Another Equipment Course and a brand new Master Scuba Diver

Another busy day at Orca with yet more practice at cleaning and repairing kit. This time we managed to see first hand the problems associated with trying to glue neoprene together. Still all worked out well in the end with Harvey and Jane doing well to take in all the information on offer. Once again I here myself recommending the Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving and realising this is not just because it is a PADI book but more importantly because it remains my first call for gathering a host of information.

Discussing some of the contents with Gary in the centre after the course had finished we devised a plan to offer something more for our customers. As a result two things to watch for in coming weeks will be a modular course covering diving physics and physiology which should prove especially interesting to anyone considering doing their Divemaster or Instructor qualifications and to those that just want to remind themselves of what they already know. Keep an eye on the website as details will be published soon.

In addition we both realised that we now have a number of qualified rescue divers who have not reviewed or thankful had call to practice their skills for quite some time. So I happily spent some time putting together a refresher programme that hopefully will go live in late September.

My highlight of the day was the visit of Sasha and her family to the centre which gave us a chance to present her with her well earned Master Scuba Diver certificate. We have had a good run of qualifying Master Scuba Divers this year and Sasha has the distinction of being our first Junior. I know that Sasha certainly won't be our last Junior to qualify this year as others are well on the way.

It is always a tremendous achievement to be first and Sasha has done it in style despite the fact that she has a positive aversion to the cold and much prefers warm water diving.