... and I really, really mean it this time! ;-)
Two weekends back, I went up to Tobermory, Ontario to do the Internship portion of my Divemaster program. It was a long weekend up here, so I went up early on the Friday in order to get a dive or two in beforehand. There are two dives in Tobermory that are somewhat-famed for the number of divers that do not return to the surface; Forest City and Arabia. *cue the ominous music!*
We loaded up the boat, and off we went; an afternoon charter where the most 'novice' diver had his Rescue certification, and the most senior was a Master Instructor (many times over). To make a long story short, the weather didn't co-operate with the dive on the Arabia; current and a 6 foot chop make for a dicey re-entry onto the dive boat, especially when it was only equipped with a hydraulic lift for getting back on the boat, not a ladder. And so we did two dives over at the Forest City, sheltered in the lee of Bear's Rump Island.
I'm buddied up with "G" and "P", two of my instructors (a divemaster-candidate is, I'm told, properly referred to as "instructor's biatch"), who obviously regard this as a rite-of-passage.
We went deep; it's an advanced dive, and cold too; my computer was beeping at me to pee in the water, on the off chance that the temp would reach up to something higher than 43F. Smart computer. I'm not saying how deep we went; however we didn't go into deco, so it's all good. ;-)
The second dive on Forest City was also uneventful, however during the surface interval, there was a cute little instructress by the name of L.P. who contributed to the weekend's entertainment. Now, her last name doesn't actually start with a P; it describes what she smelled like back on the boat after she had peed in her wetsuit during the first dive. 8-\ With her wetsuit so tight, the pee had nowhere to go, so when she peeled out of her suit back on the boat... we all went, "Eeeewwwww!?!??!" During the surface interval, she was banished to the upper deck, and ruthlessly ribbed the whole weekend.
This brings us to Saturday and Sunday, the actual divemaster internship portion of the weekend.
Saturday, I was with the Open Water divers; that is, scuba divers that had passed their pool work, and academics but not yet done their four certification dives. Sunday, I was with the Advanced Open Water divers; that is, divers whom were already certified as Open Water divers, but wanted to do more advanced training to allow them greater range of diving opportunities.
Saturday dawned clear but cool, and for the first dive, I had shore duty; while the students lounged about, eating breakfast and what nought, I was down at the shore-divesite, ensuring that there were enough parking spots and reserving space on the platform for our group to get geared-up. See the pattern here? A DMIT (divemaster in training) is nothing but an Instructor's Biatch. ;-) However, I only had to freeze for a little bit before the group showed up.
Shore duty consisted of helping people get geared up, collecting log information, and generally being available to help out. Ideally, I would also be suited up in a wetsuit, with Mask, Fins and Snorkel ready to go, in case we needed to do any emergency work. First dive, no problems, though the group beside us was probably not adhering to PADI standards; one of our instructors was going to do something about that discretely.
After dive 1 had ended, I had to rush to the diveshop to get some tanks filled, and then give a student a lift out to the next divesite, Dave's Bay. Nothing much in Dave's Bay... some rocks. A fish or two whom were obviously lost, and a 'young-sand' beach, ie, painfully sized rocks. Dive two, I was in the water, again no major issues, though a couple were having problems with paying attention to the instructor and being properly weighted (if you don't have enough lead on you, or lose your weight belt at depth, basically you become a cork and rocket to the surface, embolizing in the process). This is what you get when you wrap yourself in 1/2 inch of neoprene rubber!
The next dive was a night dive... I'm buddied up with Instructor P, the hmmm... dominant instructor here this weekend (I think it's a pre-requisite to be an Instructor, you must also be a type-A). We're shepherding two buddy pairs from the advanced course, one of which is having no issues, and one of which is obviously in over their heads, pardon the pun.
That's not a big deal really; that's what you do as a DM or Instructor; get people over the hump and comfortable at their new skill level. Water viz is maybe about 20 ft, though the glow from the lights of the instructor and the students ahead is visible for a good 60. However, R & S, the couple that I'm babysitting start Having Issues. She doesn't like to scubadive without holding his hand, and he's got buoyancy issues, so he's dragging her up and down like a yo yo. Later on I found out that without her glasses, she can't see 5 feet in front of her face. Oy friggen vey. So, by the time I get them settled down and comfortable at depth, the light of the instructor and the other two AOW students have disappeared into the murk. Great.
