Phew ! After an intense few days, the next group of instructor candidates are ready for the ever approaching PADI instructor exam, which will be held here in Quepos on the 29th and 30th January. With all the students at +Go Pro Costa Rica at the moment it has been fun and games with divemaster candidates mixing it up with instructor candidates, some specialty and specialty instructor training thrown in and it is non-stop fun. Yesterday we finished up our open water dives with some specialty instructor dive training, specifically deep dive instructor training and search and recovery training. with the instructor development program at Go Pro Costa Rica, I have been experimenting somewhat with mixing up the standard open water presentations with specialty instructor presentations. This allows for some extra practice , more water time and pretty much, fun all round.
During specialty instructor training, the PADI instructor candidate will practice all of the skills from the specialty course, at demo standard, as well as look over the knowledge development sections, standards and structuring of the course. Marketing options are addressed too. Now whilst some of you may not be as interested in the whole "marketing and selling" aspect of every course, it is undeniable important as a scuba diving professional, if you can’t sell and make your course interesting, you’ll never get to teach it, boo for you!
So, how do you add that extra element ? As a tec instructor, this is the fun, I have literally turned my deep dive course into a tec intro. Part of the standards is to include a simulated emergency decompression stop of 8 minutes, so I like to always throw in the addition of carrying a deco bottle. For many divers at this stage, entering into their professional diving career, technical diving isn’t something that has been tried yet, so one of the basic technical dive skills of carrying a dec bottle is something new and exciting. Many divers ask me about technical diving, so this offers a glimpse into that side of diving. Other skills we try out include lift bag use from depth, which is always interesting, switching from inflating the lift bag with an alternate air source to exhaust valve from your primary. Reasoning behind this is to preserve your air, as with technical diving you calculate all of your gas management. No whilst we are not calculating it for these deep dives, it gives a hint into the theory and thought behind it. Finishing off this IDC we are going to also cover Enriched air and equipment theory. By the time you leave here, you certainly get a full spectrum of experience !