Oh The life of a PADI scuba instructor - hectic, crazy, my organized chaos!

I know I’ve been bad, I haven’t been blogging as much, shame on me, but do you have any idea how busy you can get out here??!!!! Again my apologies and I know I should not be making excuses.  So what’s been happening ? Well, I am at this moment sitting at an PADI Instructor Exam whilst my intrepid students are busy becoming instructors and divemasters. Awesome!! I have also had double duties these past few weeks, with the ever growing, ever expanding “Pandora” my little PADI puppy, I think I need to add to that ever chewing and ever pooping maybe? All good though and worth every piece of toilet paper I have to use to pick up after her!! This past Friday, we headed out to do some MSDT training and Divemaster specialty training. As a Tec instructor I like to add that little bit to any recreational deep classes, with some discussion of dive planning, safety, and equipment configuration. All good fun. The rains have reduced our visibility a bit but that only adds to the challenge. Everyone had a good time, especially with the simulated deco stop and navigating at depth. You REALLY have to trust your compass at that point. Especially with narcosis and reduced viz. As I always say to my students, slow and methodical. For our second dive, we did a search and recovery exercise, I suspect that our “missing diver” was removed from the dive shop on a previous date as the “chucky” doll as I referred to it, used to creep people out, especially with its flailing arms and staring eyes. I guess it’s time to invest in Quepos barbie to become our missing diver, armed with 4 matching accessories and high heels. ready for a trip to subway!!! We practiced our jack stay search patterns, knots and lift bag techniques and all went great even with out “chucky”. Good days diving in all. For our divemaster candidates it’s a good chance to practice for their deep dive and search and recovery scenarios which are essential parts of the divemaster program. I have been adding the specialties recently as add-ons to the internship program which is proving popular, and also is a great stepping to stone to the master scuba diver certification, become a true dive ninja!

Ok, so back to this moment, confined water session down, on to the classroom. Please, please let the rain hold off!!!

PADI IDC Course - Skill circuits and PADI Puppies

So another PADI Instructor course underway!! Already 2 pool sessions completed, a great skill circuit yesterday followed by our first confined water presentations today. To score a 5 in your skills you need to do everything, slow, exaggerated and make it appear "easy". That would be your key word…."easy". Now go to practice. The challenge of the day was buoyancy checks, looking easy and correct whilst you may be a little overweighted..hmmmm Everyone did good though and there's nothing wrong with a bit of extra practice. The classroom sessions are being aided by the new addition to the Go Pro family…Pandora aka Gremlin. She has already adopted the position of PADI puppy and refuses to leave the instructor backpack in peace. We'll see how that works out on the way to the instructor exam!

Stay tuned …….

Deep Blue diving with Billfish

Funday Sunday is here, but if you live and work where I do most days are "fundays". A swell has come in and dropped the viz which isn't so good but also with that there has been a surge of krill in the water which has brought us schools of jacks, barracudas and other large fish closer into shore.  Talking about big fish, I had the opportunity to go diving last week with some beautiful billfish. I was asked to safety dive for  the billfish research project. The idea behind The Billfish Research Project is to pursue collaborative efforts between the science and sportfishing communities to enhance the billfish research knowledge base. They do this by deploying tags into , at the moment, sailfish around the waters of Quepos and Manuel Antonio. Information from these tags includes location, depth and water temperature and is then relayed back to researchers.This information will be communicated to fisheries management policy makers, the scientific community and to the worldwide sportfishing community. With the popularity of "catch and release" sport fishing and the obligatory photo of your catch onboard, there is an element of stress for the fish, especially as well whilst the fish is fighting when being brought in. In extreme cases this can lead to the death of the fish. One of the aims of the research project is to look at more humane ways of doing this and specifically look at stresses on the fish involved. Already implemented on the boats involved is the fact that no fish are brought onboard. They are unhooked and then released again as quickly as possible.During the couple of days I was out with the team whilst deploying the satellite tags, we were also looking at the release of the fish from the underwater view point. Firstly, to be in the water with these fish in pretty amazing in itself, but to watch them as they are released is certainly something else. One of the things we noticed was the fact that they slowly swim, but on reaching a thermocline, it will spring them to life as they swim off into the deep. 

Reasoning for the safety diver position on this particular week was the presence of a film crew filming a documentary about the project. As the underwater shots are taken its my job to watch the divers filming, and basically "stay out of the shot". Best position is about 2 ft behind and slightly blue. I definitely had a couple of "Jaws" moments whilst pursuing the Camera man, it was such the perfect shot!! "Blue" diving is one of my favorite things, as you are hanging out, with no bottom to reference and staring into the vastness of the ocean. You really do start to feel small! 
After 2 successful days, the project managed to deploy 4 tags. Results are already being taken and  more tags will be deployed in the future. As for the filming it was fun and certainly a fantastic experience to be in the water with such beautiful creatures. 

A PADI Divemaster Internship review - GO Pro Costa Rica

Hi my name is Ben Harland and im writing this to give an account of my experience working as a Divemaster intern as Oceans Unlimited In Quepos Costa Rica. 

