February 17 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland
PADI Instructor Exam - Day #3 - CERTIFICATION DAY!!!!
Today was our final day of the Instructor Exam, and I know the suspense is killing you, so here's how it ended:
We are officially OPEN WATER SCUBA INSTRUCTORS!!!
Yipee!
So here's how the day went: first, we overslept. We were supposed to leave at 6:30 and didn't wake up until 6:00. Not enough time for the two of us to get ready, and we were out of milk. So we had to race out the door and get some healthy breakfast food (yeah, right) from McDonald's and then pick up Tom and UK Jon from DSDD. We loaded up the tanks and gear in the back of the truck and were on our way.
We then went to Trinity Pier to catch our boat to Fitzroy Island. Because the island is only 45 minutes from Cairns, this is where PADI runs the Open Water part of the Instructor Exam. There isn't much there, and the visibility is horrendous. But then again, we weren't there to see the fish.
Briefings
Before the "Fitzroy Flyer" left Cairns, we sat on the dock and did our briefings for Young Hee. They took a while, and I definitely got the impression that she wanted us to speed things up. But we finally got through them, while trying to avoid the inevitable rain clouds that were moving in.
At 8:15, we boarded the boat and were on our way.
Fitzroy Island
Unfortunately, it had rained last night and this morning was very cloudy and a bit windy. So we were a bit worried about the conditions on the island. When the "Fitzroy Flyer" arrived at the island, the rain was coming down pretty hard. We all had to lug our gear, tanks, and weight belts up the pier, down a path, and onto a beach covered in dry coral. The rain had let up a bit when we got to the beach, and we set up our gear and put our personal stuff under a kayak so it would stay remotely dry. Then we waited. The "Green" group went first in the open water, and the rest of us sat on the beach in our wetsuits waiting for our turn.
Before the Open Water Instructor Exam
Back Row (l to r): Chloe, Heidi, David, Elli, Tom
Front Row (l to r): UK Jon, Jon, Jamie, Yoshi, Ray
The exams were held in about 6 meters just off the beach. The only people on the beach were us, and so it was easier for instructors to keep tabs on everyone. After a half-hour of waiting for the Green Group, the "second half" of the Yellow Group (i.e. us) were called out to Young Hee's buoy.
Murphy's Law of Equipment
As we walked through the surf and swam out to the buoy, I noticed that my Low Pressure Inflator (LPI) hose was bubbling. It had been sending up tiny bubbles this past week and I was going to have it looked at after this weekend. But now the bubbles were large and pretty fierce. After unplugging it and looking at it, I realized that the little o-ring inside the hose had burst and was without hope. Funny. I didn't even know there was a little o-ring inside it. Needless to say, I had a few choice four-letter words to describe my situation at the time. Examiners grade us on our equipment as well as our skills, and a busted LPI is far from impressive. But we mulled over it during our short swim, and realized I'd be OK. The only skill that required use of the inflator hose was the Hover, which was Jon's skill and if I acted as his assistant then there'd be no worries. (In each exercise, we have three students and one assistant). So there you have it. All I had to do was try to hide the fact that it wasn't working from Young Hee. This meant that - when I came to the surface - I'd have to orally inflate my BCD without her noticing. What a crock. But it worked!
The Open Water Exam
We let Tom go first because he'd been stressing about his "CESA" skill since Friday night and we wanted to put him out of his misery. So he got his part done and then got started on our skills. Today was no different from yesterday's confined water skills, except for the sand on the bottom, the slight surge, and the one curious batfish that swam around us - wondering what we were up to. But we felt that Young Hee was pretty easy on us. Instead of assigning one problem to each "student", she assigned all the problems to the first student and then cut off our exam after that so we could move onto the next person. It significantly cut down on our time in the water, not to mention our stress levels. So we knew that the first student would have a bunch of problems instead of being "perfect".
All in all, it seemed to go well. Jon's Partial Mask Flood and his Hover was fine. My Fin Pivot and Buddy-breathing were relatively simple. A half-hour later, we were done and swimming back to the shore. We wouldn't know until after our debriefing how we did.
