I always enjoy the Rescue courses. With OW and even AOW, you have to watch the students like a hawk and help them with basic skills, but by Rescue time everyone a) has a bit of experience and b) it’s a self-selecting group of people who have the attitude of wanting to improve and a willingness to take responsibility for their team. So you can relax and have a bit more fun, even tho’ the course is very intense, and there is plenty of opportunity for hamming it up in the rescue scenarios. We were a large group, instructor TB and DM GL, both of whom I have worked with before several times, new DM HD, my frequent DMT-buddy SB and 7 students. Also at Wraysbury that weekend from LSD were an OW Completion, a total of 25 people (meaning £450 in entrance fees alone, plus fills, food & drink etc, probably easily over a grand in total).

The first day we spent working on the skills, such as search patterns, CBLs, the O₂ kit, rescue management and the second we did ever more elaborate and far-fetched scenarios, making use of all of us LSD people and a few random people that we knew, as victims, interfering members of the public, etc. There are a few photos on LSD’s Facebook page. The students handled it with aplomb, they quickly gelled as a team, they were easily one of the best groups I have worked with over the last few months. When we returned to the dive centre the OW Referrals were still running (2 × 1 instructor + 6 students, no assistants, alternating between the pool and the classroom) so I jumped on the panel and refilled some tanks for them, only to 150 bar but that’s all there was in the banks.

Still remaining on my DM:

• Divemaster Conducted Programmes:
  • Scuba Review

The weekend was a bit of a disaster in terms of lost kit, with 4 masks being lost to the mud at the bottom of the lake. SB found one and rightly earned her S&R module signed off!