Rescue Diver

Open Water and Advanced Open Water courses work on ensuring your safety underwater. The Rescue Diver course extends your focus from yourself and buddy to everyone around you while SCUBA diving.

In order to take the Rescue Diver course with Y-kiki Divers in St. Louis, I needed to take the DAN Oxygen Provider course to become familiar with the process of using an oxygen tank. This course was a classroom only course. It involved a workbook to be done before the class, watching a video, discussing the answers in the workbook, and demonstrating the assembly and use of an oxygen tank.

Rescue Diver also had a workbook to complete prior to the first class. It was five chapters with ten questions at the end of each chapter. It was important to complete this because we took turns reading our answers and then took a test. The test was also 50 questions and you could miss 12 and still pass. Our class of three only missed three combined. As you can imagine, it is not that difficult of a test to pass.

Day two was in the pool. We practiced the skills we would need to use in the open water session. The skills you learn during Rescue Diver include how to tow people who need help making it back to safety, how to bring an unconscious diver to the surface, how to stop a panicked diver from making an unsafe ascent, how to escape from a panicked diver, and my personal favorite how to ride a panicked divers tank so that they cannot get to you. The pool water was nice and warm and clear. That would not be the case for day three.

Day three was in Goose Creek. It was a clear, windy, cold October day, I even wore a sweatshirt. We started by going over our emergency contact numbers and the emergency action plan and how to perform an expanding square search pattern. Then it was time to get in the water. We had four scenarios that we had to go through. Scenario one was an out of air simulation. The hardest part of the scenario was finding the person who was going to be out of air. As soon as you dropped below the surface, visibility dropped to less than a foot. The only way to find them was swinging your arms around until you found an object, and hope it was the person you were looking for. Scenario two was approaching a tired diver who turned panicky why you got there. This one was on the surface so it was much easier to complete. Scenario three turned out to be a mess. We were supposed to locate a missing diver, who looked oddly like a bucket. We were supposed to perform the expanding square to find the bucket. It did not really work to well. I could not see the compass to use a heading to make a 90 degree turn and could not see far enough to have any sort of orientation for turning. After several failed attempts at an expanding square we tried a different approach. We created a line by holding onto the octopus of the person next to us and swam forward. Then spun, and headed back in the opposite direction. We completed this pattern somewhat successfully, but swam right over the bucket without ever seeing it. The last scenario was an unconscious diver at the surface.

After completing all four scenarios, we went to the assistant instructors house to dry off and warm up. The water temperature was a balmy 53 degrees. One instructor was wearing a dry suit and I was wearing a 7 mm wetsuit with hood and gloves. Overall, I spent less than half an hour underwater. However, each scenario counts as a separate dive, so four dives in less than 1000 psi of air, talk about efficiency.

A picture is worth a thousand words

and since I am lazy and do not want to try to describe the fish and scenery that I see while in Honduras, I bought a camera. This is the Olympus 1030 sw.


The reason that I chose this camera over the hundreds of options available was its durability. This camera is waterproof to 33 feet, shockproof for a 6 foot fall, crush proof to over 200 pounds and freeze proof. Hopefully I don't need the freeze proof ruggedness while SCUBA diving.

Since the camera is only waterproof to 33 feet I also got the Olympus waterproof housing. This extends the waterproof depth to 130 feet. I chose the Olympus housing over the Ikelite housing due to its ability to accept wet mount lenses with the threads on the lens port. Ikelite does not have this option. Here are a couple of pictures of the housing.

Flashback

My first dive experience was at the age of 12 as mentioned in my first post. I was on a family vacation in Pompano Beach, Florida. We found a sign up for a free SCUBA trial in our time share pool. We signed up the whole family, including my brother who was too young and my mom who does not like to swim. The next day we met Jose, a PDIC instructor. He let my sister, dad, and I play around in the pool with the SCUBA equipment and then hooked us into becoming certified divers.