The Rescue Assessment
Back on the shore, we ditched our weights and put our blank weight belts back on for the rescue assessment. This was a real-time rescue exercise simulating an unconscious victim on the surface, which we've practiced and practiced over the past week. We each did our simulation and then headed back to the beach. There, we disassembled our gear and walked everything back to the pier where the boat would pick us up at 5:00.
Debriefings
Around 12:00, we did our debriefings for Young Hee. We were expecting her to give us our scores following the debriefs, but she said that she wanted to debrief the other teams first and then she'd give us our score. We all looked at each other and moaned with the agony of waiting.
Lunch in the Pub
So we went to the Pub/Restaurant at the dock and ordered lunch and had some well-deserved beers. Tom was going into cardiac arrest because of the suspense of not knowing, so we tried to ply him with beers to get him to chill out. No such luck. But we did sit around and laugh about the various funny things that happened today. For example: when Jon was acting as the Instructor this morning, he looked at his group of students and gave them the symbol for "Fin Pivot" - which would have been fine, except that he was supposed to be doing the "Hover" skill. So everyone traded a "What's-he-talking-about?" look. Jon felt Young Hee tap him on the shoulder and as soon as she gave him the "Hover" symbol he realized his mistake. You could tell he was laughing even underwater!
When the other half of our "Yellow" group got back, they'd already found out their results and were happy because they all passed. So we went to find Young Hee and to get our results. I have to say, it was all very anti-climactic. We all scored excellent results and got a handshake. Tah-dah! We're instructors! The earth didn't move, and song didn't rain down from the heavens - but there you have it.
So the ten of us hung out in the pub, ordering pitchers of beer and chilling out. Although we were all finished by 2:00, the boat wouldn't get there to pick us up until 5:00. So we had some time to kill.
Closing Ceremony
At 4:00, the Examiners held a "closing ceremony" on the lawn near the dock. It wasn't much of a ceremony, merely a "congratulations-hope-you-had-fun-here's-your-certificate" type of thing. But it was all good.
The Deep Sea Divers Den Group After the Exam
From L to R: Tom, Chloe, Yoshi, Elli, Jon, Young Hee, Jamie, Ray, Heidi, David, UK Jon
Just as the Fitzroy Flyer got to the dock, the rain started again and we all got soaked just before boarding the boat. But we got seats together and many of us promptly fell asleep for the 45 minute ride back to Cairns.
Evening Celebration
For our Post-Certification Celebration, we met everyone at "The Pier" Saloon around 9:00. Ray was walking around with a pitcher of bourbon and coke - a sure sign of a crazy night - and David was well on his way to drunken dancing. Very crazy. Jon and I both settled for Guinness, and had a good time hanging out.
The funny part of the evening is that - somehow - I ended up talking to this friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend named Rob. We were having a good time laughing at the stereotypes of Americans and British (he was British) and being silly in general. Yeah. So it took me a while, but I eventually clued into the fact that he was flirting with me. Granted, I'm a little rusty. And it's been a looooooonnnnggg time since I've been flirted with, so it's no wonder that I didn't get it at first. But then it was kind of fun (sorry, Jon). I mean, the guy was cute, and he asked me if I lived with my parents! I turn thirty in two weeks, but here was a cute boy who thought I was young enough to still live at home. Like I'm not going to eat that up! Hey, we all need a little ego boost every now and again.
But after a while, I felt bad for monopolizing his time and keeping him from young single girls. He wasn't picking up on the wedding ring or the fact that I answered all his questions with a "we", so I had to take drastic measures. I went to the ladies' room and hid for a while. Then I snuck out and signaled to Jon, who wasn't very helpful because he gave me the "No-you-come-here" look. My hero, right? He finally came over and I dragged him to the other side of the bar, where we had a good laugh about it all.
The night wore on, and at some point I ended up on the dance floor with Chookie, her friend, David, and one of the videographers named Adam.
After 12:00, we had all wound down with the exception of Chloe, Ray and David. Part of the group had left long ago, including my cute British friend. So much for me bringing home random boys.
Guess I'll bring home Jon instead. J