Category Archives: OW

OW Completion, 7/8 September 2013

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This was my first outing as a full DM, I am now officially a professional diver! To be honest it was not especially different from the later stages of the training, apart from the added responsibility, so that’s proof that the internship works. Instructors AB and RG, 2 DMTs CD and JD, 4 OW students and myself spent 2 days at Wraysbury doing the 4 dives† of the OW completion. Depending on how you count DMTs we had more staff than students! This was a quiet weekend at the dive centre, only this course, an OW referral with 2 students and an EFR course also with two students, back at LSD. I drove the van on the Saturday. The weather oscillated between bright sunshine and black clouds pouring with rain, but the water was 21℃, so no need for hood or gloves, and all the students could wear wetsuits.

I wore my GUE equipment configuration and took the opportunity to practice buoyancy & trim while watching the students and others kneel on the platforms. Vis was 1-2 metres, and I can report that my new Light Monkey 26W primary light cuts through the murk like a lightsaber. RG described the effect as “mesmerising” 🙂 I’ll get one for B as soon as we figure out how to make it work with ACB, ’til then she can use my 9W LM, which is still an excellent piece of kit.

† PADI teaches a buoyancy skill on dive 4, which is usually done starting from a kneeling position and goes to hovering in a “buddha” position, but I am sure that it could be taught from the “fin pivot” position with knees bent, and hover horizontally, there’s nothing in the standards that says otherwise. Hmm…

DSD/OW Referral, 22/23 June 2013

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This weekend was very busy at LSD, on the Saturday I was in the pool from 9-11am doing a DSD with instructor MM and 5 students, then from about 12-2pm with instructor ES and 5 students for Confined Water dives, 1-3, then from 4-7pm with instructor RR and his 5 students to do CW 1-2! In between all this, I managed to complete a couple of things for DMT, so I certainly got what I came for out of the weekend, and I think all the students did too, many eager to sign up for classes and trips. Sunday was a little quieter, I could have done an Express Referral (CW 1-5 back-to-back) with MM and 2 students, but instead opted to stay with ES’ OW class. The most interesting thing of the weekend was working with one student who had only one arm; he was a strong swimmer, managed all the skills and even impressed me with his underwater kit remove-and-replace, it was much better than mine was at that stage! I wish him the best of luck, some of his techniques may be difficult to apply in gloves/boots or on the deck of a diveboat but I’m confident he’ll figure out techniques that work for him, and he had his buddy with him on the course too. Diving is for everyone, it’s the PADI way 🙂

Specific advice for the skills circuit: do it veeeryy schloowly, like they brew the Grolsch. Watch you don’t speed up to normal halfway through the skill too. Bad advice for diving in general, but for “showing off” it helps to be overweighted for stability (the skills are demonstrated as they would be in a class, so kneeling).

AOW, 25/26 May 2013

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Another extremely busy weekend, with instructor ES, DM GL, myself and 4 AOW students, 3 of whom were also doing the Drysuit Spec, and 1 student doing an OW Completion. We were at Wraysbury one day for Buoyancy, Drysuit and Navigation, and Vobster the next, for Deep and Wreck adventure dives, and the optional second drysuit dive to complete the certification, 6 dives in total of which I did 5. Not much to say about this one, it all went like clockwork, the sun was shining and all the students had their acts generally together, their own transport and most of their own equipment, so the logistics were very easy. It was strange how empty the van looked compared to how it usually is! We stopped off for icecream on the way back from Vobster and were still in the pub an hour before the team who had been teaching an OW Referral!

We did the deep dive on the Jacquin II in the middle of the quarry, and the wreck dive on the aircraft again. Even in good vis, it was very apparent how useful powerful lights are for signalling. On the deep dive I used 80bar from a 12L tank in 22mins at an average depth of 12.2metres, giving a SAC of 19.6L/min. I am reasonably confident now in using 20L/min as the basis for gas calculations. It will be even more conservative in warm water gear. No kit changes this week, as while it was warm on the surface, I still expected it to be cold below the thermocline. The OW student was in a 4mm steamer with a 4mm shortie over the top, and did feel the cold at even 10m depth. On the DMT sign-offs front, I completed the 800m swim scoring a 4, and completed the surveying for my mapping project, which I will submit in a few days. Fellow DMT SB and I keep trying to get a few hours in the pool at LSD to practice our skills circuit, which I plan to video on my little Canon S95 with an UW housing for feedback, but slots are few and far between, and we both have busy lives too! So we shall have to see.

OW Completion, 18/19 May 2013

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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?!

