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23 July 09: And we're off. Still bunging "stuff" in Daddy's loft at 10am when we should be at the airport but finally we have to go. No time for tears, this is new and exciting - and you can read all the next installments on our blog
26 June 09: As we hope to be living in a Hindu country on the other side of the world with a very strict immigration policy that being a legal item might be a good idea. So after a mere 32 years of togetherness, we get married!! No big deal, quick signature at the register office, spend the extra £3.50 on second copy of the certificate and back to our local Gastro-Pub for a lovely drunken afternoon. All in the company of just Adrian's Mum & Dad plus Amanda's sister & Daddy.
May 09: Quit the day job and focus on booking a flight to Bali to make the dream a reality...
Two months of clearing the house. The thing about having a house where everthing has a place is you have no idea just how much stuff you can accumulate in 20 years. We start with the loft. It's full - or so we think. What it is actually full of is carefully nested boxes of boxes from every single item we have ever bought - like Russian dolls from the TV down to a thimble - tears of laughter are rolling down our cheeks... OK now to the main house. We start to feel liberated as successive van loads of stuff are ferried to the tip, the charity shop, e-bay and friends. But there still seems so much of it. Get sidetracked on designing business cards and rubber stamps - every Scuba Instructor must be able to stamp the guests log book.
The day of departure is getting ever nearer and the house still seems full. Start to get ruthless. Nicola (Amanda's Sister) helps to make some of few remaining large furniture items dissappear through free-cycle - a brilliant invention.
20 years ago we got a little kitten. Pudding's had her share of feline lives: fell out of an upstairs window at only 8 weeks; has a heart murmur; is allergic to cats; is allergic to catfood; is allergic to fleas; and is still very much alive and like a kitten. When we hatched our plan to leave we'd not expected her to live this long. We love her to bits but this upheaval is distressing for her and us. We go on a waiting list and are extremely lucky after only a few days that our local cat protection league kennels has a space. So with many more tears of sorrow we leave our baby in her new palace...
9 Apr 09: Egypt, Sharm-el-Sheikh. Twist Nathan's arm to go for his instructor course with Jilly (now a CD) so we can help with the IDC. Our 4 candidates Nathan, Kate, Becky & Jo learn a lot, as do we. As qualified Staff Instructors, we are much more hands-on and Jilly trusts us enough to present some of the coursework ourselves. All 4 pass with flying colours anw we return to the UK spent but happy.
28 Nov 08: Egypt, Sharm-el-Sheikh. Staff Instructor course. Back to our friends at Ocean College to sit in on an IDC where our course director Ingrid teaches us the black art of evaluating instructor candidates. Jilly works alongside Ingrid to prepare the candidates Rich & Pashe for the IE and slaps our wrists for forgetting all the skills she taught us. The week progresses well but midway degenerates into a scene from Team America - it really shouldn't be this much fun.
20 Sep 08: Weymouth. Finally conditions are right for the Tango to take us to the M2 submarine.
12 Jul 08: Lundy Island. Back to play with the seals!
14 Jun 08: Weymouth. Tango takes us to the Alex Von Opstall, Aeolian Sky and Black Hawk.
21 Mar 08: Stoney Cove. Open Water course. Brrrrr it's cold!
15 Mar 08: Malaysia, Perhentian Island.
26 Dec 07: Pingewood lake. The Thames at Caversham is too murky so plan B is the water-ski lake.
27 Oct 07: Wraysbury. Open Water course.
20 Oct 07: Wraysbury. Open Water course.
5 Oct 07: Egypt. One week in Sharm-el-Sheikh.
16 Sept 07: Stoney Cove. Specialties.
8 Sept 07: Swanage. Treasure hunting on the Kyarra, Dinner hunting on the Betsy Anna.
19 Aug 07: Swanage. Pier, Fleur-de-Lys, Ledges.
5 Aug 07: Stoney Cove.
14 Jul 07: Lundy Island. Drive to Ilfracombe wasn't much fun but the diving was excellent. Our boat the Obsession II was well equipped and comfortable - just as well since it can get a bit choppy in the Bristol channel. Luckily there's always a calm spot somewhere on the island. As we moor up at Brazen Ward I can see Seals, some swimming, some just basking in the sun - Seals are cool. In the water they are shy and we only see them briefly (no photos). High up in the craggy rocks we can see a Perigrine falcon eyeing up its next meal. 2nd dive at the Knoll Pins - loads of life as we swim a figure-of-8ish round them. Amanda finds a Snake Pipefish but I get cramp trying to take a photo. There are also crabs, Scorpion fish and nudibranchs. The Journey back was much smoother and I get a half hour kip.
On Sunday it rained, are we disheartened? no. Skipper finds shelter on the south side of the island - no Seals and the most notable thing about the dive was the rock formations. After lunch we go back to near the Knoll Pins to see if the wreck of Robert is diveable - we decide it's safe and set off to explore. The skipper says there's a huge lobster in a box off the bow - we find the box but alas no lobster. The wreck is inhabited by schools of what look like glassfish - reminiscent of the Red Sea. On the outside loads of nudibranchs graze and pose for photos.
