About 20 minutes into the dive, the candidates each split off with an examiner where they had to give an assessment of a lesson at Open Water Instructor level. I had to assess a lesson on mask clearing, and the examiner made the obvious error of not breaking it down into small enough steps. So I corrected it underwater, and then we went back to the 3x3 grid lesson. The viz had got so poor that the touch signals I had taught on dive one came in useful!
We then got some bad news about the‘ seasick’ candidate. In the morning call with the examiner team, they chatted about the symptoms and decided that it would be a good idea to go to the DDRC to get checked out. When they arrived, DDRC quickly diagnosed a vestibular bend and recompression was needed. After a few minutes on oxygen at pressure, the symptoms were relieved, so this confirmed that it was undoubtedly DCI. The course of treatment carried on over the next day with more recompression, and the diver made a full recovery. They had been diving 28 % nitrox as air, and had nothing unusual in the dive profile. It goes to show the importance of getting any new symptoms post-dive checked out.
The pressure eases
The next morning, we had the Branch Interview where you get given zero notice of what the branch wants to talk to you about, and are grilled on various subjects, in my case the new Sport 80 system and the Scottish equivalent of DBS checks. Then we had a no-notice‘ Bob’ s been taken ill – can you take
Chartwork in progress
Automated external defibrillator( AED) lesson
The glamour of a 3x3 grid
The Rescue Workshop
The passage plan
over his lesson?’ exercise, where we had to take over the teaching of an AED session.
Finally, we had to spend an hour planning a Rescue Workshop, with stations covering different scenarios with the focus of training non-diving emergency services. We ran it on the nearby beach next to the slipway, to the entertainment of passing dog walkers. At this point, the weekend was over and there was a sense of relief as finally the barrage of questions and pressure was over.
A nervous wait, and three weeks after we left Mountbatten, the results were in.
The acid test at this point was“ if I fail, would I do it again?” It’ s a real test of your diving, teaching and coaching abilities. I have always said that becoming an instructor massively improves your diving skills, becoming an instructor trainer massively improves your instructing skills and now being a National Instructor, this should hopefully massively improve my instructor coaching skills. So yes, I would.
The best thing about the whole experience? Undoubtedly the group of five candidates. The worst? Becoming a group of four at the end of day one. �
Enjoying Cawsand Bay
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