Dive Master Skills

At last this I have managed to secure some pool time exclusively for our group of trainee Dive Masters. We have been so busy with a range of courses and events that getting round to make sure that we could assess skill circuits had apparently taken something of back seat.

Now I am delighted to report that we are that much closer to signing off the guys and girls that have put so much effort into achieving the very highest standards.

Demonstration of skills is so much more than just being able to conduct the skill. A lot of emphasis is put on speed. There is no doubt that if a skill is performed to quickly it is impossible to properly see what is going on. Rushing at anything is likely to prove ineffective and you may think that you have got it but much is always lost in the rush.

The most important thing to me is not the speed but the clarity of emphasis on each of the key attributes that make up the skill. I took some time out to write a booklet for each of our trainee DM's identifying the key attributes along with guidance to allow scoring of top marks. To be absolutely fair the effort even for an Instructor is worth it because it does make you really think through what you are about when you commit it to writing.

In the pool today we had a range of scores though entirely based upon experience so far in the DM programme. I was delighted to see all the skills being well performed. Demonstration is of course a different matter. You need to be very sure of the skill, the attributes and then you must think in terms of giving a performance.

When practised sufficiently the performance becomes second nature. Then some of your personality can start to come through. In the past I worked with Colin and Graham as they went through the skill circuit and if I learnt something from both of them it was to practice, practice and practice. Both did this out of the water more than they did it in the water but it did mean they ended up being really good.

Anyway, I am now looking forward to diving in Porthkerris and Plymouth in what is predicted to be scorching weather. Love it!

Well done to Amanda, James, Gill and Graham...........good days fun.

Stoney Dash

Just in case you were stuck indoors or at work on Wednesday I would like to confirm that it was a perfect summers day and I had the good fortune of having arranged a day off for a mad dash to Stoney.

Mad for me because I had underestimated how much longer the journey would be going via Colchester. I understand it was mad for Amanda, James and Katie who managed to set alight to Amanda's car on the return journey. This was due to a cigarette being blown from an open window, where it was being smoked by James, under the front seats. The intrepid team have now learnt that Orange Squash can also be used as an extinguisher.

Up at Stoney the weather could simply not have been better and that meant it was ideal for both rescue and photography. Being midweek it also meant that Stoney was blissfully quiet. I don't manage to do midweek diving enough as it is often difficult to find a buddy willing to go. Having an excuse of a course to run works for me.

Katie benefited from one on one instruction through her rescue while still having plenty of people to work with in her team. It did put the pressure on her as she had no where to hide on any of the scenarios.

Everything went really well apart from the exuberant thespian efforts of Amanda during the panicked diver on the surface routine. It seemed that she was playing to the audience in the pub and at least one person ran to the dockside shouting instructions to "inflate your BCD". Quieter next time please.

Practising the missing diver searches in the pool paid massive dividends when it came to finding Kelly and James near the Blockhouse. Kelly had been off practising his photography and fortunately found the resident Pike along the back wall before Katie came along and executed a perfect lift.

I have to say despite relatively poor visibility this was an incredibly relaxing day topped of with a few beers overlooking the quarry and seeing Stoney at it's very best in the warm evening twilight.

Danny's back! (Rescue, Rescue, Rescue)

Danny missed the second day of his confined water rescue training three weeks ago as he wasn't feeling so good on the day. On Sunday he was back to join Gary and others finishing of his preparation for Open Water. It was good to see him and he was on good form.

We had plenty of pool time because Gary was also running a full Open Water course. Sadly I have no photos as the camera case suffered some damage on the Mulberry trip. The good news is that it is now fixed so it will be ready for Cornwall and Plymouth next week.

The other good newsis that we are re-booked for another trip to the Mulberries on 25th July. See the web site for details where you will also find that a new calender of events.

Back to Danny and Gary. The extra time meant that we could really concentrate on diver lifts. I will always recall that when I learnt to do this I was pretty daunted and would have avoided it if I could. In fact that remained the case even once I became a divemaster. My own experience was tainted with memories of failed lifts or being bounced up and down the water column as a victim at Stoney Cove. I can assure that bouncing up and down is not pleasant and my ears made sure that I knew all about it.

