Coral Divers: Destination Dive Master

I arrived at Coral Divers in Sodwana, South Africa, after a long, hot drive in an old Landrover that I had kindly been given the use of, while playing a mix of cassette tapes. I had signed up to do my Dive Masters, which would take 4 weeks in total. I had paid in full, with the thought of perhaps staying on for longer. I was eager to know who my Dive Instructor would be.

Eben is 22 years old and is already a fully qualified Dive Instructor with over 200 dives under his belt. He’s full of beans with a good sense of humour. The first phase of this whole journey involves completing an Emergency First Response course, as well as a Rescue Diver course with qualification. Accompanying me was Justyna (or Christina for those who have trouble pronouncing that). She is a 35 year old Polish woman who has travelled the WORLD! We got on like a house on fire that first evening after class.

But today was not huge fun. We were in the classroom with Eben from 7am to 5pm with a 1 hour lunch break. After watching some painfully long PADI videos, which must have been recorded in the 90s, we had to complete some assessments in old-school fashion, perform CPR on Annie the half-torso mannikin with no arms, as well as physically demonstrate what we had learned on one-another.

We also had to discuss any course book questions we were unsure about. Justyna is thorough and had a million questions. My weary eyes noticed a date stamp at the bottom of our answer sheets. 2011. We both agreed that it could use some updating and made some suggestions for the suggestion box.

I could tell that this is one of the more tedious parts of being a Dive Instructor – having to watch the same recycled videos, mark assessments, and re-explain what is common-sense for experienced divers within a classroom setting. Eben admitted that he was playing chess on his phone while we endured the bad acting on screen. But we did make the practical parts fun with plenty of laughs and giggles. I think the three of us are getting along really well. It’s all important.

Tomorrow we will finally be putting on all our scuba gear and hitting the water! This will start with two hours in the pool taking turns to practice what we spent 9 hours learning in the classroom. Then it’s onto a boat and into the ocean to practice! We were told that poor fist-beaten Annie would be coming along.

Next: Rescue Diver Achievement Unlocked