February 5 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland

OWSI - Open Water Scuba Instructor Course - Day 1

Morning Runs

We both got up and went for runs this morning.  It was slightly cloudy on the Esplanade, which provided the occasional shade along my run.

Morning Lecture

At 9:00AM, we showed up for our first day of the OWSI - Open Water Scuba Instructor - course.  THis part of the IDC will last until Feb 13.  Actually, two of those days will be for the "Pro Pack", which Jon and I have decided to pass up.  It offers a few days of extra training, but it exceeded our price threshold so we nixed it.

Our instructor for this part of the course is Vic, who is the Course Director and General Manager for DSDD.  He's more serious than Chookie, but he definitely knows his stuff.  Jon and I really enjoyed the morning's discussion of the business side of the diving industry.  we found DSDD's business plan, marketing ploys, and pricing schemes very interesting.

Lunch

We broke for lunch for a little more than an hour.  At home, we had leftover pizza heated in the microwave.  I hate microwaved pizzas, Jon's pizza is so good that it doesn't matter how it's reheated.

Afternoon Lecture

Back at DSDD we spent the afternoon in a very dry lecture about PADI standards.  Hardly exciting material.  Part of the lecture pertained to PADI's Quality Assurance procedures.  QA is the bane of every business person's existence.  But Vic made a point of saying that QA is not the PADI Police, and they're actually here for our protection.  Because if we according to PADI standards, then we have the support of the entire PADI Law Team.  In other words, PADI will provide us will full defense if necessary, as long as we teach using their standards.

Can't argue with that!

An Early Night

We actually got out of class around 5:15, which was such a treat!  Plenty of time to get to the grocery store, make and nice dinner, and relax in front of the TV.  No studying for us tonight.  Instead, we sat and watched Bruce Willis in "Mercury Rising".  We didn't stick around for the end of it because - yet again - we got sick of all the commercials.  And the movie wasn't that good anyway!