We are about half way through our August IDC. I have stepped out of the classroom and passed on the reins to my ever hardworking staff instructor JT. Gives me a chance to breathe. We headed out into the ocean today for our first open water presentations. As always, everybody was nervous, it’s a different thing when you are in the ocean compared to confined water. We have had fab conditions for this time of year so the candidates had it easy (only in my book i guess!) With 35ft visibility and absolutely zero surge it was a nice layout for the open water drills. We had some fun stuff including reg recoveries, descents and hovers. In the ever pursuit to making sure their students complete the skill, even the non-existent surge managed to carry both instructor and students away!
Second dive we did some fun bubbling, get a chance to blow out some bubbles during the PADI instructor course is always a good thing. Tensions always run high now matter how hard I try to reassure everyone so its nice just to take them out to "relax" underwater for at least 1 dive.
As for my relaxing ?! Okay, in all fairness I did manage to surf yesterday afternoon. Waves were fun and I think I’m getting better ? Hard to judge really. There is only 2 weeks left of my season here in Costa Rica before I head out for 2 months. As I mentioned in the previous blog entry I am doing some traveling first, to Panama first for tec training and then to Kansas for instructor training. The whole month of October I will be in England, not diving, but if anyone wants to fdin out about training here then come meet me at the Birmingham dive show where I will be with some of our graduates from Go Pro Costa Rica this year. Find out what its like to scuba, surf and everything else here in Costa Rica.
I am out of the ocean tomorrow which gives me the chance to catch up on some of things I have been abandoning lately including keeping you all up to date with this blog. I have been somewhat overwhelmed lately but in a good way. We have had a super busy summer so far with Go Pro students both divemaster, technical and instructor coming through the store, having fun, learning a lot, but that’s what it’s all about right? Some of the things I have learnt in the past week alone have included a new technique for rolling someone into a recovery position and that "Pistol Pete" is the mascot for Oklahoma state?!
I love learning!!! Cheesy I know to say it but it is true. I am going to be absorbing loadsa fun stuff into my brain over September and October that I will be able to come back and incorporate into our training programs here. The more I learn and can offer, the more you all get to learn because at Go Pro I just love spreading the wealth of knowledge. See how awesome that is!! Anyway, enough of ramblings for this moment. Keep tuned as I will be blogging through my travels.
Happy August guys!!!