By the time it came to the IE we were all in different stages of readiness. Bruce and I had gone over his physics so many times he was talking about gasses in his sleep.  The Friday afternoon came and at the appointed hour we joined around 50 other candidates in the exam hall. The examiners were later than we expected but they tried to calm us down with some chat. Maybe it was just me but all I wanted was the exam paper, the time to do it in and to get out.

"Before"

All the practice, revision and the discussions helped as we all got through the papers. Some scraped a pass, some passed with high marks, and one of us had a resit to do the next day. But after the first day we were all still in with a chance to become Open Water Instructors.  Even coming out to torrential rain would not dampen our spirits. A couple of guys went for a relaxing massage, but most of us headed to the school room to chat about the day and begin preparations for the morning. We had been given our skill set to teach and after an hour or so some of us went for a beer, (Its sociable to spend time together!!!)

"Beer O'Clock"

Next morning we met at seven, in various states of readiness.  But we knew that this session in the pool would be easy.  We had been taught well.  We had practiced teaching skills and knew what would be expected of us.  Separated into two groups we were all having side bets as to which group would have the highest average score. As it turned out we scored well, better than every dive center there. Why – because we had worked hard to make sure we got it right. Our Course Directors knew we would do well, because they knew that they way they taught us was the right way.

"Time to get wet"

Presentations in the afternoon flew past. We had been given our subject to present about on the Friday night and had worked examples into the presentations well. For Project AWARE, when the group were asked to suggest something old, someone suggested their Grandfather! Even the examiners loved this example.  3 parts gone and tomorrows Open Water session was to be the last. Would be Instructors nearer their dream as our resit man had scored over 90% in his resit. Christophe’s  lunchtime session paying dividends again.

Sunday morning at 7 we arrived outside the “Scuba Cat front shop”. The confidence was high but you could feel the nerves. Maybe one or two beers the night before were not the ideal way, or the Disco crowd were coming down from the dancing high, but we jumped into the pick up more subdued. Bruce and Christian had their sea sick tablets as we headed off to Racha Noi for our last session.

"Day 3"

Staying in our groups of four, we were delighted to see that one group got off to the best start by floating through the Rescue Scenario. Again all the practice had paid off, I was remembering my Instructor in Scotland’s voice pacing me through the whole thing. Didn’t matter though as Christophe told us to get out HIS ocean. One more session and the dream was reality. All 8 still in the game and now buzzing.

We went down to around 10m to be met by Jim our examiner.  Going through each of our two skills, when I surfaced with Alfredo after the CESA – Jim said we were in the game and that’s all we needed. When our second group joined us, the hilarity took over. Some other centers had pupils in the water re-doing their Rescue Scenario!! We couldn’t believe it. Some of them seemed to be doing it for the first ever time. Looking at them struggling to remove equipment made us realize that we were good Rescue Divers, and that our practice had paid off.

"Team Dec 2010"

Thanks again Ceri, Find out the result tomorrow……………..

The video footage of the Thai Girls, thanks Matt for all your work on that day, I know it must have been hard work!

http://youtu.be/Ets-aK7lPsc

Another big thank you to Jelena Rsumovic who completed her internship with us during 2011. She  completed all courses with Scuba Cat Diving from Divemaster to Instructor.

Scuba Cat Diving Phuket Thailand Instructor Internship

“I had a very professional and organised environment where I completed my divemaster and instructor internship. The divemaster course was the hard one, but today like an instructor, I feel very confident about the skills that I had learnt. I had the opportunity to guide customers on the boats, assist courses etc. I have 200+ dives now, and I am thankful to Scubacat, Vince Callaghan my instructor on divemaster, Christophe Pace, my course director on my IDC and Sarah Kench – general manager of Scubacat for providing me all the support, experience, excellent education and made me the dive instructor I am today. should be very proud of this Dive Centre”

A big Thank you to Bruce who completed his IDC Gold Package with us this year.

Scuba Cat Diving Phuket Thailand IDC

“Sarah ensuresthe Dive Centre runs efficiently and has a very professional team. A true centre of excellence – please consider following their model. I’ve dived in Egypt with 2 CDC’s and they are not half as good as the Scuba Cat operation. We had our program mapped out from Day 1, the dive centre staff all made us welcome and most importantly as a TEAM they supported everyone of us on the course.

– the way the world learns to dive

SCUBACAT – the way should encourage all centres to work!”

http://youtu.be/dpGOhAuJ7NI