I then spend the next ten minutes trying to find 'em; I'm pretty sure I was seeing a glow towards the end, but that's when the buoyancy issues of R&S show up again, and we end up on the surface for the last time. Frick. And now, R doesn't have enough lead to get down, as he's burned through his tank of air pretty quickly, and probably started about 5 lbs underweight. The air in your full scuba tank is about 5 lbs... so there is no way I'm getting him neutrally buoyant again. :-\ Surface swim back into the shore, reassuring them all the way.
We're back on killer beach (friggen rocks the size of small ponies), trying to gear down in the dark, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and having tonnes of fish flies trying to swim up your nose. Joy.
Back to the motel; I need a beer, a smoke, and a rubdown by a redhead in a bikini. Two out of three is damn near good enough. Sleep of the just.
The next day dawns warmer, sunny and beautiful; things should be better today as I'm diving with the Advanced Open Water group. These guys have training, right? These guys have their OW certs down and probably have done some diving right? They shouldn't have any problem with skills, right? *sob* It doesn't take long at all after breakfast, for R&S (they of the disastrous night dive) to make their escape. I can't say that I blame them; there were issues with skills and with gear, but still it's our job to get them through, and that they left means that we failed. :-\ The rest of the day can only get better right? Ha!
First dive of the day is the King; a tug that went down on a winter's night storm at the start of the 20th century. I'm first in the water, where I put a hang-tank on the mooring line at 15 feet for safety stops... a just-in-case manoeuvre if anyone is running out of air at the end of their dive.
I'm with instructor W, we have four students with us; one buddy pair that is doing decently and another father / son pair that is having issues. The kid (J) is about 13, but has the body mass of a 10 year old I think... definitely too cold for him as it's always hard to find good-fitting exposure suits for smaller children. He has issues equalizing on the way down, and he calls his dive; I sit on the line at 40ft with the other three students while W takes J up to the surface. W comes back, we do the dive down to 65 ft, and then back on board, no other issues, other than the students STILL are having buoyancy issues. :-
The last dive of their weekend is the Niagara II. It's a small freighter that has been purposely sunk as a dive site, and is in very good shape indeed. There are penetration routes all through the ship, but given that we haven't taught a specific penetration course, the students are not to be going down that path... ;-)
Again, I'm first in the water, putting on the hang tank. I also notice that YOU CAN SEE THE FRIGGEN THERMOCLINE FROM THE SURFACE. That's a good indicator that the water below the thermo is going to be so cold that you can forget about having sex for about a week afterwards, it's so friggen cold.
Anyways, same buddy teams as before, with the exception that we buddied the kid (J) up with L.P. ;-) The theory being that if the kid is having issues, then perhaps we should have him with an instructor all by himself, so that he gets the individual attention that he needs.
I'm buddied up with his father, and we're almost the last two guys in the water. We're following the line down, and we're at 26ft when we encounter the kid and Laura doing an ascent up the line. I could see the kid wasn't doing good... he was starting to do short, panicky type movements that usually are an indicator that things are going to hit the fan. Sure enough, he panics. He spits out his regulator, and starts flailing around. He throws his mask off, and then grabs his instructor's reg, ripping it out of her mouth. At this point, her reg starts free-flowing... essentially venting all the air in her tank in a continuous stream, killing any visibility. I grab my alternate regulator, and try and put it in the kids' mouth, but he won't take it. Allright. Time to leave.
I grab his tank valve and start heading to the surface; the instructor is on the other side of him. I'm assuming that she's working on getting some air for herself at this point as well. About 5-10 feet below the surface, the kid just goes limp. I can see his eyes, blank, and staring off into the blue. This is the most freaky thing that I have ever experienced in my life, I'll have you know. We break the surface, I grab the kid's inflator, and get him positively buoyant, and myself as well. I'm towing him like a sunnovabitch towards the boat, while the instructor is telling the captain what to do, ie, call for help. At this point, the kid twitches, and says, "Am I dead?" No, thank god, little buddy.
We get him back on board, wrap him in blankets, and take him through some questions to determine if he's embolized or not... not. Thank god.
The combination of the very low temp and the ill-fitting suit, combined with the low body mass made him panic. Could happen to anyone. But his surfaces still equal his descents by god, so it's all good!
He and his father (who was excellent through the whole thing) have done additional pool work since to brush up on skills. One of the funny parts in this was overhearing the dad tell the son... "I don't know if we should tell your mum about this or not..." lol No kidding. I don't know either. ;-)
Anyways, that was my trip to Tobermory for my Divemaster internship. Alls well that ends well! I'm up there again weekend after next, getting paid for this shit.
Regards,
Imp;)
0 comments:
Post a Comment