Now when I teach diver lifts I build up to it in stages. Having a 6m pool helps get it right as well. I always start by getting the diver to ascend simply using the BCD and without fining. Once we have this down I introduce weights and repeat the process. This gets the idea in the head and body as students start to feel what a good controlled lift actually is. The most important technique is to get plenty of air in the BCD to start the lift. Many people seem to feather their air but experience shows that you are better putting loads of air in to shift the inertia and then to feather letting the air out.

Once we have the lift going well and controlled and only once am I satisfied do we introduce a victim. This does also mean the additional considerations involving the victim can now be introduced and understood.

The result on Sunday was some truly brilliant lifts with both Danny and Gary getting it spot on.

That was definitely worth the beer afterwards.

Dive to live.

Packed pool, film crews and searching!

I don't get to be around on too many Tuesday evenings at present so it was great to get the chance to be at the pool this week. The good news for Orca is that we were packed and had a veritable diver soup with a variety of things going on. The centre was equally packed before we set off so much so that I had to slip outside in the early evening sunshine to go through knowledge reviews.

I have to admit I love the buzz of so many people so I would encourage everybody to keep coming.

On arrival at the pool we discovered that filming was still going on which meant we were delayed getting into the water. This simply meant that most of the male contingent were suddenly offering to become safety divers for the models involved in the shoot. Whilst we waited we were provided with free refreshments so most people didn't mind too much.

In the pool I worked on missing diver scenarios and ran through the full range of search patterns though admittedly I can only ever recall the line search actually being used on a rescue. Some people seem to have skimmed over searches in the confined water training and as I had others watching proceedings I had comments to this effect.

I don't think that you can skip on training for searches in fact I am convinced it causes more problems than the time it apparently saves. I suspect that pool visibility makes the exercise less than inspiring but for me an effective search is all about planning and excellent communication. Here we go again isn't that just like real life.

To get a good search you need to make sure that everybody knows what they are doing and that you have all agreed and understood how and what you will communicate when under the water. Now what did two tugs and a long pull mean?

Anyway we had fun and everybody learnt something..........next time we are doing it blindfold!

Hee hee.

New Divers

Can you remember the first time that you got under the water. It seems such a long time ago for me but I can still just about remember the sense of excitement tinged with a bit of concern. I can also recall thinking very quickly as I swam around the pool in a hotel in Kenya how great it felt and then how I wished I had learnt so much earlier.


Nowadays I constantly encourage my daughter to think about going all the way to Instructor so that when the time comes she can go on a gap year and teach her way in some fantastic location. If I am honest that is partly because I wish that I had done that, though I hare no regrets about what I did get up to in my early twenties.

On Friday I started another Open Water course with the H team, Hilary and Helena, Mum and daughter. Helena has already completed the Seal team with us and is making the step up. She is going to breeze through the skills and it is already obvious. The confidence and abilities gained through the Seal team are plain to see and there remains a part of me that almost thinks that every diver should work their way up through this process.

Mum on the other hand appeared to have the same apprehension and interest that I recall. She had watched the seal team progress from the sidelines and now had to face getting in and experiencing first hand what it is like to breathe underwater.

I am pleased to say the look of quiet satisfaction was fairly obvious as the first session grew to a close. Both Mum and daughter took to the skill tasks easily. I really love the fact that we have a Mum and daughter team going through the programme diving is such a good activity to do with your children and I suspect that Hilary and Helena will have many rewarding experiences to look forward to as a result of this course. I personally can't wait to hear about them in years to come.

Mulberry Harbours

I have just returned from the most fantastic day of diving down in Sussex. Visibility could not have been better and conditions were near perfect. For a change I am going to let the pictures do some of the talking. Though I will provide a little commentary. We had booked to dive with Wittering divers and the first bit of good news was that the boat didn't need to leave until midday. Still Dave decided to pick me and Billie up at 7am. This is way too early for Billie and that combined with the scintillating company of Graham and James on the back seat meant she slept all the way to the coast.

Once we had managed to gather all twelve divers together and get on board Big Blue II we were soon speeding over the gentle waves to the Mulberry Harbour. I can't recall the last time I had dived here without looking in my log. On the boat were people up for the first UK dive, people who had never been on a rib and people with vast experience. As I was with Billie I had elected to use my open circuit so it all felt strange for me too. Once on the site it quickly became apparent that the viz was phenomenal as you could see the sea bed from the surface.

