The Diver's Log: (12 &13) Internship Day Numero Uno

Hi everyone, as promised I would update everyone on my endeavours as I'm now (after a year of waiting am in the canary islands doing what I love the most - Scuba Diving. And today was my first day properly on the job as a DMT; A Divemaster Trainee. Yes, folks, my now boss concluded that I had enough responsibility and sense to be an almost position of authority. I know, it's frightening isn't.

Anyway, here's a (near enough) hour by hour breakdown of how my first day as an intern went, and then I'll finish up with my final thoughts of the day. That sounded a bit like the end of the Jerry Springer show, I digress, on with the blog.

6:30/45am: Wake up time!

After a little bit of a miscommunication error, I thought we would be leaving today at 7:25 to go to Scuba Sur and start setting up the boxes for the day. Hence the stupidly early wake up time. At least I got to enjoy a leisurely shower, a nice cup of tea, eat my cereal whilst watching the sunrise over Patalavaca. Beautiful.

8:30am: It's Show Time!

The boxes are set up and on the Carrito (golf carts to you and I but I can imagine people would get offended if I started saying that. Sorry team.) So off the lovey Collin and I went. Just to update the blog Collin is my DM mentor, He's a cool scottish dude. The first dive of the day was beach dive were I would be observing a student. This, fellow readers is where the first cock up of my internship occurred. i was kitting up, everything was going great, until I had to get my weight belt on. (This is where it all starts to go belly up.) It was twisted, and it took me 11 or so tries to work out how to sort the problem of the bloody evil twisted weight belt. We got there. So I went down to the beach to find Collin and the student, put my fins on and joined them, we went to descend. Bugger. I wasn't descending. Then my mind drifted back to when we were all kitting up together; Colin said to put extra weights in my pockets for the student and to help me with descending. So back up to the surface, up the beach (In full gear so you can imagine how much I am perspiring at this point.) I grab two extra sets of weight, y thinking; it would help me descend and if the student needs two, I can provide two and not worry about rapidly ascending. Back in the water I go, this time, all runs smoothly. Kudos to Collin for putting up with my cock up his morning. Expect many more to come and many "don't worries" to be said.

12:00pm: Lunch Time -

My favourite time of day, naturally, there's food involved. After having a chat to the team, Collin says to me that he believes I'm a hard worker. Those who know me know that meant the absolute world to me; I'll grapht for this, it will be no different to anything I normally put my mind too, just a bit hotter.

2pm: Second Dive of The Day -

The second dive of the day was a very gentle one as it would be the student's final open water dive to complete her PADI scuba diver course. Located at Bahia Blanca - It's a rocky reef with a wide range of different ecosystems and very beautiful to go and see, due to it's limited depth of 12m, it's perfect for beginners or for a gentle dive. It was a great dive and one I'm happy to say went without a hitch. Plus there were plenty of starfish there to see! After the dive, I don't recall so I'm dropping it into this section; my colleague Sam, taught me how to clean the boat and put all it's coverings on for in future if I'm asked to stay behind after a boat dive and clean it. So that was pretty cool. Cheers, Sam!

4pm: Operation Clean Up -

When the boat has come in and/or the beach divers come in and the students are on their way. We start cleaning the container and preparing the boxes for the following day, it's hard work but I enjoyed it - always nice to learn some new skills.

5:30pm - Home Time -

For me, the day passed really quickly so when the boss said it was home time, I was shocked to see it was already 5:30! So I filled in my logbook as the final job of the day on my personal itinerary; hene why the title contains the numbers 12 and 13, because today we finished dives 12 an 13; 47 to go until dive master status is achieved, and an exam, and everything else...

So that's what my day was like; how was yours? send me an answer in the comments below. All in all, today was pretty good day, I'm slowly starting to find my feet and with a team as supportive as the one I've been blessed with;  I know everything will be just fine.