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There was a missing document for all of our instructor paperwork.

So everyone of us made time to get it done. The paperwork was faxed off.

Then two of us missed signing a document.

They came in and singed. That paperwork was signed.

Those two are now fully qualified instructors and the two of us whose paperwork was right on the first fax are still waiting.

WTF?! Are you serious?

This isn’t how I want to start my teaching career. You obviously looked at them all to find out that the second two people were missing signatures.

If you have the documents, process the damn thing.

Update: Processed… finally.

This weekend was a little scary, really long, and really tiring.

But we made it. I—along with 3 friends—stepped into my scuba instructor exam with trepidation.

Let me describe my experience:

• Finished a Theory exam (five parts dealing in Physics, Physiology, Dive Planning, Environment, and Equipment) in 25 minutes. We were given 1.5 hours. I was the first one done. Passed.
• Finished a Standards exam in an hour. We had 1.5. Passed.
• Scored 25 on my skill circuit. That’s full marks across 5 skills. Passed.
• Did my confined water presentation (this is where we demonstrate and then have students do the skills in a pool). I was expecting each student to have a problem, but the examiner didn’t give problems to everyone. Freaked me out a little. Passed.
• Prescriptive teaching lesson (where we teach a presentation based on a question from an exam or knowledge review). I actually took some time thinking about my presentation, which tripped me up. My group had to wait for my turn (they were already done). Sorry, team. Passed.
• Open water presentation (no demos. Just the student proving that they can do the skill and me reinforcing proper conduct). Again, not everyone was given a problem. Passed.
• Rescue assessment. Examiner said it was one of the best he had seen in a long time. I think that means I passed.

All in all, I did really well. Surprisingly better than I thought. And my teammates (Tanya, Marla, and Colten) did really well too (we were all pretty even in the running. No-one showed up any other …which was nice, since that wasn’t the point of this).

To celebrate, I woke up at 7:30 AM, this morning (stupid internal clock), and promptly forced myself back to sleep until 11 AM. Probably a mistake and a good waste of a day, but after working so hard to get there, I needed a break.

Today at 7:12 PM (PST), I entered the water at Whiskey Cove with Tanya. We followed the slope to a depth of 79 feet (24 metres), swam along for a while and then slowly made our way back to the shallows.

The water was perfect with only a hint of rippling on the surface.

When we emerged 32 minutes later, we pulled our fins off and made our way back to the van. Not a single word was said (though that might have been more to do with fatigue than not wanting to spoil the moment).

We had just completed out one hundredth dive. It was an important milestone. We couldn’t enter the instructor exam next week without it.

It was also cool to finish this milestone where and with whom I started. Back in January, I was at 41 dives and creeping along at a nudibranch’s pace (a nudibranch is an underwater slug. Learn to dive already friends!). Tanya was looking for a dive buddy and asked me (actually, I distinctly recall the message going something like “Dave, we’re diving sunday”. Being that it came from nowhere, I could only reply with “Okay”).

After Tanya and I went diving, the dives just sort of piled on. Which is why I call it the start. Almost 2 years to get to 40… 10 months to get to 100. Thank you again, Tanya!

I should end the story there, but after the dives we raced back to Langley to do a snorkel swim assessment in the pool and now my knees are on fire. I really need to learn not to push my limits, but I get the next 4 days to rest before the instructor exam, so it should be okay.

I just failed a practice test for my Open Water Scuba Instructor course.

I failed my one point. Half way through the exam, my instructor told us to make corrections to the exam. I did. Some of them were to switch one answer for another—answer ‘a’ becomes answer ‘b’ and vise versa.

Most of those I got wrong simply by not taking a second look at which bubble I should be filling in. A stupid mistake that I can accept and fix for the real tests.

The one that burns my marshmellows though, is a question that I technically got right, but they made changes to the selectable answers. My answer didn’t match any of the available “possibilities”.

So I selected the closest one.

And got it wrong.

Upon review, it was found that the reason I got it wrong was because I was using a different method.

I used the method the exam requested.

And got it wrong.

If I get something wrong because I just plain shit the bed, fine… I can accept that. But don’t you dare tell me I was wrong because I should have been using a calculator instead of doing the math with pencil and paper.

… especially when it explicitly said to use pencil and paper.

They say the best way to learn anything is to try and teach it. In teaching, you get thrown situations that you never would have thought of on your own.

I had such a situation tonight. I was to demonstrate and teach a couple scuba skills in the pool. The instructor was feeling ill (the flu) and was worried her ears wouldn’t hold up. The skills were “weightbelt remove and replace underwater” and “equipment remove and replace underwater”.

Notice the “underwater” part. That becomes important in a bit.

While everyone was setting up gear it was determined that we were short on weight. A few lead blocks were needed for a snorkeling class that was also going on (to hold down some holahoops for people to dive through…there would have been enough if not for that).

I, playing the role of nice guy and team player, surrendered the weight that I had specifically packed for personal use.

I should have known better.

On a normal pool dive, I’d have been fine. But with having to demonstrate skills, my bouyancy underwater was all over the place. I managed to demonstrate the skills adequately, but in my mind it was a little unprofessional.

Had the other instructors taken just five minutes to run down a mental list and ensure they had all they needed, it wouldn’t have happened.

In the future, my gear stays with me.

Speaking of new things…

For those that haven’t heard, I’ve been working in a dive shop for a while now — working towards my divemaster and then on to instructor.

We’ve recently put up a new site. Nothing fancy too fancy while being easy to maintain.

Most of the big bugs have been worked out, so feel free to visit

This is a late post. My internet connection seems to have joined a union and only works between the hours of 9 AM and 4:30 PM.

Anyway, on January 20, I was in Union Bay (just south of Comox on Vancouver Island) to do some diving.

It was a fantastic day, especially when over one hundred sea lions decided to come play with us.

Below is my first encounter with them.

I’ll admit to being a little worried in this video, but it turned out to be my best diving experience yet.

There are a bunch of images in the gallery as well.

A huge thanks goes out to Sarah. Without her (and her new underwater digital), we’d have none of the excellent video she managed to capture.

I did a couple night dives today.

During the second everyone turned off their lights and we got to see bioluminescent organisms—I think they were plankton… I think.

It felt like I was floating in space.

This was the penant number I saw while swimming around the HMCS Chaudière—a Canadian destroyer escort that spent roughly fifty years in active duty.

It saw the Second World War. It saw the first Gulf war. It must have seen much between those times too.

Now it rests in the Sechelt Inlet. It was sunk in 1992 to create an artificial reef for both animal life and divers.

What stories could it tell? Would it speak of acts of heroism?

Tyranny?

I would hope they would mainly fall under the first, but surveying this ancient husk of a war machine, I can’t help but wonder about all the possibilities.

“Fortune smiles on the Brave” – Chaudière’s Motto

And only as the boat was pulling into the dock, no less. Maybe he’s punishing me for not having a gallery up yet (I only have 6000 images taken over the last five years… sheesh!).

I completed my Advanced Open Water certification today. I also obtained my boat specialty. That combined with an awesome couple dives made for a great afternoon.

Seventy feet of visibility at seventy feet below the surface. Sascha took an underwater camera. I’ll see if I can scan a couple in when they’re developed (”Your sooooo analog”).

And now, a shower.