This made for tremendous light and great colours.

I remember the last time I dived on the Mulberry's because there were so many Bib that you almost had to push past them. Today there were still a lot but it seemed the parents had all gone off for the day.

Billie and I managed a leisurely 50 minute dive circumnavigating the old harbour and as you will see there was lots going on including a close encounter with a Lobster tucked under the eastern end.

Close to the start of the dive we found and open Lobster pot and I was quite relieved to see it was already open as Billie had threatened that if she saw one that she would try and make me release any creature that happened to be trapped. All over the place were lots of small bib and the occasional wrasse. But, I still can't quite get over the number of nudibranchs around. Sadly I didn't choose the right lens to do them justice; next time.





On surfacing I was sorry to hear that there had been two foreshortened dives due to free flowing regulators and I am very sorry for those that missed out. Personally I was touched to be told thankyou for such a wonderful dive, to be honest you see whilst I may have organised it we were in the lap of the gods, and it appears he is smiling on me.





After a brief dash back to shore, a short break and change of tanks we got back in to do a drift on the fossil beds. Our skipper kindly showed us a sharks tooth that had been found in the area and encouraged all of us to go find more. We didn't.

This dive provided another really enjoyable experience even without the sharks teeth and indeed such good visibility. The shock for me as we gently drifted along for another 50 minute dive was the astonishing number of Lobsters. Billie seemed to have an eye for them and in all I counted in excess of twenty. I love Lobster and could easily have had a feast but today we took nothing but photographs and left nothing but bubbles.

Once back on dry land we quickly reloaded, kinda. Made sure that the tanks resembled bombs on top of Dave's Land Rover and set off via a brief visit to the local hostelry. I would like to thank all of those that joined us and made it such a good day. I would also like to apologise to those that had to rush off and therefore didn't get in the group shot.

We have already provisionally arranged some more one day stints down to the south coast and if this is anything to go by I would encourage you to come along.

Finally, on a personal note a big thankyou to Gary who sat in the centre today.......next time is yours.

Different lens and a new DM

I tried out a different lens yesterday, an 80-200mm and I knew in advance to be honest it would prove challenging to get results and it was just that. So that will be the last time on that little experiment. The only ones worth keeping were this one of Brony doing a shark impersonation and a couple of land based ones, where of course it works. But there you go, have to give these things a try. At least I know not to try it in the sea and that was the point of the experiment.

Suffice to say back in Bristol diving is still going well and yesterday saw me working with Ian who is a returning trainee Divemaster and Brony whose skills are amazingly good considering her long lay off from diving. She also has the art of laughing underwater down to a fine science! Ian was introduced to me at the pool fresh with a new mask having earlier discovered that long storage had rendered his old one useless.

Running through skills and gaining confidence was the task before us and not me playing with my camera. I have to say it, diving skills come back very quickly with a little practice and both Brony and Ian looked great. Ian has the task of turning some good quality skills in to demonstration standard and in essence that really will come down to some fine tuning, slowing down and to put it mildly showing off.

Short note this one but watch out for more on Vobster shortly.

Up early and still crazy

As a diver you often have to get up early to race off to some dive site to catch the tide and the best of the day. Even if you are on a livaboard you will often find that an early start is the order of the day so you get used to crawling out of your cabin bleary eyed to get in the water before the world arrives to make loads of noise.

The best dives I have ever had on the famous Thistlegorm have been early in the morning in just those circumstances and if I ever get the chance to go there again I hope it will be early in the morning.

Yesterday I had a really busy day as there is so much going on at work and then I had to meet some people after work. By the time I got back to my room it was too late to go for a run, Still the chance to have caught up with an old friend was rewarding enough to have justified breaking the training schedule.

Then I found this morning that I was wide awake early so I had this crazy idea that I would get the run in early too. I am just back from gently jogging over Clifton Downs and I am so glad that I did it. Just as in diving catching the world when it is fresh and quiet just ushering in the new day is the best time you can imagine.

