The water at Wraysbury this weekend was a balmy 11-13°C, at the surface a full 10°C warmer than my first dives there this year! The next dive I will try in just merino baselayer rather than the PBB, of which I only wore the farmer john and in which I was rather warm. This might mean dropping a little more weight. No kit changes this week.

My new skill this time was driving the van, which apparently doesn’t get anything signed off for DM, but it should 🙂 This weekend it was instructor KT who I have worked with several times before, fellow DMT JP, 3 students and myself. The logistics were super-smooth and both days we were finished around lunchtime, then back to the dive centre for debriefs and paperwork. All students passed, but one had brought her boyfriend, an already qualified diver, with her. I did have to ask him not to keep helping her; this is a class after all. And everyone makes mistakes – if he inadvertently makes her a “dependent diver” at this early stage, then it’s his buddy check that’s going to be skipped, with potential consequences if he say forgets to turn his air on…

As of right now, the things I have outstanding are:

• 400m and 800m swims
• Skills circuit
• Search-and-recovery and mapping project
• All the Divemaster Conducted Programmes

From next month, I will be concentrating on filling in these gaps.

Oh, and one bizarre thing I spotted this weekend, on several divers presumably from the same club or school, it’s bad enough strapping a knife to the outside of your leg, being an entanglement hazard and hard to reach if you need it, but then attaching it to its sheath with a lanyard – what are these people thinking?!