From Corporate Suit to SCUBA Instructor
Every day that I was back on the boat with Aquanauts, everyone would ask me: “So Daniel when are you finally going for Instructor”. After thinking for a while the decision was made to go for it!! AND most importantly, I needed to get the time off from my daily work, since the course needed a dedicated period of 3 weeks at the end. By going diving every weekend for a long time with Aquanuats CDC, I have seen lots of Interns/Students that pass by and became Instructors. So I generally knew what was going to be expected of me – but it is always different when you do it yourself – and since I only dive in the weekends, I expected that it would be a challenging job for me. |
- IDC-PREP: a 3 day course to prepare you for the IDC week.
- EFR – Instructor: every Open Water-Instructor needs to be an EFR-Instructor as well.
- IDC: the Instructor development course, which takes around 6 days. You move from Dive Master (DM) via Assistant Instructor (AI) to Open Water Instructor (OWSI)
- IE: the 3 day-examination to show you are indeed qualified to be an instructor
Time for the IDC-Prep
The group received high scores throughout the course until the Open Water presentations. Because I missed a crucial problem, my score ended up as a 1. Since this is a learning course I did not make it a big issue, it made me sharper for the next parts. The staff instructors and the Master Instructor use this course to point out to their personal recommendations on things that they want to see or hear. For example: word choices during briefings and presentations or how to apply the pocket mask during the Rescue Assessment so that you have it completely in place before the examiner looks back to the rescue exercise after ‘calling EMS’.
Becoming an Emergency First Responce Instructor
Finally The IDC Started (Instructor Development Course)
Study, Study, Study
The Classroom and Pool presentations went really well again with high 4’s and 5’s. The Open Water presentations did not go well for everyone. Each student missed a big performance requirement, failing everyone for the day. Maybe we are getting tired from the study, or to sloppy because of the scores throughout the course. It meant we had a make up for the Open Water part. After drawing our skills we got 15 minutes to prepare for it. Luckily the makeup was successful and passed our IDC. Unfortunately one person did not pass the IDC, but he will be back the next time.
Do We Have What It Takes? It’s Time for The Instructor Exam (IE)
The last day was a really early morning. We needed to be on the boat by 8am for our Open Water presentation and the Rescue Assessment. Needing to be at the shop at 7am meant waking up even earlier. That hurt! The Open water presentation is combining 2 skills in your briefing and controlling and organizing the performance of that skill underwater.
After the skills were done, everyone needed to perform the Rescue Assessment. While doing my assessment I noticed the execution was almost as taught during the IDC and thus according to the recommendations of the Master Instructor during the Prep. I knew it went ok. After the debriefings of the presentations we were told our scores.
The day ended with two 5’s (max score) for the Open Water presentation. Conclusion: I ACED THE IE!!! The other Aquanauts student also passed with similar results. This now makes me officially an PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor!!!!!