nickjb
Contributor
Well here it is.
The first UK DIRf course. We were the guinea pigs (or should that be ferrets?). The course was in Portland, Dorset. A very popular dive location, although pretty quiet this time of year. The course was run by UK instructor, Andy Kerslake although AndrewG was over get thing running smoothly. In the end AndrewG did almost all of the teaching.
The course was due to start at 8:00 but most of us were staying in the Aqua Hotel so we met up for breakfast. Full English nearly all round. After breakfast we moved into one of the hotel reception rooms and changed into our undersuits while the other people on the course turned up. Two surprises here: firstly Chris Boardman (Olympic gold medallist etc.) arrived to join in and report on the course for 'Diver' magazine secondly the sheer number of people. I was expecting 5 or 6 as this seems to be normal from other reports I've read, but there was 12 of us. This was within the letter of GUE rules as there were two instructors but as most the course was with AndrewG teaching and AndyK assisting it seemed crowded. I think this detracted from the quality of teaching. It was also bigger than any PADI class I've ever seen (I thought I'd mention this as most of the popular agencies got quite a roasting during the course). Anyway, back the course.
We had a quick run through of names and experience. we ranged from around 50 to 700 dives. In our undersuits we did a little stretching and AndrewG ran through how undersuits werent designed for diving. We then put on our Drysuits for more stretching and more of AndrewG describing how drysuits weren't designed for diving. Next, we put our backplates on. AndrewG described the proper and improper fit using us as examples. AndrewG and AndyK then helped us on a one-to-one level to get ours set-up correctly. This was very thorough and I think most people found it very useful. Next we added regs (cable tied to the backplate). Andrew took us through the correct configuration and air sharing drills. The proper drill is very thorough and I'd certainly been missing a few steps previously.
During the morning I met up with fellow scubaboarder WetLettuce. I'm sure he add a few comments and correct my glaring errors
Pool availability was a limiting factor and we had to go to the pool a little earlier that AndrewG would have liked. First we got down on the floor while AndrewG ran through the five basic kicks (Frog, mod frog, mod flutter, backwards and helicopter) and proper trim position. These where hard. It didn't take long before there where plenty of aching backs, knees and (especially) ankles. Once we had a reasonable idea of what to do (ie didn't do a backwards kick instead of a frog) we kitted up and jumped in the water in groups of three. Quite a relief as we'd been in the drysuits for a couple of hours, although the water wasn't very cooling.
We did laps of the pool changing kicks every turn under the ever watchful eyes of AndyK and AndrewG. After a lot of laps and more instruction we had to demonstrate each kick in groups of six in front of the camera. We weren't pretty (violation of rule 6) a quite a few backwards kicks involved going forwards (into the pool wall ). My own trim and kicking was way off. While we waited for the second group my group did some air sharing drills. These went much better.
Back to the hotel for lunch. A very British fish and chips for me. I needed the energy boost.
The afternoon consisted of lectures and a review of the video from the pool session; No one was looking forward to that. Fortunately we were all pretty bad. It really was a great leveller for all the experience levels. As AndrewG ran through the video there was much pausing and rewinding. "Who's that?" AndrewG would bellow, each time "me" would be the sheepish response from somewhere on the floor. This was a great learning experience for all. No matter how good you felt in the pool the video showed the truth. Even if you have no plans to take the course borrow an underwater video camera and have someone tape you. You'll be amazed.
We finished around 8pm. Just enough time for a pint before dinner. AndrewG gets a Guinness for each time someone forgets to clip off their primary reg. Fortunately he didn't cash them all in.
Most people sloped of to bed early a little tired and more than a little dejected.
Next morning...
Once again we met for breakfast, more full English.
Wet backplates on for S drills and buddy skills.
Our sea dives were looming. The force 8 never turned up and it was decided that we would dive off the beach at the back of the hotel.
We split into four groups of three. I was buddied with WetLettuce and Chris Boardman (and his two photographers). The water was a cool 7 degrees C (45 F) with around 2m viz (when we started). We dropped to 3m and positioned ourselves above the silty bottom. As we ran through the skills the viz deteriorated and we had to keep moving. I guess our fin kicks weren't quite perfect yet . Somewhere along the way we lost WetLettuce; a couple of people decided against doing the sea dives so the groups were rearranged. My fin kicks and general positioning were pretty poor but I got through the skills with some semblance of buoyancy control. I found it hard in the shallow water especially when Id lost sight of the bottom and had no visual reference. I have a lot to practice, but at least I now know what to practice.
