Well Its been about a week or so since I have signed up for the Divemaster course with Shorncliffe dive centre in the snow swept South East of England.

First off this is the first step on the professional scuba courses and professionalism  is of paramount, so after paying my course fees!  it was a new drysuit neck seal,  new set of  regs, crew pack  so not an inconsiderable sum, but necessary to start on my journey.

Week one:  Friday the fifth, all day from 10.30am in the classroom with Chris my instructor and fellow Divemaster trainee Paul we went through every knowledge review that we had home studied the previous week into great detail, we were then thrown in at the deep end and asked to prepare a dive site map and present a dive briefing to four other instructors, a quick visit to the toilet and ten to 15 minutes later, calm had been restored and my legs had stopped shaking, but I had a sense of achievement and the de-brief was nothing but constructive and informative,

4:30pm  Student would be arriving soon for a pool session  so out of the classroom  and get everything prepared for the van to take the equipment to the pool  Phew !

Paul and I were briefed on what we would be doing and it was a skill circuit  of  every skill you have ever done and more  from Giant stride entry to controlled emergency swimming ascent, all done to demonstration quality and all marked on a scale of 1-5 with the onus put on improving all the time . One hour 16 minutes later were out of the water both my calves had cramped and were refusing to loosen , but no let up yet  de kit, put everything back onto the van  back to dive shop unload  and debrief .  I got home about 9:45pm exhausted   but let me tell you fully fulfilled in what we had all achieved in a long day.

So in summary  It was everything and more  I had hoped for  and I am looking forward to tomorrow 11/02/10  another long day  in the classroom this time Physics, Physiology and Equipment, Happy days,  next instalment soon.

Nick

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