friday night – and the night before the Instructor Examination started – and i decided i was not going to look over anything. i was not going to review any Physics, Physiology, RDP, Dive Skills, Environment or Equipment. if i didnt know it now, then i was never really going to get it.
we all turned up to the conference room at 9am on saturday morning.
tim, our Instructor Examiner, was most apt at making us feel comfortable right away and tried to dispell a lot of the nerves that we all had. we went through an orientation and he split us into two teams for the rest of the weekend. red and blue and gave us our assignments for the Academic, Confined Water and Open Water presentations.
there were 8 of us for the theory exams. once tim had marked all the exams, i was very very pleased (and extremely relieved!!). 100% across physics/physiology/rdp/skills and environment and one wrong in equipment and one wrong in general standards and procedures.
we had a good break for lunch and time to prepare our teaching presentations. mine was from open water – lesson one. i had packed all my dive gear that morning just in case so i had a fine selection of equipment to choose from. the presentation went really well – pete drummed the requirements into us right from the assistant instructor portion of the IDC so i felt ready and confident.
we finished up early on saturday so alex and i headed over to Backyard for some great beanbag style sunshine and South Gin and Tonics to prepare for our confined and open water sessions the next day.
all you need to successfully finish your homework - sunshine, slates and south gin
sunday dawned … well icky and yucky actually.
we had to be at the glenfield leisure centre by 7.45am! god thats early for a sunday.
we got all our gear inside and got changed and geared up. blue team – our team – was first in the water. i had a session from the Rescue diver course and i had to make sure that i wasnt missing something. it was self rescue – cramp release. i’m pretty pleased with the way it went although the examiner had to check with me about covering everything – apparently i am a little too fluid!!
we then ducked down to complete a small skills circuit – fin pivot (mechanical), free flow regulator, mask removal and replacement, alternate air source stationary and a CESA. am very very pleased to report that alex and i got all 5’s! so we headed into glenfield mall for breakfast.
hey alex - what did we get for our skills circuit??
we were all going so well that we met at lake pupuke at 12 (instead of 1).
we had our open water presentations and our rescue evaluations to go through. red team went up first so i had some extra time to practice my knot tying.
once they were in the water, we decided to jump in too as it was so darn hot!!!
i had two surface skills – snorkel/regulator exchange and then rescue 3 – approaching a panicked diver. rescue could have done with a little more information but they were both a pass. when we finished (and passed) our rescue assessments, our course Director, mr pete mesley, was there with his girls to meet us.
alex, petemes and i (oh and hannahmes too) at lake pupuke right after we got our results and our certificates
pete really did spend a lot of time setting us up to succeed and i will always be grateful for that. also – i will always be grateful to my friends who have put up with me not returning messages on time, never having time to show up to things and always being sunburnt, tired and grumpy!! but what an awesome result …..
success!!
