PADI Specialty of the month for November 2009; Underwater Navigation

PADI Specialty of the month for November 2009; Underwater Navigation

Underwater Navigation is one of the more popular dive specialties that I teach here on Koh Samui. It's popular amongst both divers and also Instructors who just passed their IDC's.

One of the main assets to have is an underwater compass. These come in various designs and from various brands. Interestingly enough they also come for various zones, like this Suunto SK 7 pictured above.

The horizontal and vertical components of earth’s magnetic field vary considerably in different
locations. For this reason (Suunto) compasses are balanced for (5) different zones. If the compass is used in an adjacent balancing zone the compass needle will tilt only slightly. However, the farther the compass is used from it’s intended zone, the more the needle will tilt. In extreme
situations the needle might stick. For this reason it is very important to know in which country
the compass will be used.

Underwater navigation can be challenging, but in the Underwater Navigator Specialty course, you master the challenge.You learn the tools of the trade, including navigation via natural clues and by compass. You learn to estimate distance underwater, follow navigation patterns and know where you are while following an arbitrary, irregular course using the Nav-Finder.

Part of the course also includes practicing patterns whilst land based, like Olivier and Craig are doing in the picture above, after they completed the October 2009 IDC.

As part of the specialty, you will also need to swim a pattern underwater and navigate from one point to another, a course that is set out with help of markers, as in this picture. Because of the variety of activities in this specialty course and the importance of being able to navigate well underwater and understanding your compass, this specialty is so popular amongst the various specialties on offer.

Hope to see you soon on our PADI Underwater Navigation Specialty of the Month 2009 and enjoy your 10% discount off the course price.

Camille

The prep course for the November IDC has been completed

The IDC Prep course for November has been completed

Loyal followers of the this blog know pretty much what is involved on an IDC prep course but here we go one more time, lots of red tape needs to get out of the way for starters, get those liability releases signed!

Than there are 5 theory exams that are covered over two days in an IDC prep, Physics, Physiology, RDP, General skills & Environment and last but not least; Equipment. Here are the guys in action, Nigel in the front row, Gregory who completed the IDC last month but decided to wait with the PADI IE for another month and will be refreshing some skills and presentations during this IDC, Imad who's completing his IDCS course and James who did complete his IDCS course last month and is back to staff this IDC.

James staffing away and contemplating what score he's going to give.

Nigel and Imad during the buddy breathing swim of the skill circuit. Said skill circuit, consisting of 20 skills is also parts of the Prep course.

And last but not least, rescue exercise # 7, practice again and again and again.

See you later for more AI course updates.

Camille

Imad's IDCS course is underway

Imad's IDCS course is underway

Picked Imad up from the airport on Samui at 11am and brought him to his hotel to check in and immediately we went off to start his IDCS course. Pretty much straight from the airport into the classroom. Imad completed his IDC earlier this year in February.

Imad during his evaluation training during which he has to watch video's of training scenarios and needs to evaluate within a certain range of the score that PADI has set.

Towards the end of the day I almost had to tie Imad down to his chair, fatigue was setting in and he managed just to finish in time to get some well deserved food and catch up on sleep after he left Dubai last night. More tomorrow when the IDC kicks off.

Camille

DUP Specialty @ Sail Rock

DUP Specialty @ Sail Rock

As already mentioned in yesterday's post, today we would complete the Instructor Specialty training with a DUP dive. We started the day however with a Multilevel dive and there was some great visibility and it was a great reminder why Sail Rock is my favorite dive site in the Gulf of Thailand.

The pictures turned out so well that I had to post them, so here are some of today's selection.

During the Multilevel dive, it was almost as we were diving in fish soup in clear water and when you looked up, there was layer upon layer of different school of fish all the way up to the surface.

This picture is taken at around 28 meters depth and I hope it shows a little bit what I experienced.

During the second dive of the day, the actual DUP dive, Bruno spotted this jellyfish off the wall and I swam over and got some great pictures. As usual, there was small fish swimming around and inside the jelly, feeding off it. The interesting part however is that a bigger fish is trapped inside the jellyfish and is being consumed by said jelly. If you look closely you can see the tail of the fish sticking out a bit to the left in the middle of the picture, with the big shiny thing under the jelly's skin being the body of the trapped fish.

It was underwater animal galore today and we saw plenty of white eyed murray eels, this being one of them. Some of the divers on today's trip also spotted a giant murray eel. It turned out that we were deeper than the giant's murray location on the rock, hence we missed it.

There were also various sightings of small scale scorpion fishes, like this one, a real beauty, sitting on an outcropping rock, showing off it's pectoral fins.

Here's a family member of the previous small scale scorpion fish and I just like the way the lighting comes out in this picture and gives it a little bit more of a 'threatening' look. As if a scorpion fish needs it to start with.

It was absolute nudi branch galore today though! Identifying nudi branches is almost an art in itself.

Here's another unusual nudi branch to me, but today the rock seemed to be plastered with them! According to my research this is a Phyllidia ocellata (Phyllidiidae), a mouth full indeed!

Besides these two specialties, Gregory also did his Fish ID dive, instead of the DUP dive.

All in all a good days diving and now it's back to reality with an IDC and IDCS course coming up in just a few more days. Stay tuned for more info and updates.

