On my way to become a Dive Master

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m hooked, ever since I arrived to Thailand (heck, well before that) I wanted to take a diving course and go see the fish up, close and personal. Last year I did so and I’ve had the most amazing experiences thanks to it.

I’m of the opinion that if something is worth doing, is worth doing right, so I decided to study at least up to Dive Master level.
Last week I took the emergency first response course; to learn CPR, shock management and all that stuff. Yesterday I started the Rescue Diver course, it really gives me a lot more confidence in being able to handle any problems I may have, specially regarding my buddy (AKA girlfriend). I really want to be well prepared to take care of her if there’s any accident.

So far so good, the courses have been easy, and I really feel comfortable diving. No problems with buoyancy control, swimming around in any direction or position, air management, navigation, etc, etc. My instructor agrees that I’m good material for DM so I’m all for it.

So, any DM SDMB members around? what should I be looking forward too?

2

I never made it to DM. Got my PADI Master Diver level and seriously thought about going for DM, then life got in the way. I haven’t had a tank on my back in 15 years.

3

Well, the pool training went well, except that I forgot the sunblock and after 3 hours I ended up imprinted with a red negative of the shorty wetsuit I was wearing.

Next week I’m off to open sea trials, so to speak. That will be more challenging; it’s quite a handful to rescue an unresponsive diver. First swim to the victim, asses the situation, held the head out of the water, administer rescue breathing, swim towards the boat or shore and remove the dive equipment from the victim and oneself… all at the same time and in the right order and timing. The fact that I’m not a very strong swimmer doesn’t help much neither.

Nevertheless I seem to have done well enough to be asked to actually be the poster child of the dive center. I was asked to film some videos of training to show the different skills necessary for a Dive Master and have them playing at the next Thailand dive expo in a couple months.

4

Congratulations on finding something so inspiring. Last time I dived (dove?) was in Thailand, at Koh Noi near Koh Phi Phi Le. Fun, but it’s not as interesting to me back here.

If you’re really going to do this, may I suggest that you work on your swimming as much as possible to become a stronger swimmer? Back when I was younger and stupider and diving I got myself into a couple of situations that I was able to extricate myself from because I was a strong swimmer. Somebody else may thank you for it someday.

Follow the dream.

Oh, and wear plenty of sunscreen.

5

It’s more like lack of practise, I haven’t had much chances of swimming regularly in the last couple years. Still, no excuses, I should find the time to swim at least once a week. Heck, I should go back to running again, I used to run 3 to 5 Km each morning a few years ago. Now at most I go downstairs to the gym and run 3Km once a month. It’s just that it bores me to death to run in a threadmil instead of early morning laps around a park as before.

6

Lots of nice parks to run in there. Do you live in Bangkok? Just run early and try to cough the exhaust fumes out before you choke.

7

Yes, there are some very nice parks to jog in. I used to go to Suan Luang on the weekends when I was living in the outer areas of the city; but since then I moved to a more centric place. Still there are a couple parks not too far, but it’s cumbersome to get there. A taxi gets stuck in traffic and I’m not enough of a sociopath to ride the packed subway back home after running in the heat for an hour or so. :smiley:

8

So, PADI, NAUI, SSI? I ask because I have a soft spot for PADI- I used to work for them. My brother is a PADI Instructor and he loved teaching- spent a year living on Maui teaching pretty girls in bikinis how to dive! :cool: Excellent use of a history degree, don’t you think?

Enjoy! I haven’t been diving in years and I miss it.

9

PADI; the dive center I go to also teaches SSI but I thought PADI would be a more thorough course.

10

Well, I agree, but of course I’m biased. :slight_smile:

11

This last Sunday and Monday I went to Pattaya for the open water part of the Rescue Diver course. The weather forecast was bad but it tourned up to be two (mostly) very nice, sunny days. We sailed to Koh Rin, and did a regular, fun dive around an islet that used to be a practice target for the Thai navy; I saw several shells in the bottom, not the gastropod variety but the ship sinking kind. The biggest was a rather massive 5" shell almost intact, only the fuze was missing; of course it’s a bad idea to play with those things since they may go off. That would really ruin a dive trip.

Anyway, after the first dive I did the missing diver excercise, since the visibility was exceptionally good that day, and the bottom was very flat where we dropped anchor, the instructur thought of making things a bit harder and replaced the missing diver with a belt weight. He lobbed one out the stern and in I went to do a search pattern to look for it. I started with a U pattern following the compass but no price, I went back to the boat, got my bearings and went in again trying an expanding square search pattern and again no luck. Way to hard to find such a small thing in a sandy bottom sprinkled with rocks, small coral outcrops and some wreck debris here and there. Actually I think that the weight may have sunk in the sandy bottom. In any case the instructor called it a pass since I did the correct search patterns and I would have certainly seen a diver in the area.

