For the guys about to sit the DIR-Fundamentals Course at Capernwray

[Davey Willo]

Just thought I'd cut and paste these thoughts posted to the Quest list by a guy who appears to be very pleased with what he took from his DIR-F class

I hope you guys get as much from yours, good luck and best wishes to you all.

I'll be seeing you all at Cappy as I'm coming along to be a DIR Dive groupie..

Heres the report..

> I just returned from the Croatian island of PAG where the diving
> center FOKA-SUB in the village Kosljun hosted a small DIR-F class for
> 3 people between 3 & 5 September.
>
> I will forego posting yet another lengthy DIR-F class report out
> there, as nothing especially unique happened in our class.
>
> Here the brief scoop:
>
> Mario Arena was our instructor, and fully lived up to, if not
> exceeded, his reputation as a great instructor.
>
> Here some real basic info on us students:
>
> Tomislav Ban; Male; Croatian citizen; Divemaster
> Petra Kovac-Konrad; Female; Croatian citizen; Instructor
> Jack Petri; Male; US citizen; Divemaster
>
> All three of us agree that this has been one of the most rich learning
> experiences we have had in our diving careers.
>
> -For myself I can say that I wish I would have had taken this class
> before filling my pockets with the usual array of flashy C-Cards and
> spending several hundred dives ingraining a plethora of bad diving
> habits deeper and deeper into to my conscious and sub-conscious diving
> routines.
>
> As so-called "certified professionals" the three of us certainly have
> alot to think about in terms of our future activities as divemasters,
> and the intructor in our class seems to be especially pensive about
> how she will pass on this new knowledge to her OW students.
>
> One of the greatest values for us aside from the academic, is that the
> three of us are diving buddies in our free time and will easily be
> able to continue training with each other -it would certainly be
> rather strange for me to have taken this class with strangers, then
> returning to a group of standard diving buddies!
>
> There are already several people in our local group of diving peers
> who are asking when the next Croatian DIR-F class will take place, and
> especially noteworthy is the that Vedran Dorusic, the
> owner/intstructor of DC FOKA-SUB (after having had the chance to
> observe portions of our class from the sidelines) has said he will
> definately be taking DIR-F as soon as possible. -Thank you Vedran for
> all of your logistical support during this class!
>
> Once again a big THANKS ALOT to Mario Arena -we are already looking
> forward to Tech 1 next May!
>
> Although small in number, and still taking our first steps,
> DIR-Croatia is now officially in exsistence, and we send warms
> greetings to all of you out there -we look forward to raising the
> local benchmark for recreational and exploration diving in the future
> with your support!
>
> A big thanks to the Quest list for answering my occasional questions
> during the past year I have been subscribed (and also a big thank-you
> to GUE for the Quest archive which continues to answer 99.9% of DIR
> and diving related questions that come to mind!)
>
> Back to lurking mode now...
>
> best regards,
>
> Jack Petri
> Zagreb, Croatia