Starting to motor

Things have been quiet - Ian, from Scuba Scene has been doing Course Director training in Malaya. but today I had the second day of a weekend of supporting specialties with students in Vobster Quay. The weather has been cold but sunny all weekend, only 7 degrees in the water still, but warm sunny weather between dives. Yesterday I was doing surface cover when a panicked diver and his Instructor hit the surface somewhat quickly, I called to Tim, the manager of Vobster as he, almost simultaneosly, spotted the same incident and decided to launch the RIB.  The student was fine after 15 minutes of oxygen; examining the dive profile showed that the ascent hadn't been quite as rapid as first thought.  

Today I supported three dives.  The first, to the Joaquin, was straightforward, the sudent was completing his wreck speialty and was tying off lines on the wreck.  The second was an attempt to take the student on his deep specialty on the dive he'd got stressed by yesterday.  I was accompanying Pippa as DM with Garry as instructor.  the student again headed to the surface.  Garry was quickly in control and took him to a nearby bouyed line and we slowly took him to the surface.  Garry and I took him for a shallow swim later and he did well and is well up for further diving although he will postpone the deep specialty for now.  I can't say I blame him, Vobster is still cold but the algae are responding to the increased light levels and have cut visibility to 2-3 m max. Below 20m light levels are low and the quarry is pretty dark and dismal.

The weekend finished by supporting Pippa in the pool doing a DSD in the pool.  I doubt if I helped much but I learnt from watching an instructor really encouraging a student who, after the session, signed up with great enthusiasm for an Open Water course.