Next day we returned to the same islands and after lunch I did the rest of the exercises, panicked diver on the surface, panicked and unresponsive diver underwater. I was a bit rude shoving the regulator back into the “victim’s” mouth but all went well and I could get all the situations under control in 10 seconds flat.
Back on the surface things got more complicated, the weather started to get worse, the sea started swelling and the wind picked up to about 40km/h. Great timing for doing the unresponsive diver on the surface…
The first try didn’t go very well, but after the instructor showed me the correct way to hold the head of the victim out of the water it was much better, even though the sea was rougher then.

The rescue in the surface goes like this, the “victim” is face down in the water, unresponsive; I have to approach him, try to draw his attention and if there is no response turn the diver around, inflate the buoyancy control vest, same for me, remove the victim’s weight belt and then mine (repeat this order for the rest of the equipment), take out the regulator and then the mask. At that point I check for breathing for ten seconds (remember the waves breaking around and above us!). If the victim is not breathing I have to give two rescue breaths and begin towing him towards the boat, while keeping the victim’s head out of the water. Since the waves where getting high that meant that when a wave came I had to go under to have enough buoyancy to spare on the victim, all this while swimming backwards against the current stopping every 5 or 6 seconds to give a rescue breath and work on the BCD’s buckles and belts so it would be ready to take it off. It’s every bit as complicated as it sounds. :dubious:
I managed to get ourselves to the dive platform at the stern of the boat. Here it got really dicey since I had the waves crashing over me from the back, and then bouncing back from the stern and crashing over me again from the front. At this point I had already removed both the victim’s and my own BCD, so flotation was rather scarce and keeping both our heads above water was very difficult. Normally someone at the boat should have helped us, but the skipper, standing on the platform was happy to just stand there and don’t lend a hand. I got a bit banged against the platform ladder and finished the exercise having only swallowed a liter or so of sea water… :stuck_out_tongue:

Tough, but it was a pass so you may call me Ale, Rescue Diver now. :D.
However I want to practice more to get a good solid set of skills to depend on.

12

Seconded. Many divers seem to consider swimming to be an ancillary skill at best, especially divers whose experience is exclusively hopping off of and onto a boat (with aid from the deckies, of course). I’ve had divers who have lost their heads in a mid-ocean dive because they remove their fins and then let go of the ladder, and by diving in with just skin been able to pull them back to the drift line. I’ve also pulled a daisy chain of divers back to a float after the anchorman let go; students were amazed that I’m “that strong” a swimmer, even though I was not in great shape then.

I have a dive instructor rating (lapsed) from one of those organizations (I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which one) and became progressively disgusted with how prerequisites and skills were being diluted in order to widen the available customer base. I have no problem with teaching kids or moderately handicapped people to dive (I’ve been diving since I was 9), but I take issue with shortened dive schedules, promises of being able to certify divers in a weekend, and dependence on computers rather than learning dive tables and the fundamentals of dive planning, and even as the dive certifying organizations still give lip service to safety they relax the actual standards and push sales. I became a DM and then an instructor because I figured it would give me more opportunities to dive; after filing my fourth accident report in three months (required whether I was involved with the diver or not) I grew frustrated, plus other areas of my life were pulling me away from being able to dive regularly.

It warms my heart that you take the skills involved in being a mature, capable divemaster seriously, especially rescue skills. The other skills necessary include being able to see all directions at once, hanging out invisibly above the one diver in every class who is always just about ready to bolt to the surface; being able to fly down for the other student who fearlessly descends without waiting for the instructor or his buddy (it’s always a guy); untangling the float line that the instructor failed to coil and stow properly; and playing protective older brother to the single unattached female in the class who everybody else wants to ‘help’ and buddy up with even if they have no clue as to what they are doing. You’ll also need to learn how to inspect, repair, and improvise with the student’s equipment, which will be of invaluable use to an instructor.

You’ll pick much of this up by experience, and it’ll help if you are working with a good instructor who gives you unvarnished but constructive critical feedback. Getting a good basic grounding in safety, equipment maintenance, and dive physiology is imperative, not only to being able to function as a DM but to answering student questions as an informed authority. Don’t ever guess at an answer, and don’t just repeat what someone else told you along the way; have a definite answer from a qualified reference. And don’t let an instructor or dive store owner co-opt you into hawking equipment; offer your genuine opinion on what equipment is valuable to diver of a certain level and what is not. (Whenever I see a diver with a big-ass knife strapped to his leg or a Spare Air minicylinder I just want to pull it off and throw it in the drink.) Also, consider training with another organization as well so you understand the differences between organizations and what they recommend.