I love sunsets but there is nothing to beat sunrises because they are just as beautiful but they represent the start and not the finish. Today I haven't had to get up early to go diving as that is much later, but I have decided to not be bleary eyed and just take a time out to look and enjoy all that is around. In the process is a little bit of fitness too and a suggestion; don't just wait until a dive trip forces you up early, get up and go take a look there is an extraordinary world out there.

Off diving............

Diary Planning

I have just spent some time organising some trips and courses for the coming weeks. Our philosophy at Orca is to get people out diving and when we run trips we always keep things as close to cost price as possible. This year we made the decision that Orca staff would pay their way fully on the trips so it is always important for us to get the numbers on the ones we run.

We have just added two UK trips to the listi in the centre, one to Swanage in Dorset and a return trip to Lundy.

I am really looking forward to both these trips as they are great locations and the diving is superb. I wrote a little about both sites previously in the blog and the photos of Lundy look almost tropical.

Rather than pier diving in Swanage we are looking to dive the Kyarra which must rank as one of the most interesting wrecks in the UK. In addition we are expecting to get on both the Betsy Anna and the Fleur de Lys so this will be a wreck orientated weekend and you can be sure of a lot of life on all the sites.

We have also committed to a weekend at Guildy doing a range of certifications on July 18th & 19th plus a dash up to Stoney Cove next Wednesday.

As if that wasn't enough there are now courses booked for Enriched Air, Equipment and Peak Performance.

Then to finish off I have just completed a presentation on tides and diving for use at a club meeting in the future. I have to say I think it looks good and it has plenty of graphics to help explain all that you need to know as a diver in the UK. Can't wait to share it.

........and to think I still managed all of that and went for a run and had an evening out. Just imagine what it will be like when I really get busy.

Still at least I get to go diving on Wednesday.

South Woodham Pool with a difference

Both Gary and myself are qualified IAHD Instructors which means that from time to time we get the privilege of working in the pool with handicapped divers. One such opportunity came on Saturday afternoon when we introduced eight people to our sport at South Woodham pool.

Getting in the water with handicapped people means having a team because there can be quite a heavy people demand. Joining us today were Katie, Amanda, Colin and Jamie-Lee all of whom were doing this for the first time and all of whom were absolutely brilliant.

We all had a great time and the feedback from the participants was superb so we are now looking to work with Chelmsford Borough and the NHS to make this a more regular event.

As a diver it is always good to share your sport with others I personally think that working with a group like the one on Saturday is extraordinarily rewarding because of the pleasure it brings to the participants and because the human spirit that flows through people that have to deal with hardship is inspirational.

Friday night in the deep

Normally our Friday night pool is held at Sweyne school but this Friday we switched to the deep pool in Basildon. It makes such a difference especially as we had a few people practising unresponsive diver lifts and this pool is ideal for that.

We also saw the very welcome return of Andy who has been out of action for far too long following sinus problems. It was really great to see Andy about as he adds a wealth of diving experience to the instructional team. We are all keeping fingers crossed that Andy's recovery will continue and he will become a regular feature down at the Tuesday night pool once again.

Last night I found myself starting yet another rescue course. I am delighted with this because as you may know I love teaching this course. I am intrigued to some extent as to why we seem to be having a run of Rescue courses at present. Must be something going on but whatever the reason I remain delighted so if there are others thinking about doing the course come on down.

I was impressed with the standards during last nights session even though Kate was clearly disappointed at not being able to grab hold of Gary while she was playing the panic diver. Don't worry revenge will come one day.

As always on session one I was reminded that people very rapidly get out of the habit of following the procedures taught in Open Water that are designed to keep things safe. Last night Gary was wearing a jacket with which I was unfamiliar and there can be no doubt that without a proper buddy check we could have been in danger on a proper dive. I was reminded by one of the trainee divemasters that so many people don't do checks or when they do it's a case of "air on?" let's go. I asked about her experience for the benefit of the students and was not suprised to hear that on trips she had not really seen buddy checks and in fact told me of people effectively doing some version of a check only once in the water. How mad is that?

One thing that you can be certain of is that if a buddy check is not being done there is no chance that a buoyancy check is being conducted. It continues to worry me because the essence of being a good rescue diver is preventing the need for a rescue in the first place.

