Advanced and Beyond

These guys were good, dive 1 was a square navigation dive and both groups aced it. Well at the speed Erika and Cozette were going they almost sped passed the final grid stop, but after some serious sprinting I caught up to them.

With having mastered that so easily, I thought of throwing the book at them and made sure the search and recovery will not be that easy. I “dropped” weights in serious low visibility overgrown areas, making small search patterns by touch the only choice. After 40 minutes of freezing water I almost gave up, and was willing to abandon my precious weights to the deep blue, but then within minutes both groups recovered their artefacts! Almost Zero visibility not bad!

The night dive was fun with the deep dive following the next morning. Ruan almost got himself stuck to the bottom due to the low volume of the BC he was diving with, but then if you cannot swim you can crawl to the PUMA helicopter. Anybody spotted the skeleton pilot sitting in the cockpit seat :-) ?

The light salvage dive turned into a real salvage dive when the lift bag decided to give its last on the way up. Wilhelm thought some-one is out to get him when the bag of weights which was on the way up came down faster than planned again next to him. But with team work we got the weight box and the inflation cylinder back to shore again.

Thanks guys !

What a great weekend thank you for the 4 real advanced divers!

Fantastic 4 goes diving

Very well done to the 4 super divers! Mike and Matthew took like fish to water. You could not stop them, my only concern is that Mike will get so entrenched in his deep water thoughts he will forget to breath and swim off into the deep blue. Matthew on the other hands started his advanced training already by trying a weight belt dump and practicing his alternative air breathing (for real) he he he. Both as calm as sea cucumbers under water though.

The 2 who impressed me was the ladies, both not so impressed with this new adventure the guys came up with, and like normal sane people tend to be, they were not so impress with this water in the face thing. But they stuck to it, Genevieve’s breakthrough came early in the pool already, the mask kept leaking more water than the pool had to offer, but she kept her calm, no bailout, finished her skills and after that, pure stubbornness kept her going.

Julie kept a straight face during the Open water sessions, but when Matthew had weight belt problem at 15 meters, she stuck to him and tried to help, all calm and calculated, that was the breakthrough. Then I knew they were ready for the big seas :-)

All 4 qualified with flying colours and are soon on their way to Mauritius for some real diving !! Enjoy you guys !

Taking a quick break Mike :-)