Luke Evans continues his Divemaster journey, and as well as the stamina tests, he experienced life at the sharp end – briefing and guiding on the dive boats at Buddy Dive Resort.
Day Two
My second day started with my first ‘staff’ breakfast, which is where you get a little takeaway box and grab a ‘quick breakfast’, so I hit up the pastries! I should have had something with a bit more energy packed into it as after I’d finished, I was told by Lars that I would be completing my water skills and stamina module. This was to prove that you had the necessary fitness to be a PADI Divemaster.
The first test was a 400-metre swim, which I completed in a solid time, as well as a 15-minute float/tread at the end of the swim, and for the last two minutes you had to do it with your hands out of the water. I was then given the task to complete the 800-meter snorkel. These tests where challenging and tiring, but a good example of endurance.
After another lunch break, which was chicken wings and rice that day – I told you food was important! – I had my second dive of the PADI Divemaster course. This was again the 25 skills, but instead of my instructor performing the skill and then me copying, I had to rely on my memory of not only the skill, but the steps and level of demonstration required. He would also be scoring me on my skills this time round, so the added pressure was there.
But before we even descended for the dive on the Buddy House Reef, I had to complete my last stamina skill, which was a 100-metre tired diver tow, which is one of the most-exhausting skills of the stamina skill set in my opinion, as you have to get a certain time to recieve a higher mark out of 5.
We were then able to start our dive and run through the skill set, which went very well in my eyes and I only had very few minor issues. Lars said I would have got a great overall score, which gave me a boost of confidence – this was only day two!
fter the dive I was not done, as I had to conduct a PADI Skindiver workshop, where I would ‘train’ and guide a student (my instructor) through the PADI Skindiver course. This meant getting the student up to date with the Buddy Dive snorkelling safety regulations, as well as an overview of some skills and rules.
I then had to take my student on a small snorkel tour, keeping my eye out for things that might happen safety wise but also keeping my orientation for guiding, which is much easier on the surface snorkelling than underwater – but that would come later in my first week.
Day Three
Tuesday was my first time being part of the staff on the dive boat. I would be on Little Buddy, which is the smallest boat in their fleet, but still my responsibility was there. I started the day by watching how the staff and crew got the boats ready for divers, which included making sure to load the right amount of tanks as well as organise medical and safety supplies for each boat going out. Finally came the time to invite the guests on board, and I made note of how the safety briefing was described, as well as loading and helping people and their kit get on to the boat.
After this we pushed off from the dock at Buddy Dive and went to the north of the island to dive Small Wall, a local boat and shore diving site which is a nice sloping reef but with a small section of sheer drop-off. These boat dives, myself and instructor Alvaro would be guiding a small group of five divers.
For the first dive, Alvaro would do the dive brief and guide and I would be at the back of the group just in case some of the newer Open Water Divers that were in the group lost control of their bouyancy, which did happen a few times but with my positioning, I was able to offer assistance before they got too shallow or too deep.
For the second dive, we moved up the Northside to Jeff Davies’ Reef. For this dive I would be giving the briefing as well as guiding the dive, which went very well – I was able to remember all of the safety concerns during the briefing and was able to guide and show divers things I spotted, as well as asking for air and knowing when to turn the group around and return to the boat. This is relatively easy as Bonaire has a very sloping coastline, but helped me understand the pressure and risk you have when guiding a group of divers.
After this dive we headed back and after helping get all of the divers and their kit as well as the medical supplies and empty tanks off the boat, it was time to meet back up with Lars.
After lunch, for the second part of the day, Lars had planned to do the serach and rescue workshop, which meant jumping in for a dive with some sunglasses, wieghts and a liftbag! After swimming up to the back of one of the boats, I had to drop the sunglasses and then swim back to a training area to leave the weights and liftbag.
We then returned to the area we dropped the glasses and conducted an expanding square search pattern untill we found said sunglasses, bringing a realistic twist to the exercise.
After this we went back to the training area and conducted a U-shaped search pattern until we found the weights again, and then I was tasked with attaching the liftbag – with knots I practiced on the surface – and then bringing it to the surface and completing the workshop.
Day Four
For the start of day four, I was again on Little Buddy but this time I had slightly more of a key role as I had to gather all of the medical supplies as well as getting the boat moored and stocked with the correct amount of both air and nitrox tanks ready for the guests.
After this we called the guests over and carried out a headcount to make sure everone that was supposed to be on the boat that day was present. After I made sure that everyone was on board, we set off for Klein Bonaire, and our first stop was at the dive site Ebo’s Special.
For this dive I would have to do the safety briefing for the dive and make sure everyone was comfortable with the safety standards and procedures on the boat, not only this but I was also guiding the dive and helping the newer Open Water Divers to better control their bouyancy and at the same time pointing out creatures of interest like turtles and moray eels for the other divers.
For the second dive we travelled to the north of the mainland of Bonaire to dive Jeff Davies again, as there had been mention of some reef sharks that had been seen there, but sadly to no avail – no shark action but still some turtles, and a seahorse in the shallows on our safety stop.
After that dive we headed back to Buddy Dive and I was shown some of the methods for docking the boats, which was very interesting to me and I definitely enjoyed that part of the day. Then it was again time for lunch, which I had in my room for a change as I had been to the supermarket a few days before to get some food supplies and snacks, but the main reason was to edit some photos from the day before.
For the afternoon I had a nice change of scenery, which was taking on a Discover Scuba Diving workshop with some IDC candidates. A big group of us headed to the pool to create some scenarios of how a DSD might look as well as looking at some ways to control a DSD in open water, which we moved to the Buddy House Reef for. This meant taking some ‘DSD’ students on a tour of the reef but making sure to have full control over their bouyancy and air consumption.
This was a fun way to look into teaching or helping with a course, but I think we were all a bit too nice to each other as most of us were staying in trim and not really getting out of control, but it was still a good way to end day four, finishing off the day with some beverages and a nice meal – it was Italian night at Blennies…
