The weekend saw us at LSD for another OW Referral, TD OWSI, 5 students and myself assisting as DMT. It went swimmingly and I have this module signed off now. One eye opening experience was demonstrating some of the skills myself (tired diver tow/push, OOA drill, and breathing from a free-flowing reg). I had assumed since I could do all these things easily myself, doing them to “demonstration quality” would just be a matter of doing them slowly, but it is quite different when all eyes are on you and you are thinking about have you done everything and in the right order and made it clear enough, paused in the right places to point something out, and so on. That is something I will need to practice, to make it look smooth and natural, I’ll do at least one more OW Referral as DMT to see if I can pick up any tips from the OWSI.

One student failed to complete the course, halfway through dive 3 he simply stopped and said “this isn’t for me”. Fair enough, as divers we have have the saying, anyone can call the dive, for any reason (DIR types I believe call this “option 1”). However since the beginning, when asked to do any skill, he would say “are you serious? I can’t do that” and had to be cajoled into trying, and usually actually could do it. I guess he just talked himself out of it, which was strange because he’d studied the manual intensively, and therefore knew what to expect. There is always the cheaper, quicker DSD if anyone isn’t sure, tho’ an OW Referral is only one weekend, it is not a major commitment, like going on holiday with a group of friends, to a resort where there is only diving, and having to sit it out while they qualify and then go off on a boat! Which happened to one guy when I did my own OW in Sharm, and I’ve heard similar stories from other divers.

Also, I collected my repaired drysuit, which I will probably need next weekend…