Good luck to you, and keep on learning, even after you are certified as a DM or beyond.

Stranger

13

Thansk Stranger, your comments are very appreciated and I agree with pretty much everything you said.
I’m definitely going to start swimming more regularly, while I can handle myself well in the water I’m not quite strong enough, or have a good enough technique, to pull people around fast or for long.
On the other hand, in the case of the open water practice I was going against strong current with long, free diving style fins. Very efficient for diving around but not particularly powerful.
Nevertheless I’d like to practice more to find what kind of swimming gives best results when towing someone, like fluttering or frog style kicking. The first seems to give the most power but I keep hitting the victim’s tank or legs, specially when bobbing up and down in the waves, the later is better in that aspect, but it’s not so strong. I want to find out how they even out all factors considered.

I agree with you about the importance of having a good situational awareness in the water and outside when preparing for a dive. Always do a predive check for me and my buddy (my GF), also, while diving I check my buddy location every minute or two (if we are not actually going hand in hand) and try to keep an eye on everyone else in the group, for example by noticing if anyone is lagging behind or swimming ahead, and if possible I move myself between that person and the main group to maintain visibility of both and so the loner can find the way back to the herd.
I also make sure I’m not trailing any gear (gauges, octopus or whatever) that may damage the corals in the reefs as well as being very cautious about smashing things with my fins. So far, AFAIK, I haven’t broken anything, but during a night dive I cringed when I saw the guy swimming ahead of me break off a half meter long staghorn coral branch with a fin sweep. :mad:

On my last trip I was talking with a french guy who was doing his first Open Water certification dive. He mentioned that diving was a dangerous activity and I rebutted that it’s so. It’s safe as long as you know what you are doing and you only do what you know you can do. It isn’t any more dangerous than, for example, driving. When diving your are one breath away from drowning, and while driving you are one breath away from hamburger.
The only real difference is how fast you can get help, out in the ocean it may take a long time for help to arrive, so it’s worth taking a conscious approach to safety.

14

Just remember, when diving starts to bore you or becomes more like drudgery or work (and it will eventually), stop (sooner rather than later). Move on to something else.

15

I’m tempted to get my husband diving instructions for his birthday, however given that we’re only on vacation once, possibly twice, a year, I’m wondering if it would be worth it. Is it one of those things that you should do often in order to keep it fresh in your mind?

I, personally, have no interest in diving because I’m such a weak swimmer, but I think he’d really enjoy it.

16

Get Search and REscue Certification as well, and Rescue Diver. I assume you’re already good buddies with a particular shop in your area, so learn how to repair equipment.
Other good suggestions: Instructor Certification and then Dive Master Instructor Certification. And try to go both NAUI and PADI, as they tend to mix it up a bit.

Good luck, and safe diving. Can’t wait for you to find out why NJ divers never need the underwater navigation briefing.

17

What’s your opinion on these guys who dive to incredible depths? Like 400-800 feet? Is it worth the risk and danger?

18

Stranger, I got my Advanced Open Water-equivalent from the other organisation, and I’m even more disgusted. Serious, serious lack of tuition, especially in the safety and procedural departments. At the time I was pleased to have gotten the qualification so easily, but now I realise I’m going to have to retrain, which will cost me more.

19

Awesome! My hubby is the equivalent of a Dive Master, but he’s certified through some other organization. He’s a firefighter, but is on the Water Rescue team, so they get certified through some other governing body. He LOVES it.

I did recreational dives through the years, but got my Open Water this past fall. Once it warms up I plan on working my way through the levels to Dive Master (part of our long term plan of selling it all, buying a catamaran, and chartering and diving). I agree that it is one of the coolest sports in the world, I love it! The SO dove the Blue Hole last fall and had a wonderful time!

I’m looking forward to my night and deep dives this year, and I want to get into underwater photography.

20

It depends on how you do it. The divers who do the down-and-up oxy dives are playing Russian roulette with their lives. Those who get proper training in technical depth diving and trimix breathing gas selection, and are disciplined enough to follow the training are taking some increased risk but as long as they follow appropriate procedures and carry necessary redundancy the mortality rate is less than other high risk endeavors like technical climbing. This requires significant decompression staging and all of the expense that this entails, however. Overhead environment (and particularly cave) diving is probably more inherently dangerous than depth diving even if procedures are followed. By the way, the floor for tech-rec diving is about 330-400 ft. Below that you get into highly technical diving that is beyond recreational diving in terms of both training and cost.

As far as being “worth it.” I guess that depends on what you are going for; most of what there is to see and photograph in terms of flora and fauna in the ocean can be found above 60 feet; the appeal of depth diving is largely the technical challenge and bragging rights.

Stranger