The rest is all a blur!

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I have to say the rest of my time on Koh Tao was just lots of ups and downs. Mainly ups obviously! I carried on after my advanced course to doing my rescue course, which i have to say is one of the hardest things, for me personally, that i've ever had to do. The main and most "enjoyable" part was dealing with panic divers. This basically meant someone in the water screaming "pizza pizza" (you couldn't say 'help' because then everyone would come running - well at least you'd hope!) anyway then you had to kit up as quick as possible jump in and rescue them. But the thing is they saw you as a flotation devise and so sorta jumped on you........whilst wailing hands around frantically....knocking your regulator out, mask off, and then submerging you.....it was fun!! well, it was when you got the hang of it anyway. There is a technique so i discovered....the hard way, i might add. We also had to do things like bringing up unconscious divers to the surface (people pretending obviously) which involved a backwards type straddle, holding there regulator in (honestly my arms just aren't that long!) and swimming up slowly!! so you don't give them decompresison sickness! But nothing beat getting them onto the boat, after doing rescue breaths ofcourse while unkitting them .....1,1000..........unclip.............2,1000......unclip......3,100......unclip.......4,1000...RESCUE BREATH! Oh the memories! anyway once you got it all off - not the wetsuit - including your own kit, you get on the ladder, then you get them on you...one leg one side, one leg the other. Front to front and up you go. A lot easier than it sounds! I'm only small! It did involve a lot of falling back into the water, them on top of you! Oh and search patterns to find empty bottles under water - i was useless. There was much more but i won't bore you with the details.

After rescue it was straight onto divemaster! Which involved lectures on physics, physiology, decompression theory, equipment and much more, and then exams on each. Also the wonders of knowledge reviews at the end of each chapter of the book. There were lots of chapters..urgh. But also the fun parts were assisting on courses, like open water and advanced and rescue courses. This was probably the best part, because we'd just passed these courses we could pass on the knowledge we'd learnt to the next generation of divers, in a way. Seeing peoples first and there last dives was definately satisfying. From spending their first dive pulling them down when they floated up to the surface and telling them....'slow down....breath...it's ok' - in underwater sign - and then on their last dive watching them swimming with confidence, exploring under rocks, it was great!
It was also challenging sometimes with people who found it hard to deal with breathing underwater, but all in all very rewarding most of the time! If not somewhat exhausting! but hey your on a tropical island!

The divmasters in training also had to go through skills circuits to be able to demostrate skills, such as removing and replacing equipment, buddy breathing - sharing a regulator. Remembering the order and signs needed for this was a bit of a chore as well. Mainly because of my amazingly short term memory! Divemaster was a challenge but we all made it...some of us took longer then others! but we made it!
And at the end was the renowned snorkel test! Which involved downing a bucket - alcoholic! as in very little of anything else! - through a snorkel whilst wearing a mask so you couldn't breathe! then putting your head on a stool and running around a stool three times, and then running into the sea. Where some but not i, chundered! Many have been known not to make it from the dive bar....poor show i say!....at least Becca and Neil got to dragon bar before being escorted home! but I have to say Tracy, Amy and I were THE BEST lol we lasted the whole night if not a bit embaressingly....but hey we made it!!!

Well this entry is getting a bit long so maybe I'll start another one for the rest of the fun stuff!

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