February 7 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland
OWSI - Open Water Scuba Instructor Course - Day 3
Morning Run
Jon didn't plan to wake up to run until 6:30, but I was up at 5:45 and decided - at 6:00 - to get my run out of the way. I haven't taken my MP3 player out recently because I'm tired of the "Killing Heidi" mix that's stuck on it. Since I busted the laptop's USB port we can't download anything new to listen to. So it's interesting to run without headphones. Suddenly, I've noticed that people actually say "Good Morning" to me as I run by. Makes me wonder what else I've been missing out on while hitting the pavement to "Killing Heidi".
Morning - Knowledge Development Presentations
We had more Knowledge Development Presentations this morning, which is good because we can practice our teaching skills in addition to organizing our presentations according to the PADI standards. I presented first, teaching Night Diving. Pretty simple, with no complex ideas. Jon, however, had to present "Oxygen Toxicity", which is quite a scientific module and not something he was excited about. But we both did fine.
The groups have been re-arranged for the rest of the course. In our group, we have Dave (young, witty guy from Scotland), Elli (sarcastic - almost acerbic - girl from the UK), and Jamie (very quiet, sleepy guy from the UK). It's not a fun group yet, and I miss the witty banter we had with Tom the other Jon. But we'll probably all loosen up in another day or two.
Afterwards, we sat out by the pool as we waited for the other group to finish so we could begin our next lecture. As we waited, UK Jon came downstairs accompanied by a high-pitched noise. His watch had stuck on the alarm, for whatever reason, and emitted this heinous noise. We reckoned that he should change his battery, but his watch had to be sent away for that. Instead, he amused himself by running around and putting the watch against people's ears.
Lunch
For lunch, Jon and I took Tom and UK Jon to Cairns Central (aka "The Mall") to dine at the Food Court. Tom had some errand to run and UK Jon wanted to get his annoying watched fixed. We all convened in the Food Court with our respective trays of food. Before I found everyone, I stood in the middle of the seating area looking around. I saw UK Jon and asked where the group was. He said, "I don't know where Tom is, but Jon's over there by 'The Gobbler'. You can see his head shining underneath the neon sign." I almost dropped my tray I was laughing so hard!
Afternoon Lecture
At 2:00, we were back for a lecture on "PADI's Continuing Education Philosophy". Less than exciting, but important nonetheless. We also had a lecture on teaching "The Rescue Diver Course".
Confined Water Presentations
Then we suited up for our Rescue Workshop. We watched Vic's demo and then performed the skill ourselves. The skill was "Unconscious Diver on the Surface". Basically, this means that we had to simulate mouth-to-mouth while disassembling the gear and simultaneously swimming to "the boat". We'd practiced this heaps of times in our Rescue Diver course in Thailand. So most of us had no problems.
Save vs. Restore
The interesting thing about diver rescue is that we used to say that "CPR Saves Lives". This actually isn't PC anymore. Now, we're supposed to day "CPR Restores Lives". An in-depth study which was done a few years ago discovered that rescuers were deeply affected when the rescue efforts "failed". They felt like they couldn't "save someone's life" But in reality, the patient was already dead, and their life already lost. So health organizations are valiantly trying to change the idea from "CPR Saves Lives" to "CPR Restores Lives". This way, the rescuer shouldn't be as devastated by apparent "failure" because life wasn't restored.
It's a nice thought, but I'm not convinced that the word change will do the trick. That's just semantics. I think if someone's performed 10 minutes of CPR on a patient, they're going to be affected no matter what.
800 Meter Swim
We also did the 800 meter snorkel in the pool. This is an exit requirement for our OWSI certification. We had to do this for our Dive Master Certification as well. The difference is that this time it's not timed. We just have to swim the 800 meters without stopping. Pretty silly, I think. But it's a PADI requirement so that's that. The pool is 18 meters long, so we had to swim the length of the pool 44 times.
We got out by 7:30 and went home to reheat lasagna. Then I went to the Internet Cafe (Global Gossip) to see if I had an email from Monica, who is coming to Cairns tomorrow. After playing around online for a while, I went home. I miss our computer!!