We last talked about the Gear Exchange, and how I initially failed it.
“Instead of exchanging masks, divers remove and replace their own masks.”
The PADI Instructor Manual had the info! That’s official, baby! And with just that one little change, I felt much more calm. I successfully completed the Gear Exchange the second time through, and it was shockingly easy when I had the right mindset.
With the hard part over, it was time to work on some other tasks.
I had no instruction on how to create the Emergency Plan or the Map. There’s also not a lot of guidance online!
Ah, Rescue Scenario #7! This is an assessment for Rescue Diver too. When I did it over ten years ago, I had to pull a fellow diver onto shore. This time, I had to tow the diver to a boat. I can barely remember my Rescue Diver training, but I feel like this time the assessment was so much easier.
I’m never going to live down the fact that I couldn’t tie the damn bowline. I was doing so well, but it was like all my practice and skill disappeared the moment I got underwater. I got water in my brain or something hah! And don’t even get me started on the 5 Point Ascent/Descent…
And the struggle didn’t end there. The next part of the course felt like a complete disaster. Nothing I did was right, and anything I thought I did well wasn’t good enough. Endless issues, endless frustrations. The stress kept building until it basically turned into a negative feedback loop: the instructor would get stressed, which would make me stressed, which would make the instructor stressed, which made me stressed… you get the idea. It was miserable, to be completely honest.
Open Water Saga 