Out the water, dekitted and broke for lunch.
The second dive was more skills, shutdowns and shooting a bag. I couldn't do the shutdown in my singles rig and no amount of tugging my arm from AndyK could make it work. ChrisB ran through his very smoothly. He also shot the bag with moderate ease (he later confessed to having practiced that a lot). I've never used a spool and have little experience with dsmbs so I found the whole thing very difficult to do while still maintaining good trim, buoyancy and position. After a brief trip to the surface I gave up, another thing to practice. We managed to stir up a lot less silt this time and our positional control was generally a lot better.
More lectures in the afternoon. We mostly covered gas management. This was pretty informative and I found it very useful. Some of the calculations where based on rules of thumb the reasoning was a little bit glossed over. Throughout this AndrewG demonstrated his mastery of the numbers. While the bordered on showing off it demonstrated how using a few simple rules and standard mixes allowed him to calculate and recalculate with ease.
We were finished by 6pm. While I was expecting another half day I'm not sure there was much else we could have covered and my brain was certainly full and my body drained.
Into the bar for a couple of pints before dinner and more Guinness owed to AndrewG.
Overall it was very useful. I don't think it was quite the revelation that it was for some of the others on the course. I have read a lot on scubaboard and other websites and was fairly well informed but this was no substitute for doing the course and experiencing it first hand.
This is not a course for the beginner. Several of the experienced divers said they wished they had been shown some of this stuff years ago but if you are still unsteady in the water then task loading would be a bit much. Anyone who comes on the course needs to expect to be taken down a rung or three. You will be criticised (but mostly by yourself).
I found some of digs at PADI and other mass market agencies and various equipment manufactures a bit unnecessary. Some of the reasons why things are done one way and not another were a bit weak and AndrewG would often change the subject or give a standard response rather than debate a point. This was definitely in the minority, though. Most things where well reasoned and well explained.
It has certainly made me think about my diving, my dive planning and my equipment. I have several changes to make to all of these things and I have a lot to practice but I know where I am heading.
I'm sure I've missed a few things out so I'll add them when I think of them
Safe Diving
Nick
The first UK DIRf course. We were the guinea pigs (or should that be ferrets?). The course was in Portland, Dorset. A very popular dive location, although pretty quiet this time of year. The course was run by UK instructor, Andy Kerslake although AndrewG was over get thing running smoothly. In the end AndrewG did almost all of the teaching.
The course was due to start at 8:00 but most of us were staying in the Aqua Hotel so we met up for breakfast. Full English nearly all round. After breakfast we moved into one of the hotel reception rooms and changed into our undersuits while the other people on the course turned up. Two surprises here: firstly Chris Boardman (Olympic gold medallist etc.) arrived to join in and report on the course for 'Diver' magazine secondly the sheer number of people. I was expecting 5 or 6 as this seems to be normal from other reports I've read, but there was 12 of us. This was within the letter of GUE rules as there were two instructors but as most the course was with AndrewG teaching and AndyK assisting it seemed crowded. I think this detracted from the quality of teaching. It was also bigger than any PADI class I've ever seen (I thought I'd mention this as most of the popular agencies got quite a roasting during the course). Anyway, back the course.
We had a quick run through of names and experience. we ranged from around 50 to 700 dives. In our undersuits we did a little stretching and AndrewG ran through how undersuits werent designed for diving. We then put on our Drysuits for more stretching and more of AndrewG describing how drysuits weren't designed for diving. Next, we put our backplates on. AndrewG described the proper and improper fit using us as examples. AndrewG and AndyK then helped us on a one-to-one level to get ours set-up correctly. This was very thorough and I think most people found it very useful. Next we added regs (cable tied to the backplate). Andrew took us through the correct configuration and air sharing drills. The proper drill is very thorough and I'd certainly been missing a few steps previously.
During the morning I met up with fellow scubaboarder WetLettuce. I'm sure he add a few comments and correct my glaring errors
Pool availability was a limiting factor and we had to go to the pool a little earlier that AndrewG would have liked. First we got down on the floor while AndrewG ran through the five basic kicks (Frog, mod frog, mod flutter, backwards and helicopter) and proper trim position. These where hard. It didn't take long before there where plenty of aching backs, knees and (especially) ankles. Once we had a reasonable idea of what to do (ie didn't do a backwards kick instead of a frog) we kitted up and jumped in the water in groups of three. Quite a relief as we'd been in the drysuits for a couple of hours, although the water wasn't very cooling.
