bottom time blog

So I was talking with some scuba instructors lately and it was interesting to hear what they think you should teach to students, that is brand new Open Water students.  Some feel you should push them and do things like equipment exchanges to built their confidence.  Some feel you should just do the minimal amount and just meet the standards.  I am of the believe some were in between.  What I mean is an open water student is still figuring out if they want to do this sport.  This would be the same thing as give a snow skier lessons for a few days then send them down the double black diamond slope to see how they handle them self.  If this were a Dive Master candidate knows they want to go and start to teach and share their love for the sport, they will need to see how they handle stress and I do see pushing them, but more the reason of to see how they handle a difficult situation.  So here is my approach:  I think an Open Water diver should get comfortable in the water with diving.  I like to get threw the skills and have about half an hour of just swimming, then I play games like any student can ask any staff to do a skill and the same in the other way.  A staff can ask any student to do any skill that they have learned. This way you can have fun and learn at the same time.

So what are your thoughts?

So I am looking to be a Course Director when I grow up. I took the I.D.C. Staff online update from P.A.D.I. I was happy to hear that the course has shorted to 8 days. Thats nice since the cost should drop for the hotel and food. I also like the fact that they have the EFR Instructor Trainer before the the start of the course. I also like that work with Project Aware counts, since I find that a good thing.

They have also changed the requirements to become a Master Instructor.  You know have to have certified 5 Assistant Instructors 5 Dive Masters and 5 Rescue Divers.  The rest of the requirements are the same.

One day I will probbaly apply for the Course Director Course.  I do believe the program is worth my time and I also think I will make the money back in about 2 3 years.  At that point I will a positive income for my scuba instruction.

So you want to remember an acronym for your ascents. It can not be done, or maybe it can. Lets look to see what the 5 point ascent is:

1) Signal your buddy to go up

2) Check the time (this is the end of the dive)

3) Start your ascent to the surface

4) Rotate as you ascent

5) Swim up slowly not to exceed 60 ft/per minute.

S.T.A.R.S. would work for the acronym. Just like the descent acronym S.O.R.T.D.

So P.A.D.I. has released a O2 course, why do I want to teach it when there is a well known DAN O2 course? Is it an good?

I called P.A.D.I. and asked if there course was any good ad I got the standard answer why of course we have the best course out there….SO I switched my distinctive specialty to the P.A.D.I. O2 specialty bought the instructor and student manual I why not give it a try. I just got my material in the mail and started to read the out line and get familiar with it.  Wow that is looking pretty nice.  I like that fact that this course can integrate into the P.A.D.I. Rescue Course.  You just need to add part to the lecture and practical skills and you are done.  The student manual looks great, it is well written and flows very nice.  Tonight I am going to have my 7 year old daughter read the student manual to see how kids like it and what she would want different in the book.

The negative of the course.  There is no video for this course as of yet.  There is no digital version of the instructor course, so you need to keep the paper copy.  These are the only negatives of the course.

What is need to get certified as a P.A.D.I. O2 course.  First you must read the manual, complete the knowledge reviews.  Then go work with P.A.D.I. O2 instructor and get some additional information after reviewing the knowledge reviews get  answers to the questions you missed.  Then we get to the meat of the course.  You need to get your hands on the O2 equipment and complete the four skills.  I personally want to add this to all of my P.A.D.I. Rescue courses because I believe that O2 is the answer to most first aid issue like D.C.S. and non diving issues like Trauma, Heart attacks, strokes to name a few.

Why did P.A.D.I. come up with the Digital Underwater Photo course? Were the bored or was it a great idea?

I must say the book that P.A.D.I. wrote is one of the best underwater photography books out  there.  I have been on shoots for other agency photo books a few years ago, and the pictures and techniques that PA.D.I. has in there book are great.  I am an instructor of this course and it is a blast to teach.  There are two parts to it.  On is in the pool and the second one is in Open Water.  This means that you can teach this course to snorkels as well as Divers.  Also this course can be taught in the winter in the pool ad finished up in the Open Water when the water warms up.

At first I thought that this course had broken down to basic, but after my first class I relied that not everyone has used a computer and some did not realize they need one to down load their pictures in order to take more or to modify their pictures.  I do believe that the Digital Underwater Photography (DUP) class will be a great class to teach people of all ages, espically since they can see what the picture looks like before they surface with some cameras.  I hope everyone who read this blog, at least takes part I of the P.A.D.I. digital underwater course so they can see how easy and fun it is to take pictures underwater.