[Paul Oliver]

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Guys

I attended the BSAC Advanced Instructor Course in Weymouth this weekend and can thoroughly recomend it to anyone who is eligable to attend.

I drove down Fri morning and had a quick warm up dive with Andy the skipper of "Maverick" on the Hood which was superb in a flat sea with 6m of vis, nice relaxing dive even if i did mess up Izzy's directions on the swim through i wanted to do.

Sat morning was a bit of theory stuff followed by lesson planing in groups. We then went out a did our first lessons in Balaclava Bay, 1 70min dive at 12m with about 5m of vis and we got four lessons done. A demo lesson by a National Instructor followed by 1 from each of the students, so we did 2 compass lessons, a lift and shift lesson and mine which was a jackstay search.

This exercise i found very impressive with the amount we got done, although with all the students being Advanced Divers and Open Water Instructors it was a bit unrealistic compared to teaching less experienced divers.

On return to shore we planned Sundays lessons, plus my group got to do the "Passage planing" for the trip out on Sunday morning, a very good revision session on Chartwork.

Sun morning we went out to get another demo lesson from an NI followed by ours on the Binnendyk, a basic wreck in 28m with about 5m of vis. However on the way out we each had to take a 10 min lesson (I did Cardinal Buoys), and we were kept on our toes by the 6 NI's constantly asking us questions on anything and everything on the boat. I made the mistake of idally standing next to a rebriether, and was hit with a string of questions on how it would effect the Dive Marshalling.

In the water lessons continued with me teaching distance lines and then being a student for a mid water individual DSMB deployment, which was very well taught by my South African buddy. On the surface it was question time again as we covered teaching techniques for boat handling lessons. Then ashore for debriefs.

A very good weekend and a great opertunity to exchange views and techniques with other instructors and get outstanding demonstrations and critique and advice from some of BSAC's most senior and experienced instructors.

I would strongly recomend it to any BSAC OWI/AD out there.

Now all i have to do is shed loads of revision for the exams.

Regards

Paul

 

[JohnR]

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Hi Paul,

thanks for this.  I was hoping to go through AI this year but it looks as though this'll have to wait until 2004 now.

Just curious - what was the rebreather for ?  I thought that BSAC guidlines said that they couldn't be used for instruction / courses unless specifically an RB course?

Cheers,  John

 

[722]

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John

BSAC guidelines on rebreather use in training

http://www.bsac.org/techserv/rrc/training.htm

Adrian

 

[Dr Stevil]

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<font color='#0000FF'>Cheers for that Paul, I'm hoping to get on AIC later this year myself, I just need to do my AD theory exam and rescue assessment first, which reminds me I haven't spoken to my DO for ages about these topics.

The AIs I know all reckon it's a good idea not to rush to the exam and get plenty of preparation in first with the Regional bunch
Chee-az
steve

 

[JohnR]

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Adrian,

thanks for the link to revised RB guidelines.  I'm involved mainly in instruction of newbies and don't have an RB either (yet) so it was mainly academic.  I'd picked up on what a friend of mine (NI) had said but this was also for newbies and SDc.

Cheers,  John

 

[Paul Oliver]

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John

Jeff Reed one of the NI's was using it, and as he was my instructor for most of the weekend it was my first time diving with a rebreather diver, and seeing how little extra you needed to know about it to dive with one safely.

It was another NI who started asking me all the questions though. I personally would like to aim for the exam at the end of this season, but i think i will proberably defer to next year.

The problem is getting the Theory passed before the next available practical exam. Also as recomended i want to do the exam in an area i am happy/familiar with to reduce all stress levels etc, so probably only a Portland exam weekend as they don't do them in Dover.

I don't think i will have time between now and the end of the season to get enough revision / practice of all the skills i want to go through, although i was very happy with all the positive aspects of my de-briefs.

I would add that future courses should have a second dive on day 2, ours was not possible due to slack times and boat availability, which is being reviewed following the end of course wash up.

Regards

Paul