Camille

Instructor Specialty training for October 2009

Instructor Specialty training for October 2009

It's almost completed and it was a busy month on top of that, for Specialty training. We started out with the Emergency Oxygen provider and instructor courses, pretty much directly followed by the Gas Blender and Gas Blender Instructor courses. The latter two are very challenging but also a lot of fun to participate in and to teach. We also completed the Equipment specialty, so lots of land based activities.
The reason is that there are plenty of participants in the Go Pro CDC and Platinum packages and these very comprehensive packages have a lot of specialties in them.
Craig is now also starting his MSDT internship soon, during which he gets to certify 25 PADI students at various levels.


By now it was to get wet and we went to Chaweng Beach to take some Underwater Navigation, Search & Recovery and Night diving courses under attack. Yesterday evening we id the night dive!

Working with a lift bag and learning the proper procedures on how to correctly fill and use a lift bag were being practiced during the Search & Recovery course.

Here's an interesting shot of squid eggs, that get deposited all over the region and loads of them can be found on Chaweng beach. Mmm, makes for some yummy 'plaa meuk' dishes! Specialty training has it's advantages.

For two deep dives we went to Sail Rock and the visibility was great and two great dives were had by all of us. With a bit of luck, the weather will hold on tomorrow, since we'll be back there to complete a DUP-, Multilevel- and Aware Fish ID dive.

On top of all this action we (Craig, Bruno, Olivier and me) also went to Pattaya to do some Wreck diving and they also completed Underwater Naturalist dives. All month long we had lovely weather which made the diving so much more enjoyable. Dives here were made on Nitrox and by now they're all Nitrox instructors.

At the end of a days diving, almost back home, the Big Buddha can be seen from it's back, near the pier.

Jut a few more days and the new IDC is about to start already. See you and stay tuned.

Camille

Diving with sharks in Bangkok

Diving with sharks in Bangkok

How is that possible, diving with sharks in Bangkok? It's not that difficult actually, Planet Scuba, the dive company I work with, their office in Bangkok runs the aquarium dives at Siam Ocean World and it's a great experience.

First I met with Toby, one of my former and also one of my very first IDC candidates at the Planet Scuba Bangkok shop on Sukhumvit, near BTS station Phrom Phong and we made our way over to Siam Paragon, where Siam Ocean World is located.


A view outside of the tank with some ragged tooth sharks swimming by, in a moment I'll be in the midst among them!


The entrance fee for Siam Ocean World is included in the fee for the shark dive and it's well worth checking out the various tanks and fish that are on display. There's a also a section where a lot of yet to be identified species are displayed and amongst those species is this rather rare longnosed stargazer.

The actual dive, a ragged tooth shark or grey nurse shark swims within inches from me, on various occasions. Currently there are 11 of them in the tank! The tank itself is really big and you can easily dive around for a good bit, sit down for a while and enjoy the view of these great predators cruising by and take the environment in. There are also leopard sharks, tawny nurse sharks and a couple of blacktips.

An Eagle ray, cruising by in a section of the aquarium. The animals kind of split up the areas in the aquarium so each has it's own territories, more or less. These eagle rays can change color and turn completely black which is an amazing sight. There are also blotched marble ray's and various other ray species. It's also great to interact with the spectators outside of the tank, who seem to be waving non stop and are seemingly almost more excited about seeing divers than I was seeing the sharks and rays! Besides the sharks and rays there are also plenty of trevallys and snappers.

After the dive, Toby and me with big smiles on our faces. Thanks Toby, it was a great 40 minute dive and I enjoyed it very much! The instructors that take you on the shark dives are all very experienced and will make sure that you have a good time.

Here's my logbook, with some shark tooth that Toby picked up.

It's official, I dived with the sharks in Bangkok!

To top it off, here's my first uploaded video on my blogs, with footage of a ragged tooth shark.

It's a real great experience and I enjoyed every moment of it and time flew by when you're in the aquarium. If you're interested, you can book online or just sign up at the spur of the moment whilst visiting Siam Ocean World at Siam Paragon, an instructor will be there all day long and you can pretty much jump in at any time, except during feeding times although Toby recommended the morning as the best time of the day to dive with the sharks in Bangkok and Discover Scuba Diving is also on offer, what better way of taking your breaths underwater can you think of, than doing it with some real life sharks!

Camille

One more wreck diving trip in Pattaya completed

One more wreck diving trip in Pattaya completed

Yesterday it was in the bag after two days of wreck diving the HTMS Khraam in Pattaya, pictured below. It was the second trip this year and the fourth time in total that I was able to organize this trip.

We dived three times on the HTMS Khraam, which gave my three students, Bruno, Craig and Olivier plenty of opportunity to familiarize themselves with the wreck and hence, the third dive of the series was the most relaxed and enjoyable dive which generated most pictures.

How colorful it can be inside shows this picture of some bright purple fan, however, without the flash on the camera it looks rather drab at the depth we went to, around 25 to 20 meters in average. Visibility in Pattaya is not always that great but it adds to the experience and gives an additional challenge on these otherwise rather easy diveable wrecks in the area.

All wrecks cater as home to plenty of undersea live, including lots of scorpion fish, as this profile shot of one of them shows.

The one non wreck dive we did was also very enjoyable and during the Aware Fish ID dive we encountered this lovely cuttle fish. We completed more specialties besides the wreck diving specialty, also Underwater Naturalist was completed and we used Nitrox on a few dives.

During the ascent, hanging out during the safety stop. At 12, 9 and 5 meters we had safety stops to off gas nitrogen in our bodies.

A great way to spend the weekend and I'm looking forward to the next trip. Thanks guys for embarking on this adventure.

Camille