National Instrutor Exam
Second time around you would have thought it would feel much easier but the Friday of the exam, I felt sick to my stomach and was pretty close to just getting in the car and driving away from Fort Bovisand (our base) as fast as possible! But I managed to hold on to my senses and stayed for the welcome brief from the slightly top heavy number of examiners - 9 of them to 7 of us!
Day 1. The breakwater swim - in our groups (I was in a three), we had to swim in full kit, neutrally buoyant at all times, along the breakwater closely watched by a boat load of examiners who threw in rescue scenarios every few minutes. A kilometre is quite hard under any circumstances but in full kit and always going backwards to carry out a rescue is no joke. One of the students hurt his shoulder and as a result of this did not finish the exam.
The pool lessons: two lessons, fairly straightforward.
The Lecture - a lecture for 20 minutes on a topic of your choice, which would be of interest to an N.I. - I did Fitness in divers and thanks to Kevin for being my student!!
Planning session for the next day - soft boat day.
Day 2. Early start and two sessions on the soft boats. We had the use of a fantastic RIB with inboard and loads of power so with good weather we cruised out to Hand Deeps and dived there. The dive has to be a dive with leadership skills etc. Then you spend the rest of the morning teaching small boat handling, theory knowledge, pinging wreck sites etc. Then after lunch you have to do a lesson with instruction. I got a marine survey and ended up teaching two of the examiners - slightly scary but fun (and I got a merit!!). Oh and you have to Marshall and navigates etc as well.
Planning session for the next day - Hard boat day.
Day 3. Hard Boat day - everyone has to be seen to Marshall, deck hand, dive lead, navigate, helm, ping and then teach all of these aspects too. We dived the Skaala - a 44m wreck - brilliant. Claire Peddie (the examiner) and I changed our plan to dive for longer as it was so good and I got a merit there too! The second dive (the Elk) we had to examine our examiners...!?? They had to act as though they were doing their first class. A brief respite for us but still have to come up with a mark and a constructive comment immediately after the dive. Dinner with all the examiners - a good bit!!
Day 4. Controlled Buoyant lift from 30m, 100m rescue with AV and land into a RIB.
5-minute interview on a topic, which you never know.
10 minute interview on a foreign visit - winging from the club members basically and you have to be the ambassador and tackle the problems and be up to date in what BSAC are doing.
20-minute video on a pool session, which you have to mark.
Open Water Instructor lesson on the slip at Bovi.
THEN IT IS OVER!!! - A final debrief from the examiners and then down the pub (the New Inn - remember the steaks - those on Storm this year) and then early to bed - can't think why!!
Anyway - it is all over and the phone has already started ringing. An Advanced Instructor Exam this weekend in Wales......well I have never dived West Wales so it should be fun!