Can an SMB be to BIG?

 Sometimes you have to ask yourself how big do you need have your SMB(Surface Marker Buoy), well I've recently managed to get my hands on a 3meter (10 feet in old money) red smb with it's own cylinder that is used to inflate it.

Well as we was at holborough on sunday it just had to be done, we we sat doing a safety stop I passed the camera to George and out came the SMB, some people have called it a lift bag but I know it's an SMB.

I opened it up and slowly open the valve to allow som air

into the SMB, making sure I was holding the reel in the other hand and with my finger on the release button the SMB rocketed to the surface. We slowly surfaced to be greeted with all the comments form people about the size of the SMB.

However 3 meters is just right when you are doing dives at sea this gives the skipper a great view if where you are, and in large swells just makes it safer for yourself. The only problem is don't get caught up in it otherwise you'll  be rocketing to the surface with it and then you could be having a trip to the chamber in a helicopter.  

PADi Enriched Air Speciality Instructor Course

Well completed another PADi Speciality Instructor course last night.

After spending a couple of hours in a classs they are now letting me loose with students who want to complete there Nitrox course.

As for teaching the course it's a matter of letting the system do the work.

There is some nice formula's to remember how to do the maths because you're allowed a copy of them for the exam.

Right need some students to practice on who's brave enough then.

Holborough Lake 24th October 2010

Went down to Holborough Lake, Snodland in Kent for a dive today. When I got up the weather was brilliant sunshine which is always a good start to the day. Along with sarah we were meeting Helen and Jon and a few others from DiveBuddy UK.

We got there a little late due to an accident on the A21. Anyway when we got there we was told that the visability was 10+ meteres, we walked on the jetty and we could see clearly down to the botton of the lake at around 8 meteres.

We all started kitting up I was using a twinset with a 140bar of 28% nitrox left over from a recent wreck dive, everyone else was using single 12liter cyclinders. On entering the water it was a nice 15 degree's C. We swam out to the plaform and used the descent line using it as a reference line, Jon and myself went down first followed by Helen and Sarah with the aim of completing Sarah's navigation part of her PADi Advanced Open Water Course.

Sarah managed to complete the resipicle part before she had some problem with the cold and her throat so it was out the water for her.

That left the rest of us, Helen, Jon and myself time for a nice swim around the lake. We descended and followed the ropes from one object to another the visability was still in the 10+ meters which made an ideal photo oppertunitity. From the platform were we did the navigation from we headed over to the "Sweet Mystery" a large boat wreck, then onto the speed boat where Helen and Jon decided to get into it and try and drive it.

Then onto the large tracker tyres were we was greeted by six really large perch which seemed happy to have there photo's taken.

We carried on following the rope when the we started to ascend upto around 6 meters where on top of the mound was alot ot objects from a cannon, anchor and a ships compass, however the strangest object was a statue of a gargoil, Helen decided that it needed a kiss only to get a nice slimmy return kiss from it, good job she never used tongues. Over the mound still following the ropes we came to yet another platform then onto half a car burried in the side of the lake. You have to keep your eye's open as there is some unmarked objects, these include cannons, compasses, statues and old motorbikes.

The good news is that were going to return next sunday and have yet another look around the lake.

One thing to be aware of with Holborough Lake is there isn't any maps of what objects they have placed in the lake which makes every dive an adventure.

PADi Instructor Exam

The Instructor Exams are being held in Bristol and at Vobster on the 2nd and 3rd of October 2010. The group from Blue Ocean will be travelling down on the friday and staying over night ready for the start at 7.30am.




Day 1

Meet up and get a breifing from PADi staff regarding the flow of the weekend

Standards Exam50 questions from the PADi standards this is an open book exam lasting 1.5 hours

5 Core Exams

12 questions on each topic closed book

Physics

Physiology
Equipment
Recreatational Dive Planning
Enviorment

Knowledge Development Presentation:
OWD Manual, Knowledge Review Chapter 5 question 6 eRDP ML

Q. What is the minimum surface interval required between a dive to 18 meters for 40 minutes followed by a dive to 14meters for 60 minutes.

A. 28 minutes


Skills Circuit: Jon was the lucky man to pick the skills circuit that we had to do, we later found that it didn't matter which one he picked they was all the same.

1. Weight Belt removal at the surface
2. Alternative Air Source Use
3. Hoover
4. Mask removal and Replace

5. Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA)

Teaching in confined water:

Skill: Neutral Buoyancy Underwater (Power Inflation) OWD Course Dive 2

Day2

Teching in Open Water

Skill 1: Alternate Air Source Stationary OWD Course Dive 2

Skill 2: Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) OWD Course Dive Flexible Skill


Rescue Assesment
These are two very long days and you feel drained after you have completed after the exams you get some time to prepare the classroom presentation, then a short break and into the pool for the skills circuit followed by your confined water presentation. Is required the following:

BREIFING
DEMOSTRATION
STUDENTS DEMO
DE-BREIFING


You are then free to leave and relax that evening ready for day two. If you have failed any exams from the Core Exams then you can resit them in the morning, I'm glad to say that I didn't need to resit any part of the IE.

Finally I was given this

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.

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.

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.