A short while ago I was asked to write a blog as a newly qualified Human Factors in Diving Instructor. We talked about a subject and all seemed ok. But try as I might, I just could not explain the topic as eloquently as I wanted. So, we had another chat and I tried a different theme. Same result. The problem was that no matter what I wrote, I just didn’t feel it matched up to what others had written. […]
Since getting back to the UK I’ve been trying out new things and obstacle course racing is something I’d always wanted to attempt. The basic premise is to complete a course of anything from around 5-30km. The obstacles range from natural ones such as muddy pools, streams and fallen trees to artificial ones such as walls, cargo nets and monkey bars.
It doesn’t actually rain all the time. If you haven’t watched British TV/listened to the radio for 6 years, you’ll not understand most pop culture references. The diving is great…
Dahab is a tourist town. If it wasn’t for the tourists, there is little there to sustain anyone. The Bedouin have used it as a fishing village for hundreds of years but for the Egyptians and foreigners that live and work there, tourism is our lifeblood.
Some of you may have seen on my Facebook page that I have been teaching an open water course. This is nothing unusual for me, my normal job consists of teaching all levels, from people’s first breaths in the water to technical diving courses. What has been different this time though is that I’ve been teaching a guy who only learnt to swim this year.
My day to day work consists of teaching people either how to dive, or how to increase their diving skills either recreationally or technically. A few weeks ago I got to go back to school myself and went to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt to complete my first few levels of rebreather courses- TDI CCR Helitrox Deco Procedures, or to give it a slightly snappier title, ‘MOD 1’.
This morning I got up at 4.30am. This isn’t a normal thing for me, I like sleep, been a fan of it for years and you really don’t want to know me if I haven’t had my 8 hours. So what on earth possessed me to get up at a time that I’ve previously declared only exists in the pm? Simple: exercise. More specifically, exercising in August, in the Sinai Desert. The temperature at the moment is hitting around the […]
In my last blog I told you about my first ever intro using a closed circuit rebreather (CCR) when I was a newly qualified instructor. Fast forward several years and along comes Lee. Lee has been diving on a CCR (closed circuit rebreather to give them their proper names) for 8 years. He turned up with Scott, the diver I was planning to do Wagners Cave with (more about that in the future), who had just bought a rebreather and […]
Many years ago when I was a newly qualified instructor I had the chance to do an ‘intro’ on a rebreather. A rebreather is type of breathing apparatus that recycles the air you breathe out. It essentially takes the exhaled air, removes the carbon dioxide, adds a bit of oxygen and lets you breathe it again, hence the name. They’re great bits of kit and I’d loved the idea of them for years. When I finally got chance to try […]
“Why do I dive deep?” When I first learned technical diving I was an open water scuba instructor. Technical diving is basically defined as anything that involves decompression stops and my boyfriend at the time had completed his ‘tec‘ training and loved every minute of it. Decompression stops become necessary when dives are of a longer duration, or deeper than normal, or both. Decompression stops can suddenly mean that instead of being only 2 or 3 minutes slow ascent from […]