There are 4 open water dives required to become a certified diver, 2 on one day 2 on the next. We got our bcs, regulators, weight belts, and wet suits, well I did not get a wet suit, I got a t-shirt from the dive instructor because I was too small to fit into any of the wet suits that he had, and then it was time to go on our first set of dives.

I was a little nervous on the way out, but I got all of my gear on jumped in the water and waited for the signal to descend. Jose signed that it was time to start our first dive. He went under and I froze. I no longer trusted that my regulator would work under water. Jose noticed that I did not go under, came back up, pointed at me, and signaled that I was going under. More afraid of Jose at that moment then the water, I quickly deflated my bc and began the dive. Still a little nervous, I kept one hand on my regulator and the other on my pressure gauges afraid that at any moment I would be left without air. This fear turned out to be rather unfounded because I regularly came up with more than half a tank when my dad was out of air.

Day number two of diving started with a deep dive, 60 feet. It was on a ship called the Sea Empress and was a feeding dive. We started the dive with the opportunity to feed sting rays and a moray eel. Jose did this dive with such regularity, he could coax the moray out of his hiding spot and wrestle with it. Once all of the food was gone, Jose led us through the Sea Empress. Before it was scuttled, it was completely gutted. On its way down, it flipped upside down providing an easy swim through. Each compartment had openings in the top to allow in light and easy egress if necessary. When we got back to the surface, Jose informed us that a nurse shark usually lived in the first compartment of the wreck. Needless to say, at the time I was very grateful that the shark was absent on that dive. It might have been more than I could have handled at that moment. Now I would love to see the nurse shark.

After the Open Water course with PDIC I was hooked on diving. Now I get the opportunity to teach others and pass on my excitement to others.

My Equipment

The price of the dive internship included a full set of Mares SCUBA gear. However, the gear that they were providing was at the low end of the spectrum and if I was getting a set of gear, I wanted to make sure it was gear I was comfortable using. So I went shopping, not one of my favorite activities. I visited a few different dive shops in the St. Louis area and did a lot of research online. I looked at ScubaPro, Oceanic, and Aqualung. Each dive shop I visited seemed to specialize in one brand.

Each brand had there own advantages and would end up around the same price range. The deciding factor for me was an offer made by one dive shop. They told me that if I bought my dive gear setup from them I could take the Rescue Diver class for free. This worked for me, so I went with them and bought Oceanic gear.

This is what I got.

BC - Cruz


This BC has two features that are pretty common but I am really grateful to get to use. One of them is the alternate air source built into the inflator pump. This will allow me to leave the octopus at home when on fun dives. Whenever you go SCUBA diving you always have a primary air source and a backup one in case your buddy needs to breathe off of your tank for some reason. By having it attached to your inflator hose instead of independent, it eliminates the need of a hose coming from your tank and is one less thing to accidentally drag along the reef.

The other feature is an integrated weight system. After putting on all the gear needed for diving, you end up being positively buoyant which is not a good thing if you want to go to the bottom of the ocean. To remedy this problem, you add lead weight. If you do not have an integrated weight system, you put on a very stylish belt with lead weights positioned either on the hips or a little in front of them whichever is most comfortable. However, the weigths often slide to the position that they want. The integrated weight system means that there are pockets designed to hold weight eliminating the need to wear a belt. The weight stays in the same spot the whole dive and some of it can be placed near the tank to help trim you while under water.

Regulator - Delta 4
Octopus - Octo Swiv Mag

This regulator is the only regulator that NOAA allows their divers to use in water under 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Although I do not plan on doing much cold water diving, it goes to show the overall quality of the regulator. The first stage (the thing with all of the hoses attached to it) is environmentally sealed which is why it is able to be used in cold water. The second stage (what you breath from) has a swivel connected to it so that you can move your head without needing to pull and twist the whole hose making the regulator less tiring to use. I also have control over the ease of breathing so I can set it wherever I want based on the conditions.