Essex IDC

Later this summer we are hosting our first Instructor Development Course and consequently I have been speaking to our Course Director about arrangements and the specifics of the course. I am really looking forward to the whole thing and am also very proud that we have Steve Prior running things.

I thought it might be worth reflecting on my experience in case others are considering going down this root. My own course was run by Gary Mawston from Aquanorth in Newcastle and I have some wonderful memories of the intense week that we spent together.


Gary was an exceptionally good Course Director and like Steve is one of only 50 Platinum CD's in the world. I actually had Gary to run the course because at the time Steve was away in Manado so I am the only Instructor at Orca that did not have Steve on my IDC. I am glad now that this was the case because while I have worked subsequently with Steve both are very different so I have had the benefit of experiencing two very different styles. I have picked up a lot from both of them.


Just with any course the selection of your Instructor is key and if anybody ever asked I would recommend both Steve and Gary whole heartedly.

I got to know Gary particularly well because I picked him up and then had him as a house guest for the duration of the course. On the course with me were Neil and Lee and all three of us had made sure that we had done our reading and that our theory was up to speed. This meant reviewing and revising what we had done at Divemaster level.

These days we provide revision courses for those doing the IDC especially for Physics and Physiology. Steve does much the same with a Pre-IDC course.

I remember well at the start of the sitting down with some trepidation already nervous of the Instructor Exam that I needed to pass a week later. To be fair the focus for all of us was the Examination and in all honesty that is almost a shame because the week long course offers so much more than a means to pass the exam. Having subsequently assisted on other IDC's you quickly realise that you probably missed a lot because of where your focus was as you were the student.

The course itself includes three days covering Assistant Instructor material which is predominantly about the PADI teaching techniques for skills and theory development. This is immediately followed by the Open Water Scuba Instructor programme over four days which broadens into the wider PADI system. Completion of the programme qualifies you to attend the Instructors Examination which is run over two days at a dive site, mine was at Capenwray in Cumbria.

With both the AI and OWSI course the emphasis is on learning and development rather than evaluation. The concept is that this allows you to gain confidence and improve performance in a low-stress environment. In reality as a candidate you create plenty of stress for yourself as your perception is that it is all about the exam at the end. Now I can tell you that if you do the course whatever anybody says to you that's how you're likely to feel too, but trust me it really isn't all about the exam there is tons of brilliant material packed into the course. The examination at the end is truly a natural progression and personally I realised this on mine half way through when it dawned on me that I was really having fun, but that's another story for another blog perhaps.

On the IDC you spend the first few days concentrating on the instructional process by teaching one small aspect of material using a structured approach that can be objectively assessed for content. The method is one you will see all the very best presenters and educators using worldwide in essence and there can be no doubt that capturing the model gives you something that can be extended far beyond diving. In essence we explored the concept of presentation from the basics of the need for an introduction, a body and a summary. In presenter parlance you are taught to tell'em what you're going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them..........you'll see!

We had great fun practising throughout the course because not only did we need to get the structure right we had to make sure that in each section certain things were covered in order to get marks. I would emphasise again that what you get from this is a life skill not just something for Scuba. Once you do get the structure and know what you need to score marks it becomes very straight forward and Steve Prior makes this easy for his candidates you simply need to do what he tells you and when you do it is almost magically easy.

The course also took us to the pool and provided a structure for briefing and debriefing. I will always remember thinking that I was ready for the course because I had my skills just so, exactly as the dive centre told me to do them. I was almost gob smacked when Gary quickly asked me why I did my jacket off underwater a certain way to find out that skills do not have to be done in a regimented fashion. I very quickly learned a new method that was easier and far more comfortable to demonstrate too. It was from that point that I became so much more comfortable with the idea that there are different ways to achieve a skill and I have been exploring ever since.

During our time with Gary we learnt so much more than was expected whether it was about PADI and the philosophy of diver education or concepts for effective marketing in the dive industry. Having Gary stay was also a blast because he is something of a party animal.

During the course we also had the chance to get to Open Water and practice teaching skills in that environment as well as undertaking additional training to cover specialty instructor qualifications.

I will always remember my own IDC with great affection for the quality of instruction and the great company. I am also confident that ours will be better because we have much better classrooms and as an academy we positively support and encourage our students that show an interest in becoming Instructors and that can't be said to have been true when I did my course.

