PADI Open Water Referral Day 2

Today I was back at London School of Diving for the second day of my referral course.

We were first in the pool this morning, whilst the other group went through the final chapters and their exam. I liked it being this way round, so that we could finish the course at the end of the day with the exam. I couldn’t believe how quickly the morning went, it was one o’clock before we knew it, over 4 hours in the pool! Most of the confined dive exercises today were in the deep end, which was a bit more fun and challenging than Day 1.

Taking off your BCD underwater and putting it back on was surprisingly easy. I really didn’t enjoy having to take my mask off and swim around the deep end for a lap, then put my mask back on and clear it. But I did it, and definitely an important skill!

One of the other skills was learning to breathe from a free flowing regulator, what a weird sensation! This is one of the skills that by the time I got the hang of it, I was told to stop so the next person could perform the skill. I would have liked to have given this a few goes rather than only just getting the hang of it after a face full of air!

I think this is the problem with doing the course in a class of 5 people. First, it can be a bit boring for some of the longer exercises to just sit and watch, although sometimes you can learn from other peoples mistakes. I tried to practice my buoyancy by hovering ever so slightly off the bottom at one point and was told off like a naughty child because I had to stay still. Secondly, when I completed the exercise but would stumble through it, it would have been nice to be able to repeat some of them a few times. But I can do this out in the Open Water I guess.

I really liked the instructors at London School of Diving, and they have a good communal area and classroom. However, the changing areas really were a bit run down and dirty…but I do have cleaning OCD and no one else seemed too fussed.

After lunch we completed the videos, quiz reviews and tests for chapters 4 and 5. Much of this was focused on using the RDP tables – which I was very proud to have mastered late last night.

After a quick break we completed the 50 question exam. There is no time limit, I managed to complete this first after about 25 minutes, others in the class looked like they were all at different stages. I took it to the instructor who marked it and, demonstrating my inner geek, awarded me 100%! I believe that the protocol is that if you get any questions wrong the instructor will discuss these with you to ensure you understand the principles. The pass mark is 75%. I assume if you get less than this you have to retake a different exam but I think the goal is to ensure you understand the material if you go wrong. If you read the PADI manual and the RDP manual and understand the answers to all of the tests and quizzes, it would be pretty difficult to fail!

I had a quick chat with the instructor afterwards and bought a binder for my log book (which she was shamelessly pushing to sell the whole weekend). On the whole, I found the centre quite pushy trying to sell additional courses, join their club and convince me not to do my Open Water Dives in Greece but with their centre in the UK. The cynic in me thinks this was shameless sales tactics to get some cash to smarten up the place, but perhaps she genuinely wants to get people diving as much as possible so that you don’t just do the course and then not actually use it!

So that was my two day referral course and now I’m super excited for the Open Water Dives! I could go into loads more detail but if anyone reading this has any questions on my experience I’d love to share so post a comment below!

PADI Open Water Referral Day 1

After finally receiving my materials and working my way through the material and tests for the first three chapters I had an 8.45am start over in Chiswick for Day 1 of the PADI Open Water referral course. My plan is to complete the PADI Open Water confined dives and theory in the UK so that I can take to the sea in Santorini to complete my Open Water dives next month.

When I arrived there were 8 other students, much more than I expected. But we were split into two groups (those doing their complete course with the dive centre by finishing the Open Water dives in the UK at Wraysbury and those, like me, completing elsewhere).

So my group was first in the classroom, which was a good way round because we were eased in with the theory and then had the afternoon to put into practice the confined dive techniques. It was a really good group of people with varying experiences and ages, they all asked lots of questions (but not too many inane silly ones) which is a great way to learn.

The format was that for the first three chapters of the PADI manual we would watch a video, then discuss our answers to the end of chapter quiz (which everyone had completed before attending the course) and then we were given a 10 question test to do in silence. Once we completed each test, the instructor would call out the answers and we would discuss any questions anyone had got wrong.

On the whole, no one got more than one or two questions wrong, I think any incorrect answers would be a reflection of someone who hadn’t read the manual or wasn’t reading the questions correctly. This was a well prepared bunch!

It was an extremely hot day so we had plenty of quick water breaks in between each chapter. Finally, after lunch, we headed down to the pool to complete Confined Water Dives 1 and 2.

One of my biggest anxieties was that I wouldn’t be able to put the gear together or that I would do so incorrectly and then during the dive something would go wrong. However, it is surprisingly easy and given the way it is designed, it seems surprisingly fool proof: if you hadn’t put something together correctly then: your BCD wouldn’t inflate, there would be no air flowing through the regulator, or when you get into the water there would be bubbles from any leaks. A word of warning to those of you that are slight or lacking muscles, a steel tank is bloody heavy!!

For confined dives 1 and 2 most of the exercises are completed in the shallow end of the pool and are made up of a number of skills where the instructor describes them, demonstrates them and then gets each person in turn to complete these. It was very serious compared to my Try Dive a few weeks back, but I guess that’s the way it should be!

We finished at 5.30pm and I headed home exhausted, but I still needed to complete Chapters 4 and 5 and learn how to use the RDP tables (which was surprisingly intuitive). My word of advice…if you have enough time, complete the manual before day 1 so that you can get lots of rest for day 2! Zzzzzz.....