Abi's Deep Dive

A previous post on here details what I had to do to qualify, so this is just to tell you that I have finished! It may be the longest Divemaster ever, but I finally made it. I started with Ellie as my instructor, then Kayla took over when Ellie was overwhelmed at work, and then just as it felt like I was on the home straight I injured my knee. That was in April. I had surgery in August, and restarted my DM after redoing the swim test and a couple of other tasks. 

As staff we have to fit in our training around dives with the volunteers, who obviously come first, and my balance is still not great (it was bad enough before the injury!) which meant that the boat tasks; attaching to the buoy at the beginning and end of a dive trip, pulling dive gear onto the boat out of the water, and handing gear back down out of the boat when we were back at base were more of a challenge than normal. The rest of the team were brilliant and I did more of the tasks where I could remain seated, while they took more of the ones that involved moving around on a moving boat. 

The map. This was the hardest task for me!! I had to map a specific area of one of the dive sites we regularly visit. We always dive in pairs anyway so for this task one diver uses a compass to make sure that the direction is right, and the other counts fin kicks which should give you a measurement in meters for the area covered. I had a few dives with a couple of volunteers to start, and managed just to map the front of the reef (we took a tape measure to be sure of distances). It was then a while before I got another dive to map it, and I said how overwhelmed I felt by this task. My instructor went through everything with me again in loads of detail. She asked which bits I found difficult (all of it) and we discussed strategies. Kayla was my instructor and my buddy for this dive so she used the compass and I counted fin kicks. I seem to find it impossible to count as well as record points of interest and depths. I would see a cool fish, completely lose focus and count, and then have to work out how far I had actually gone. I had a grid drawn out on my slate, each square representing 10m, but I was drawing and was much more freestyle than accurate. At one point Kayla looked at my slate and looked so confused I knew I had gone wrong again. I was so overwhelmed I cried in frustration. Kayla signed to surface by which point I was ready to give up completely, I couldn’t even fully explain what I found so difficult. She talked to me, helped me come up with a plan and we redescended. After the dive I drew a map from my slate, I was so relieved it was finally done, then I handed it in and failed. It just wasn’t accurate, and so it was back to the dive slate. Kayla and I did another dive and I was much more focused on keeping 10m in the relevant box. I had asked Kayla to point out a few points of interest that I knew were there, and she was great, she kept my counting more accurate and suggested that we go slower so that if I got distracted she was marking the point I had counted up to. You do a U shaped pattern, we were going 60m West, 10 meters South, 60m East etc and need to record the relief of the reef, areas of substrate or sand, and points of interest so that people can see where they are from identifiable things like big corals (Acropora Palmata), fish cleaning stations, overhangs etc . We ended the dive with a swim around and I had the opportunity to ask Kayla to give me the names of a few corals I had noticed which was amazing. I rarely get the opportunity to dive with Kayla and pick her  brain as she is always so busy with teaching volunteers. I loved the chance to ask questions.

This time when I drew the map I was really picturing it. I knew that I had overestimated a couple of measurements so I had marked them on my slate and knew that it was much more accurate, although I was terrified of failing for a second time. I had dreams about mapping dive sites and getting lost. I passed!! My map is now pinned on my board behind my desk and I love diving at Jardines because I really do know it now. With this task out of the way I felt better about the others. I had defeated my demon!!

I had to finish the skill circuit, ,complete a Reactivate dive, a Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) dive and then I would be ready to be qualified! The skill circuit involves going over skills very slowly pointing out things that learners commonly forget, essentially underwater charades! I had given myself such a hard time with these skills before surgery, wanting to get them right first time. I was much kinder to myself on these dives, and quickly ticked them off. It was now coming up to the end of the year, we had no volunteers, but a cold front was coming so potentially boats would have to come out of the water. In the final two days that we could dive I completed all of the tasks I needed to. Some of it wasn’t pretty, but I learnt so much, and now feel like a much better diver. I am lucky that life on base means I will have opportunities to keep practicing and learning to further improve, and now that I am a PADI Divemaster I can also take a bit of pressure off Kayla and Juana when they have science and courses to teach, as I can now lead my own groups.

Love and bubbles,

Abi