Still it must be fair to say becoming an Instructor must rank as one of the most rewarding things that I have ever done and I still love it several years later. Moreover I still want to assist in upcoming IDC's for one simple reason; I know I will learn even more.

Live to Dive, Dive to Live

Still in Bristol

I seem to be spending more and more time in Bristol than I have done for some time. One of the consequences is that I have started diving with a local centre to help fill my evenings and to make an opportunity to meet new people rather than sitting in my digs on my own or eating junk food.

I have also entered the Bristol half marathon after a bit of cajoling from Beks so I am now running as much as possible as the training starts. Should be good for diving fitness and another reason to skip on the easy option of chips for supper.

As the diving centre in Bristol is around 180 miles from Orca there is no real competition issue and at present I am finding the experience really valuable because I am getting to see first hand how other people operate. I hope in time that I will add some real value to what they are doing too. It is also giving the chance to see some dive sites in the West Country as there are several more local trips to get on including some mid week stuff. The coast is a bit nearer and places like Brixham are in easy reach and offer good beach diving as I have discovered.

The centre I have got involved with is Subaquaholics which is rather a mouthful after Orca. Early impressions are extremely good as both the owners and staff are really friendly and welcoming. I am not sure I could have met a better crowd, Spike and Lou should be extremely pleased with the impression that they give people.

It turns out one of the staff was a former colleague from my days as a copper in Bristol with whom I had played Rugby. He's now retired and has made me feel quite envious as he has actually just flown off to Malta to work as an Instructor over the summer months. Now of course that has given me the excuse to make plans to get back out to Malta for a spot of pleasure diving. I really do fancy the idea of a long weekend over there so I may well be looking for some dive buddies to join me in the near future.

Anyway let's get back to the point. There are some really great things about working with another centre in addition to making new friends. We all have our interpretations of certain things within diving including the skills and course delivery. I guess that while we are all obviously PADI we do all bring our own slant to play in the way in which things are done. For me this means a great opportunity to learn. We do adopt an Orca way in our training but there are other approaches and with most things there is ample room for interpretation without things being right or wrong.

This doesn't meant that I will rush to change some of the things that we do at Orca. In fact some of our core beliefs should never change and these include always seeking to add value. But whenever I see a different approach I like to think about not only why it is different but what is good about the difference. If I do see something that I think is a better approach then we can adopt it for ourselves.

One thing I do know is that change is inevitable and the only way to deal with it is to celebrate it and look at what's good about it. Not all change is good nor is every adaptation suitable or right for what we do down at Orca. I am always up for trying things out and seeing if they work. As an Instructor this is great in the safe environment of the pool so I am very up for trying new stuff when there is nothing to loose.

This may all seem a bit vague because I haven't given specifics of what I may well try and adopt as yet and I not sure that I should do so on the pages of this blog. I can say, I love the shark shaped torpedo used in the pool in Bristol and I may well investigate getting us something similar. Then again I still really like our underwater Frisbee.

Sometimes we get tempted to change things because the new thing is exactly that new! New doesn't always mean better and in fact much of what is tried known and tested is actually a much better option. When instructing it is not unusual to find that if you stray from what works you only get to figure this out when somebody else points out that you are doing something differently. There is a reason that the PADI teaching approach works and if you change the approach because you think you have something better often times it isn't - as a good instructor you should recognise that and go back to what is tried and tested. Our Course Director, Steve Prior often point out that the very best instructors just simply do what they were taught.

One of the other advantages of doing some instruction in Bristol is that I can now get work mates involved and I am really looking forward to teaching some of them in the coming weeks.

So far I have seen a Rescue and Open Water course in progress. Tonight I operated as DM for a brand new OWSI and it was great fun. I have to say the standard of demonstrations and general approach was very high for somebody so new to the Instructional arts. Very encouraging indeed and a great example of just doing what you are taught.

Keep an eye out for changes in what we do, you will know where they came from.

Living and Diving

In Bristol

There are times when I love working in Bristol but one thing is for sure it is tough being in the office when the weather outside is so inviting. It is a scorching day here in the West Country and it really does make me want to go off diving somewhere; anywhere.