Originally i have never planned to do my divemaster at Oceans unlimited I was attending a dive school in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, I had been there for about 1 month and all was going well when one night my instructor decided to run away from the school with a large amount of the company’s money leaving me and the other students with no one to teach us. It was a horrible experience and I felt very betrayed.

I decided that I wanted to get out of Mexico and make the most of a Bad situation. I began to search online for other places and came across GoPro Costa Rica through Oceans Unlimited, I contacted Georgia King and explained my situation, she was very sympathetic and wanted to do everything she could to help me out. After a number of emails and skype conversations I decided that this was the place for me to finish my training.

I arrived in Costa Rica and had a couple of weeks before the season started so I hired a car and did some exploring around the country and began to fall in love with it. 

After Arriving back in the Quepos I moved into a homestay with a local family (and 8 Chiuaua’s) which was a great experience. I got my own room and bathroom for $90 a week including big breakfast and dinner of typical Costa Rican cuisine. Ana the boss of the house always made me feel very welcome and well fed also cleaning my room daily and taking care of all my laundry. After a few months of traveling it was really nice to be taken care of.

The Internship I did was a 8 week program where I was basically a member of staff but instead of being paid a wage I was trained for free, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

A typical day would involve waking up around 6am, sitting down at the table with my fellow divemaster interns Shane and Kaitlin for a huge breakfast of eggs, toast, pinto (spicy beans & Rice Delicious!) tropical fruits and strong coffee. Then about a 10min walk through town to the dive shop, walking through the door im greeted by our receptionists Paula’s friendly smiling face.

Duties in the morning would usually revolve around greeting the costumers as they came in and fitting their equipment, fins, mask, wetsuit, weights ect.. As well as answering questions and generally chatting and joking and trying to make them feel comfortable about the upcoming dives. After loading up all the tanks and equipment on the big F150 truck know as “Mighty Whitey” and make the 5min drive out to the marina where our Captain and company owner Bob McDaniel would be waiting for us in our dive boat the “Orca IV”. After loading up the boat and giving the customers a briefing we would head out to one of the many divesites in Manuel Antonio National Park. Often my job would be to assist our great Divemaster Jario which would usually involve following the group of divers and assisting with keeping the group together and trying to resolve any problems that might arise. Other days we would be out doing specific training in the ocean with Geogia such as mapping, search and recovery, deep, rescue and navigation ect.. Or we may stay back and do skills in the pool or studying theory or helping out around the shop. 

If there were no dives in the afternoon we were generally finished around 2pm. Which leaves you free to go to the beach, explore rainforest trails, swim in waterfalls.. Manuel Antonio is a stunningly beautiful national park with amazing wildlife. Sloths, lizards, 3 types of monkeys, birds. I spent ,many of my days off exploring the park. 

All up I spent 2 ½  months in Quepos and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I really owe a lot to Geogia king my Trainer for saving me from the situation in Mexico and imparting so much of her years of experience and knowledge. She is an absolute professional and made training a lot of fun. She was a great mentor. 

I also owe thanks to Captain Bob McDaniel, a diving veteran of many years with experience in all forms of diving including work with police, and winning a national title for search and recovery competitions.

Thanks also to all of the staff at Oceans Unlimited Paula, Jairo, Weldon, Kaitlin, shane, JT, Yadi for making this such a great place to work at.

My personal highlights of my time there would be dive trip to Cano Island, Night Diving, ‘Save the Sevegre’ White water rafting day, New years eve in Quepos and humpback whales sufacing next to the boat.

I would strongly recommend to anybody considering doing a divemaster internship to contact Georgia at oceans unlimited. Its so much better than a school as you are dealing with real customers and learn the day to day running of a real dive shop. You will be challenged and made to earn your qualification. Ocean conditions can vary greatly with sometimes very low visibility and stong currents one day and perfect conditions the next. But all this will go to making a better diver.

Thanks to everyone at Oceans Unlimited 

                                                                             Ben Harland

A Divemaster trainee review - Go Pro Costa Rica

A review as written by Yadi, Divemaster trainee Dec - January 2012

I get up at 5 am during daybreak and take the bus to the national park. After walking 30 minutes in the tropical forest, I jump into an 8-meter waterfall and WOW. Back to the beach, I enjoy the early morning and go to work after swimming in the ocean. Now, it’s time for diving! Before DM course, I was taught how to dive, but as a DMT, I was also taught how to fill the tanks, fix the gear, talk to customer, identify problems, help on the boat, reassure the DSDs…and dive while having the ability to help others. I hit the water at around 9 am and lead the group to see some eels, school of big surgeon fishes, sharks whales and… you know, AWESOME creatures in the water. In the afternoon, RAFTING trip with Georgia! It gets even more excited when all the boats flip and I find myself underwater again without a regulator. To make this day long enough, I take a walk in the national park and after seeing enough monkeys, sloths, crocodiles, and raccoons for one day, I rest on the beach again, enjoying the sunset and Pilson. If you do have any energy left which I don’t, you can go out with friends during the night: although Quepos is a small little girl but she parties every single day.

This is a really nice day with Oceans Unlimited as a DMT. Since I am a lazy person, it took me a month to do all these. Still, they are the possible things you can do within a day and there are a whole lot of other options. As a DMT with Oceans Unlimited, buceo is fun, so is vida.