We did laps of the pool changing kicks every turn under the ever watchful eyes of AndyK and AndrewG. After a lot of laps and more instruction we had to demonstrate each kick in groups of six in front of the camera. We weren't pretty (violation of rule 6) a quite a few backwards kicks involved going forwards (into the pool wall
). My own trim and kicking was way off. While we waited for the second group my group did some air sharing drills. These went much better.Back to the hotel for lunch. A very British fish and chips for me. I needed the energy boost.
The afternoon consisted of lectures and a review of the video from the pool session; No one was looking forward to that. Fortunately we were all pretty bad. It really was a great leveller for all the experience levels. As AndrewG ran through the video there was much pausing and rewinding. "Who's that?" AndrewG would bellow, each time "me" would be the sheepish response from somewhere on the floor. This was a great learning experience for all. No matter how good you felt in the pool the video showed the truth. Even if you have no plans to take the course borrow an underwater video camera and have someone tape you. You'll be amazed.
We finished around 8pm. Just enough time for a pint before dinner. AndrewG gets a Guinness for each time someone forgets to clip off their primary reg. Fortunately he didn't cash them all in.
Most people sloped of to bed early a little tired and more than a little dejected.
Next morning...
Once again we met for breakfast, more full English.
Wet backplates on for S drills and buddy skills.
Our sea dives were looming. The force 8 never turned up and it was decided that we would dive off the beach at the back of the hotel.
We split into four groups of three. I was buddied with WetLettuce and Chris Boardman (and his two photographers). The water was a cool 7 degrees C (45 F) with around 2m viz (when we started). We dropped to 3m and positioned ourselves above the silty bottom. As we ran through the skills the viz deteriorated and we had to keep moving. I guess our fin kicks weren't quite perfect yet
. Somewhere along the way we lost WetLettuce; a couple of people decided against doing the sea dives so the groups were rearranged. My fin kicks and general positioning were pretty poor but I got through the skills with some semblance of buoyancy control. I found it hard in the shallow water especially when Id lost sight of the bottom and had no visual reference. I have a lot to practice, but at least I now know what to practice.Out the water, dekitted and broke for lunch.
The second dive was more skills, shutdowns and shooting a bag. I couldn't do the shutdown in my singles rig and no amount of tugging my arm from AndyK could make it work. ChrisB ran through his very smoothly. He also shot the bag with moderate ease (he later confessed to having practiced that a lot). I've never used a spool and have little experience with dsmbs so I found the whole thing very difficult to do while still maintaining good trim, buoyancy and position. After a brief trip to the surface I gave up, another thing to practice. We managed to stir up a lot less silt this time and our positional control was generally a lot better.
More lectures in the afternoon. We mostly covered gas management. This was pretty informative and I found it very useful. Some of the calculations where based on rules of thumb the reasoning was a little bit glossed over. Throughout this AndrewG demonstrated his mastery of the numbers. While the bordered on showing off it demonstrated how using a few simple rules and standard mixes allowed him to calculate and recalculate with ease.
We were finished by 6pm. While I was expecting another half day I'm not sure there was much else we could have covered and my brain was certainly full and my body drained.
Into the bar for a couple of pints before dinner and more Guinness owed to AndrewG.
Overall it was very useful. I don't think it was quite the revelation that it was for some of the others on the course. I have read a lot on scubaboard and other websites and was fairly well informed but this was no substitute for doing the course and experiencing it first hand.
This is not a course for the beginner. Several of the experienced divers said they wished they had been shown some of this stuff years ago but if you are still unsteady in the water then task loading would be a bit much. Anyone who comes on the course needs to expect to be taken down a rung or three. You will be criticised (but mostly by yourself).
I found some of digs at PADI and other mass market agencies and various equipment manufactures a bit unnecessary. Some of the reasons why things are done one way and not another were a bit weak and AndrewG would often change the subject or give a standard response rather than debate a point. This was definitely in the minority, though. Most things where well reasoned and well explained.
It has certainly made me think about my diving, my dive planning and my equipment. I have several changes to make to all of these things and I have a lot to practice but I know where I am heading.
I'm sure I've missed a few things out so I'll add them when I think of them
Safe Diving
Nick