Hopefully I will get my wish both on Wednesday and at the weekend and why not I say, when it looks so inviting. The gear is in the car and it is simply a case of finding a crew to team up with. I am rapidly discovering that there are a several possibilities in Bristol so life is looking good.

I also can't complain too much about sitting in the sunshine in the park at lunchtime watching the world go by with colleagues.

I had a chat with an old mate of mine named Ernie, not the milkman, before heading off to work and I was explaining to him about the Rescue course and what makes it so special. So I thought I would try and capture it before it slipped into the longer term memory and got lost. Of course responses on this subject will be welcomed because I obviously now look at this from the more recent perspective of being an Instructor. The reality is that on the way through to becoming an Instructor the Rescue course still stands out.

A number of people have made similar comments about their own rescue courses but I have noticed that quite a few people have commented upon what Orca delivers in comparison with others. Such comments range from; "we never had any of that" to things like; "I didn't know there was an exam?" and "I was never taught how to do a lift".

What I recall so well about my own Rescue course way back in the mists of time and in fact on the older format, was the sense of team and challenge that was involved. The group that I was with made a difference and to be fair I had an Instructor who at the time was on form and added some fun to the proceedings. In terms of challenge I will always remember searching for a lost diver who had inflated his dry suit so that he was stuck on the ceiling of a submerged building. To make things apparently more difficult he had removed both his inflators, to his shock I decided the only way to get him off the ceiling was to break his neck seal and he hadn't expected that one.

I believe that I have modelled a lot of my own approach on this experience because I felt it was instructed well. But I won't be repeating the last scenario anytime soon.

On all Orca courses our aim is always to add extra value in terms of both content and application. I often talk in of mastery as a key ingredient when learning skills and what I feel is vital is that not only do students have the ability to repeat a skill but that they can do this under stress and automatically revert to the key attributes of the skill that make it work.

As a personal preference I will try and encourage students to conduct the Open Water part of the course over two days even though the four scenarios involved can be covered quite comfortably in a day. This is because it is quite difficult to get the sense of team evolving in a single day. Where a team has already evolved this is not as imperative as the team dynamic will already be present.

I think another reason that I like the course is because it does pack in a lot in a very short space of time coupled with the fact that you are dealing with already qualified divers. The later fact means that whilst you can stimulate discussions in debriefs you do not have to tell people what they did right or wrong, these students do that for you. A point that I always try and make clear is that there is no right way to effect a rescue, though there may be considerations for improving and learning.

A good debrief of anything always starts with highlighting what has gone well and while I like to point out specific things it does make it easy if the students have successfully recovered a victim because straight away they have a positive. Nick reminded me of this over the weekend as he debriefed on one of the scenarios and he was right to do it.

So far then we have team work, challenge and a good instructor trying to add value to get students to mastery.

I also hold a personal belief that whenever you learn anything it should be fun. We all tend to learn better when what we are learning is of specific interest to us and we engage as many of our senses as possible as we learn. Engaging senses generally means that you are fully involved and that you are having fun. If you are ever asked to memorise a piece of prose one sure fire thing that will help is to add movements into the learning process and say things aloud. Memory specialists use picturing techniques so throughout a course I will try and find chances to do just the same. This past weekend we managed to get Nick and James singing M_I_C_K_E_Y M_O_U_S_E when undertaking the tired diver push, I know they will never now forget that technique. It is also why I have everyone talk aloud through the non-responsive diver on the surface drill.

I trust that doing some of these wacky things not only increases the involvement of all senses to help learning but it also increases the fun.

Adding to the list of teamwork, challenge, a good instructor trying to add value to get students to mastery we must therefore have fun mixed in. How could you not love that list.

Now all you have to do is make sure that you work with people you love being around and trust and you are away.

Of course it would be remiss of me to note that for Instructors and AI's alike the chance to play mischief is great fun too.

As you may expect I always consider how to make things even better and there is something from the weekend........ When you learn a new skills the process is to describe it, show it to the student and then get them to copy. For all the new skills we do just this and it works very well because the student gets to do the skill right first time which starts to set up a habit. What has occurred, is that we did not demonstrate a full rescue scenario and maybe if there is a next time I will do just that.

Just need to make sure I come back and read my own notes in the future.

Now don't forget to add comments if you have any folks.

Dive to live, live to dive and have fun.