Open Water Instructor

IDC College – Estapona Spain November 2005

Following the Easter holiday finds us teaching confined water skills and helping out with the Open Water dives as well. This is good practice for what we want to do for real (i.e. our living) and we both enjoyed it.

The year passes with both of us working hard not all weekends, as it has been quite a burden juggling everything, especially as the children were getting older.

Finally November arrives and we board the plane at a cold wet Stansted airport and fly off to Malaga.

The IDC starts more or less as soon as we arrive; it was difficult to get into the swing of things as the rest of the people had already been there for a week. However we soon were getting use to it with regular presentations and late nights preparing for the next day.

With very early mornings and very late nights, being in the pool, open water and classroom, the week soon passed; the IE arrived a day earlier than we were expecting with a Friday rather than a Saturday start. We were told that due to the weather we would do all the Open Water first followed by the first of the exams, then the next day the rest of the exams, the Confined Water and finally the presentations.

Thursday night was again late working as we had to prepare everything for the next two (2) days in case any of the order was changed. And guess what; we arrived Friday morning at the centre to be told that the weather was too bad for the Open Water and that we would spend the whole day on the exams! Instant panic!!

Everyone settled down in one of the Hotel Presentation Rooms to be greeted by Reny Boss and Mickey Thomas who were our IE Examiners. They soon calmed us down and talked us through the changed schedule.

We were soon into the first exam, then the next and next; soon the last one was completed and we were awaiting the results. We had both passed!! That was one hurdle out of the way.

The evening was spent working on the final presentations and ensuring our briefs and de-briefs were completed.

Next day found as back at the Dive Centre and shortly out into the open water.

Our first test was the Rescue 5, which we both managed without any problems; this was not the same for everyone as one person failed this part.

Then it was our Open Water Skills, which we were not allowed any re-makes; this was pass or fail! The water was not very warm and Theresa was number 7 of 8 to go with Richard last of all. Kneeling on the bottom of the sea waiting your turn is bad enough with your nerves, let alone the cold. However we both managed the skills without any issues and were over half way through now. Again someone failed due to a silly mistake, probably nerves!

After lunch we were in the pool for the Confined Water skills; this was quite warm and not too taxing as we had both been “doing it for real” for the last 6-months. We both passed our individual and group skills without any problems; almost there!

After a short break we were back in the hotel for the final debriefs and the Presentations.

The time seemed to drag slowly now especially with the end almost in sight, and short of a major mistake we were almost there.

Our Open Water debriefs went well with no problems. Again we were the last two for the presentations; Theresa went before Richard again, and with her usual calm manner (on the outside) she passed. Richard started and without realising it made a big error in the order of the presentation; however somehow he managed to recover and with a very good “non-diving” aid pulled it off and also passed.

Everyone was then back in the main hotel room for the wrap up, signing off of all the various forms and then it was all over.

Anticlimax set in as the adrenalin we had been on for the last week stopped flowing. We had a quiet meal by ourselves to relax.

The next couple of days were the Specialities, which was quite relaxing by comparison.

Not long afterwards we were back at Stansted qualified PADI Instructors.