Marcus D. Hanwell's Blog

Well I did my first dives in open water as a trainee divemaster yesterday. I got to Capernwray at 9:00 and was helping out with the advanced course. I did three dives throughout the day (deep, wreck and search & recovery). It was quite good fun but the visibility was absolutely awful for most of the day. We also overran and I wasn't out of the water until 5:30 that evening (I was literally the last guy in the water). I was very tired and had worked hard.

Then came the most disappointing part of my whole day - despite talking to both the instructors about being assessed it turned out that neither of them could or would... I have to say it was very disappointing to have left home at 6:30, and to get back after 20:30 and not manage to get a single sign off as part of my trainee divemaster internship. I will be asking about the rules on this as there was a meeting recently about this and either I have misunderstood it or the instructors have.

Trying to take some positives away from the day I do have a better idea now of what is expected of me in my role as a trainee divemaster. I also feel that I fulfilled many of those roles and deserved an assessment. This has made me determined to get the situation clarified so that I do get properly assessed in future dives. I also got three more logged dives too.

I got my wreck specialty on Wednesday too, and should be doing the classroom element on the nitrox course on Saturday and my deep specialty at Stoney Cove on Sunday. After that I intend to avoid any further courses other than my divemaster internship until I have completed it. We will see how that goes...