placed on the mask and regulator in the mouthand took a few breathes of air whilst putting my head under the water, just like I remembered. Sarah had some difficulties doing this as she had never even snorkeled before after about 10 minutes of trying she was going to give up however with a bit more practise she was fine, we split up with and instrustor each . Andy and myself headed out toward the sea, with the seabed slowly dropping awaywe then started to desend to around 5meters. We swam around for around 40 minutes before heading back to the shore to meet up with Sarah and her instructor Steve.


When we got back to the scuba center we had a chat and I asked about the drive trips from the boat, theyt said I'd be ok , Sarah said she was happy just to come to watch. I was soon handing over 50euros for a boat dive the next day.