My hands don't like cold water

Continuing with Thursday evening theory sessions.  No problems with the tests as the questions are pretty well covered in the lectures.  Also bagged the equipment specialty along the way; while most of the content was familiar there were some pearls of wisdom and the chance to explore some kit configuration issues.  

Things have been fairly quiet at the centre so not many opportunities to do much DM'ing although I enjoyed tring to support Pippa doing a Discover Scuba Diving session - I probably helped a bit but I found myself all over the place and working hard to figure out the best place to be to help the students... it looks easy when an experienced DM or instructor does it!

I took the Night spec the other day (or night to be more exact).  Three dives in one evening at Voster in 5 degree water.  Everything apart from my hands were toasty but they became numb soon after starting each dive - 3mm, 5mm, fleece lined - I used all three of my pairs of gloves and none really helped.  Apart from that it was a great session with Kelly as instructor, Les as DM and me as the sole student.  Much fun was had by all.  I thought I knew Vobster reasonably well now - touring it at night certainly showed I have much to learn about even my local flooded quarry.

You work all weekend and don't even get wet!

Like the post title says. The pool is closed for repairs so on Saturday I took the equipment specialty where I picked up some sound tips and got the chance to ask a few questions that I'd been saving up. This was followed by a session on the diving environment. This was a bit of an odd assortment covering boats, navigation, waves, currents and dive safety; fortunately nothing much that you wouldn't have picked up from experience and doing the rescue course and a few specialties.

7.30 am Sunday saw us wrapped in our warmest clothes queuing to get into Vobster. I'd "volunteered" for safety cover so my job included checking students and monitoring the dive. Apart from contracting 3rd degree frostbite -2 deg C on the surface and not much more apparently in the water, a pretty straightforward task. Tim and I had intended doing more measurements for the map task but after he'd done two dives to complete his DSMB spec neither of us fancied a dive so that scuppered that one - still I didn't need to wash any kit when I got back - club night tonight at the Lamb at Weare so what with one thing and another an odd weekend dominated by diving but not actually doing any!