May and June was all about getting back into the water, brushing up on my own Scuba Diving skills in a GUE Fundamentals course and assisting in brushing up the ones of others while my Padi Divemaster Internship.
Divemaster Internship
I started off with my Divemaster course, which was so kindly sponsored by Marcus Kitching-Howe, at Diveshack Malta. At Diveshack, there are about 10 Padi Instructors employed and they offer all kinds of courses. Hence, it was the perfect place to learn to supervise Scuba Divers of all levels and to witness different approaches of teaching by assisting different Instructors.
As part of my own course, my Divemaster Trainee buddy Mike and I were first taught how to demonstrate all 24 skills of the Open Water course in a slow, clear, and slightly exaggerated manner, as to make it easy for students to understand them. That was also a good way to remember what we had learned in our Open Water courses so many years back, and Marcus was brilliant in pointing out the little parts and details in every skill that students will most frequently do not quite right. Marcus really shared all the experiences that he has had over the years with us, which really trained the eye for seeing mistakes and realizing fears of beginning Scuba Divers. Plus, demonstrating these skills to each other was a whole lot of fun!
We were then well equipped for assisting in the many Discover Scuba Diving courses that Diveshack is giving, and it was an incredibly valuable and rewarding experience to introduce people, who have never dived before, to the underwater world. Some were natural and confident at it and mastered the skills right away, but also many were afraid and we really had to help them overcome their fears, which was the most rewarding. And I was happy to see that many DSD students wanted to continue their learning process in an Open Water course afterwards!
What I found really interesting and important for the coming months and years of Scuba Diving, was also just to see and help in the running of a dive center and school itself. The organisation of equipment, tanks, vehicles, instructors and students can really be a challenge in a busy diveshop, but at Diveshack I got to see a good way to manage this. Our days were full-on, with diving, washing gear, teaching and shifting equipment, but I really enjoyed the hands-on team work.
The most challenging task that I had to complete personally for the Divemaster certification was the Full-Equipment-Swap while breathing from just 1 second stage, for which I of course had to buddy up with my Divemaster Trainee colleague Mike. Mike, 1,90m tall and with quite big feet – now imagine me with his gear, and then him trying to squeeze in my extra small BCD and Fins in size 38! But together as a team, encouraging and supporting each other throughout the 3,5 weeks of the course, we mastered all skills needed and both of us successfully qualified as Padi Divemasters!
Wreck Diving in Malta
And additionally, it is important to say that I got to learn all these things in the Maltese waters in between many beautiful wrecks – so I also added the Padi Wreck Diver Specialty to the list of courses. All in all, I dove 5 wrecks, each of them several times, and the wrecks and their history fascinated me so much that I visited Darko Kovacevic from Heritage Malta, who explained to me the importance of their new management strategy of the historically significant shipwrecks. Their aim is to make these wrecks accessible to divers as “open water museums”, as long as the divers register and follow the rules of Heritage Malta. One of them is strictly no penetration or touching of the wreck, to preserve the metal from being exposed to new oxygen from Scuba Diver´s bubbles or from the water itself, because the metal normally rusts and is then protected underneath the rust against the oxygen in the water. Heritage Malta also aims to make the wrecks accessible to non-Scuba Divers, by displaying digital 3D-models that are being developed through 3D-Photogrammetry.
GUE Fundamentals course with John Kendall
Following my time at Diveshack, I got to learn a very different way of Diving while my GUE Fundamentals course with John Kendall, who invited me to join his class at Divewise Malta. I must admit, although I passed the class, it was not an easy course at all. This was my first time diving with a Twinset and in GUE configuration with a Halcyon wing, thanks to sponsorship from Halcyon Divesystems for this year. John was a very good, patient, but also a strict teacher and helped me overcome this challenge. Plus, my class buddy Kim (yes, you read it right – Kim and Kim!) was really encouraging, too.
I really enjoyed practising my finning techniques while flatter- or frogkicking, and I learned how to back kick and helicopter kick, which I believe is incredibly valuable for the Underwater Photography that I will learn about next month. And thereby I realised that almost the hardest part is to actually staying still without moving in any direction within the water column surrounding you.
Other parts of the course were mastering the basic five, the S-drill, SMB-deployment, and controlled ascents and descents. These exercises also really showed me the importance of working as team with your buddy.
All in all, the intense focus on every single detail in body positioning and movement really paid back by helping me become more confident in buoyancy and trim and helped me control my diving much more. I am sure that this course with John as a teacher will help me tremendously in my Scuba Diving experiences in the following months. Thank you so much, John, for supporting the Scholarship Society year after year!