OW Referral, 4/5 May 2013

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This weekend I DMT’d another OW Referral, with instructors TB and BM, fellow DMT OB, and 9 students. TB and I took 4 of them, alternating the groups between the pool and the classroom. It all went smoothly tho’ inevitably there is some waiting around when sharing facilities like that. One thing I am noticing is that there is a lot packed into the videos at OW level that isn’t introduced until much later in the PADI system, such as CBLs and SMBs. Interesting.

One student didn’t complete this time, tho’ a careful reading of the syllabus reveals that actually, the two things she couldn’t manage (the 200m swim and the 10min float) don’t have to be done during the Referral, just prior to finishing the Completion, so she was signed off for everything else, which she had no problems with. I can’t remember if she planned to complete with us, or on her upcoming trip. And the student who hadn’t completed the last OW Referral I assisted on returned on Sunday, and did Dive 3 successfully this time, and went through the exam. Good for him! He can go onto PADI Scuba Diver now, with two open water dives, which he could do in one day. The “instructors creed” in the PADI instructors manual may be a bit cheesy, but it’s completely true. I am not privy to the commercials, but as far as I know, since we were running the course anyway, he was simply able to join in rather than paying for a new course. I don’t sense that there is any pressure to rubberstamp students at LSD; we work with them until they are able to meet the performance standards. That puts paid to quite a bit of criticism of “the PADI way” that I have seen online.

Speaking of sign-offs, I am collecting the required signatures gradually; with any luck by the end of the month I will be about halfway to completing the DM course. Neither particularly quickly nor particularly slowly as these things go. From next month I plan to focus more intently on filling in the gaps, choosing what I intern on with that in mind, as up ’til now I have just been doing a bit of everything to build general experience. I’d also like to get some time with my Lead Instructor LC to do/get signed off on specific skills.

OW Referral, 20/21 April 2013

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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…

OW Completion, 6/7 April 2013

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During the week I had hastily “repaired” my drysuit’s right wrist seal by slathering on the Aquaseal, in the process discovering, where it seeped through, that the leak wasn’t where I thought it was at all! Or rather, that the seal in general was in quite bad shape. There were lots of cuts at funny angles through the neoprene.  As I have only a dozen or so dives in this suit, I can only assume that it was actually damaged by people with long nails or sharp jewelry trying it on in the shop, and had deteriorated in use. Next time, if I don’t go custom, I’ll buy one shrink-wrapped from the Internet – and feel no guilt whatsoever about going back to that shop and trying on drysuits there first. I hope tho’ that needing to buy a new one is years in the future. My repair seemed to do the job when I tested in the bath, so I have added a tube of Aquaseal to my kit. And I got a 5mm hood too.

However all this turned out to be unnecessary as I found myself on surface support all weekend, for an OW Completion at Wraysbury, two groups of three students, my group having OWSI KT, DM GL in the water as safety diver, and myself. Keen not to repeat the lead shortage of last week, we checked out everything apart from the kitchen sink from the stores, then found ourselves assigned parking for the van as far as it is possible to get from the water at Wraysbury! The whole weekend was pretty uneventful, involving making sure all the logistics ran smoothly, which I think I have a handle on now. I would have liked to have gotten at least one dive in, but I fully understand that this is “work”, and it’s still valuable experience, and better to get it out of the way and ticked off while it’s cold, and we’re at a murky pond rather that somewhere that’s a better dive anyway! I took advantage of the situation by dropping the drysuit at Mike’s for a proper wrist seal replacement and a fly zip fitting, which Christian there assures me can be ready before my next foray into cold water, currently scheduled for the end of the month. Eventually I will want a p-valve too, I expect. Later in the pub, I got some good advice from Lead Instructor AD, on needing to actively manage my own rate of progress through the DMT programme. It was good to meet some other DMTs too.

OW Referral 9/10 March 2013

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My first experience assisting with a course as a DMT, KM the OWSI, 5 students at LSD. Specific feedback/lessons learned from the weekend:

  • Focus on the other students. The point of having a DM(T) in the class is that the instructor is free to work 1:1 with students, knowing that the rest of the class is supervised and safe, and for another pair of eyes to be checking their air. It is natural I think to pay attention to the same thing the instructor is, but this is the “student mindset” that I should be beyond by now.
  • Don’t teach. If a student is struggling with a particular skill or a piece of kit, it is again natural to try to demonstrate it. But that is the instructor’s job, not least because they have far more experience correcting common problems, and they need to know firsthand how each student is progressing.
  • The paperwork is important. The various forms are legal documents, make sure they are filled in legibly (a real problem for me!) and accurately.

It was fascinating too to see how much I’d forgotten (or that just didn’t sink in, with so much new stuff to learn) from my own OW in 2008, e.g. SORTED, STELLA procedures. That is I think a large part of being a good diver: having the basic stuff as taught on the OW course absolutely perfected, before worrying about anything fancy.

All in all, a good start to the internship part of the DM course I think.