wanderlust

i passed my rescue diver class today! got to the dive shop at 6.45a to start prepping for our open-water rescue session. my buddy, mark, and i were in charge of putting water, first aid kits, emergency oxygen, floats and the dive flag on the boat. we were also responsible for getting the insurance list signed and a boat roster made up. the whole time we were paranoid as we'd walk by our instructor (anna) and divemasters-in-training (graeme and marion) and hear things like, 'shark attack during the safety stop' and 'missing dive buddy.' it also didn't help matters that in addition to our instructor and two divemasters-in-training (DMTs), the rest of the boat was a small open water course, one snorkeler and six other DMTs. rescue class seems to be the hazing class here - all the DMTs have gone through the course recently and based on their own experiences, have varying amounts of revenge to take out on the new rescue classes. mark and i were the only ones in our class and the thought of the two of us having to save our instructor AND eight DMTs was a bit daunting.

the boat managed to leave the dock with relatively little fuss, though i had to calm marion down over her irrational fear of sharks (there are no sharks here in utila) when she appeared to be withdrawn and rubbing her hands together in a distraught manner. once at the dive site, the mayhem began. somehow graeme ended up in the water, panicking, and didn't manage to grab onto the float that we threw to him (making sure to tie the other end to something on the boat). he drifted beyond our reach, making an in-water rescue necessary. i donned my fins and snorkel and hopped in. halfway out to him, i realized i'd forgotten a flotation device and called back to mark to toss me one (yay for buddies!) - he did and then had to enter the water himself as marion had fallen off the boat as well at this point. i made it out to graeme and kept my distance while offering the life jacket to hang onto - didn't want to get too close as there was danger of getting dunked with all his flailing about. finally got him to hang on and calm down enough that i could tow him into the boat and help him back up. mark had managed to get marion on board as well. first crisis averted..

suddenly, anna, usually the cool-headed instructor, turned into a non-certified diver wanting to jump in right away without putting her gear on correctly and doing a buddy check. graeme and marion followed suit and talk of sharks came up again - they decided they would quickly jump in and descend to 50m (beyond recreational dive limits) since they believed sharks wouldn't go that deep. mark and i tried to dissuade them from jumping in and tried desperately to get them to stop and put their gear on correctly - anna's regulator and pressure gauge were all twisted up and graeme had his mask on backwards. after doing buddy checks on all of them, we tried to get our own gear on and check each other whilst preventing them from jumping overboard, or at least having them enter correctly with a giant stride. unfortunately, it was 3 against 2, and eventually marion got through and launched herself into the water, surfaced and didn't give the normal fist on the head to let us know she was okay. i shouted from the boat to find out if she was and she grumpily shouted back, 'what do you want?'. meanwhile, anna went in and then graeme belly-flopped in. mark and i quickly got our own gear on, entered and got the group to gather on the surface.

we managed to descend without too much incident, but then i had to go chase after marion who wanted to look at a fish and separate from the group. meanwhile, mark had to deal with graeme's leg cramp. after i got marion to rejoin the group, she started panicking and i had to slow her down, calm her and get her to take breaths. she then ran out of air, so i offered her my alternate air source which went smoothly until i found myself running out of air - anna had snuck up behind me and turned my tank off. i signaled out of air and we switched to marion's regulators. satisfied, anna turned my air back on. i looked around to check how mark was doing and saw he was dealing with an unconscious graeme. i turned around and realized marion had also passed out underwater, so i dumped the air from my buoyancy control device (BCD), knelt on her tank and slowly ascended using her BCD and making sure to hold her regulator in. she seemed to recover and we were continuing the dive, when both graeme and marion were attacked by invisible sharks and suddenly, invisible wounds were spurting invisible blood. we surfaced them again and then had to tow them back to the boat and administer first aid. they'd lost a lot of invisible blood by the time we got them back and we had to give rescue breaths and CPR (on the cheek and on the ground). they came around, but we thought it best to give them some imaginary emergency oxygen just to make sure everything was okay. thus ended our first rescue scenarios.

while mark and i switched our tanks over to fresh ones, anna and marion went back in to set up the next exercise. just as we were finishing up, we heard marion shout that she was missing her buddy. while getting our gear on and doing a buddy check on each other, mark and i asked her for information about where to look, assigned spotters to look for bubbles, arranged a recall signal in case the diver was found and set up a search pattern. we entered the water and went to where the diver was last seen, descended and started an expanding square pattern. i had the compass and every couple kick cycles, mark would tap me and we would turn 90 degrees, gradually increasing the length of our sides. after a couple rounds, we spotted the 'missing diver' - a BCD weighted down to the bottom. at this point, the BCD miraculously turned into one of our DMTs, who was face down and unresponsive. mark and i each surfaced a DMT and began procedures for an unresponsive diver at the surface - established buoyancy, removed masks and regulator and checked for breathing. my DMT was not breathing, so i began rescue breathing while mark helped me start towing her back to the boat and removing her gear. once back to the boat, i finished removing the gear while mark climbed out and i handed her arms up to him. he managed to exit her from the water and we administered first aid.

and with that, we were done! yay! anna said we'd done great and showed good teamwork and that now we'd get to go and actually have a fun dive. i think we were both a little suspicious, but the dive was actually a dive and no fake accidents happened along the way. it's been a few days since i've actually gotten a real dive in, so it was nice to look around and see a school of zebrafish or a giant barracuda swim by instead of keeping a sharp eye on anna, graeme and marion. the sun had come out and the visibility on the reef wall was amazing. definitely a nice way to end the rescue class. :)

so now i'm a rescue diver! it's been a tiring couple of days and i'm glad i get a few days off to relax before my divemaster course starts on monday. we're scheduled to go on some fun dives tomorrow afternoon and maybe i'll get a chance to explore the island a bit more. once divemaster course starts, we're allowed to go at our own pace, so i can ease up then as well if i like. regardless, it's great to have all the prerequisites done and i'll soon be an official DMT!