It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with the holidays having passed and now well and truly into diving season. Congrats to our first two graduates of the go pro costa rica divemaster program, Alec and Eddie. Onwards and upwards to fab diving and instructor training soon with our PADI IDC in January. Our last few days have been super busy with divemaster training, starting last Sunday which started with an equipment workshop, fixing and maintaining, tanks and regs, an essential part of any dive shop program. Sometimes, when you may not have access to every tool you need , improvisation is key if done correctly including some fun things like tank cleaning. Tumbling of tanks, and making use of the sunshine for drying is a good example. With the regs, there is nothing quicker than actually getting your hands dirty and fixing, opening up and tinkering around. Good fun ! After a land based day, it was off to the pool with some skill circuit practice, scuba review practice and some skin diver classes. Its not just about diving with scuba gear, you also need to be able to free dive and pass that info on to others. Can be tricky however if you “students” are other divemaster candidates improving the roles. Here is where the confusion starts. I said improvise the role of a skin diver student. Just because the minimum age is 8 years old, doesn’t mean they have to improvise being 8 ! Leads to some laughs though and misbehaving students!! After skin diving, skill practice and then off to the ocean the following day. Out to the ocean for some more hectic fun, so we headed out off the point of the Manuel Antonio National Park. Deep dive scenario time. One of the advantages here at Go Pro and oceans is we always like to train to just a little bit more than you need, and what better way to run and intro to basic tec than during a deep dive scenario! With every student carrying a pony bottle to do a simulated deco stop, hanging on lift bags. doing all at once is a little trickier than it sounds!! Wrapping up with some search and recovery looking for the missing milk jug (honestly a realistic diver!) its a lot to take in over 4 days, but all a great intro to some essential skills needed as a divemaster. But that’s what we aim for here…a complete rounded dive education so you can go out and enjoy your dream job and just dive!