The Octopus is the secondary regulator that I would need while teaching a class to PADI standards. It is bright yellow so it is easily found. It swivels and twists to allow for the most freedom in the event that it is necessary. Another cool feature of this octo is the mag part of the name. It comes with a magnet on a clip to connect to the BC. This is much easier to use then any other connection device on the market.

Computer - Atom 2.0

This watch is a dive computer that connects wirelessly to a transmitter on the tank. This system eliminates the need for another tube coming from the tank. It can gauge my air consumption rate and can calculate how much time I have left on my dive. It will display the time remaining based on air time left or non-decompression limits. The advantage for having a dive computer is that it can adjust for changes in depth where a dive table is set hard and fast. The person helping me at the dive shop said that he was able to go on a dive where he hit 130 feet and be down for one hour and ten minutes. He was not at 130 feet the whole time but on a dive chart he would only be allowed to be there for 10 minutes and then he would need to go to 15 feet for a safety stop. With the computer calculating in real time, he had an extra hour.

Step One

Once I set my mind to becoming a SCUBA instructor I needed to decide where I was going to take my classes.

My first inclination as to how to start this process was to choose a location and work from there. My first choice of location was the Philippines. I have always wanted to dive in the Pacific Ocean, particularly the Ring of Fire. However, I knew that leaving the country for a few months to SCUBA dive was not on the top of the list for approved post graduation activities and traveling half way around the world dropped it even lower. So I decided to look for a location in the Caribbean a little closer to home.

I chose Puerto Rico and began searching for a dive shop to do all of my courses through. As I was looking at the dive shops, I realized that most places just offered the courses and then left you on your own. I was hoping to find a place to pick up experience as well as the certifications. So I changed my search tactic to searching for dive internships. There are a lot of them out there.

Each internship offers pricing based on different criteria so make sure you take into account what is included in the price. The prices that are the lowest, in my experience, only included the cost of the course. You still needed to buy the course material, certification and testing fees, equipment, and housing for the duration of the course. When I started adding up the additional costs, I found that most offerings were all running about the same price. I chose Divearth.com , in the Bay Islands, Honduras. They were the most responsive to my emails and questions and their package included all costs except for food for the duration of the training. It is nice to know that I already have a placed lined up to stay while going through the training.

Once I lined up the dive shop and registered with them, I knew that I was going to Honduras to become a SCUBA instructor. I was going to get to do something not many people do: go after their dream.

So...

I am leaving home and heading out to Honduras for a few months in January. Some people might be crazy enough to ask why. To those who don't really care why or want the short answer, to become a PADI SCUBA instructor. Anyone else can keep reading.

It all started around 10 years ago on a family vacation to Pompano Beach, Florida. My dad, sister, brother, and I were walking through the lobby of our timeshare when we noticed an ad for a free SCUBA lesson in the timeshare pool. That is where we met Jose, a PDIC instructor, who would lead us (minus my brother who was too young) into our first underwater adventures.

After taking the Open Water course at the age of 12, we decided to follow up and go through the Advanced Open Water course the following year with Jose again. Unfortunately since I was too young and only qualified for Junior diver, the only thing that changed on my second C-Card was the spelling of my name, Tray, and picture.

In order to rectify the spelling mistake, and maybe to help my brother catch up since he was old enough for the course two years later, we retook the Open Water Certification through PADI. We chose PADI because we could no longer find Jose and we discovered that not many people have ever heard of PDIC. We completed Open Water and Advanced Open Water over the next few years.

That was the end of my diver education for a while. I always thought it would be fun to have a job or a life that involved the ocean. Since I loved learning about the ocean, I thought sharing that passion with others would be a great way to earn some money. Since I do not have a career or any financial obligations, I figured now was the best time to see how the life of a dive instructor suited me. This blog will chronicle the path to instructor and the life of a dive instructor as a way to help people decide if this is a life that interests them. So come back often and let me know what you think.