30 Jun 07: Littlehampton. Abandoned due to adverse weather.
28 Apr 07: Swanage. This time we succeed and have a lovely time diving the Kyarra and Aolean sky. Weather fantastic as was the company.
31 Mar 07: Open water course at Stoney Cove.
4 Mar 07: Sulawesi. Amanda and I explore northern Sulawesi for 2 weeks.
2 Oct 06: Egypt. Club outing in Berenice (deep south). Manage to sign off some AOW students.
9 Sept 06: Swanage. A group of us decided to dive on the Kyarra - a wreck off Swanage - however the weather was against us and the dive was abandoned. So after some hasty 'phoning round we persuade Fathom & Blues at Portland Bill to take us round the harbour.
2/3 Sept 06: Back to Stoney Cove for our MSD training.
26/27 Aug 06: Open water course at Stoney Cove.
12/13 Aug 06: Amanda assists on a Rescue Diver course at Wraysbury.
10/11 Jun 06: I'm doing another intensive weekend and Amanda is at Wraysbury for open water qualifying dives.
3/4 Jun 06: Exercising my new drysuit at Exemouth. Vis poor, buoyancy poor - not much fun.
23 Apr 06: I'm teaching an intensive open water course so Amanda went (with some buddies) to Swanage to dive the Fleur De Lys and the Peveril Ledges.
2 Apr 06: First outing to Stoney Cove, Amanda enjoyed it - I'm still wavering after my rented drysuit sprung a leak (no fun when the water temp is only 5oC).
25/26 Mar 06: Assist with Open Water course at Wraysbury.
21 Mar 06: Completed DAN O2 provider course.
2 Feb 06: Thailand On holiday trekking, paddling & diving.
24 Sept 05: Finished EFR instructor training - can now conduct first aid courses.
23 Sept 05: Finished the Nitrox instructor course - can now teach Enriched Air Nitrox too.
22 Sept 05: Determined to dive today so duck out of the IE celebrations early (Yes, I know we're boring but hangover or diving? Tough call). Don't
get me wrong, we still ended up drinking slammers and dancing on the Camel bar.
We manage to squeeze on to the boat scheduled for Ras Mohammed and
do a couple of knowledge reviews for the EFR course. We go a funny way round Jackfish Alley because of the current but manage to see an Eagle Ray.
The middle dive was more macro but the last dive, Ras Zatar, also yielded an Eagle Ray - this one swam just below us so you had a really good view of
its spots.
21 Sept 05: Day 2. Open water. We brief our 2 skills then gear-up and enter the water, one has a surface skill, one has a descent. The rest of us have underwater skills. Everything is the same as for the confined water session and apart from a few minor points we all do well. Back on the surface we just have to demonstrate our rescue skills then get out to do our debriefings. It slowly dawns on me that this is it! To get this far we've successfully completed everything except the final debrief. I'm 6th in line and have to wait. I feel elated for the others but can't do anything as I'm concentrating on the knot in my stomach. My turn - I falter briefly but pull it back together - I just need a 3.5 average to pass. The examiner looks at me, smiles and whispers "5 and 4.75 well done". I almost burst into tears. Amanda looks so proud I can't look at her, I bury my face in her neck just in case...
We pass the IE. It takes 2-3 weeks before we can start work but I don't care - I'm happy
20 Sept 05: This is it! We start with the written exams which are immediately marked (while we are preparing our presentations). Am so relieved to see 100%, 95%, 95% etc. I almost kiss the examiner - No No No! must reel my neck in and act cool - presentation still looms. Made a bit of a hash of this but still pass so down to the pool for the confined water exercises. They ask us to brief our 2 confined water presentations then do 5 demonstration quality skills (which we excel at of course) then demonstrate our 2 other skills to our peers, who act as students incorporating errors from the examiner. Again we excel and after debriefing we get our marks - Mine were better than I expected so this time the examiner really did get kissed. Here endeth the first day, we retire drained but positive.
11 Sept 05: Start of the IDC. This is 9 gruelling days of training, The first 3 take us to AI. Actually the training took less than 9 days as everyone in our group (of 8) had done their homework beforehand, we all had a reasonably high academic standard and our water skills just needed a bit of fine tuning. This just left the presentation aspect... Ok this was the bit I wasn't looking forward to, Amanda has always been more talkative than me so was much more relaxed about it. I have always been quiet and get tongue-tied especially if I'm anxious so my first presentation was crap. As the week went on each presentation got better, I knew what I was talking about, It's just a matter of getting it across in a reasonable fluid manner. One bit of excitement on our open water session punctuated the day. We were just being debriefed about our rescue scenario when a cry of help went up, we looked at our instructor to see if this was staged but he said no and to get over there. We dashed over, chest high in water, to find an elderly gentleman who had a panic attack while out of his depth snorkelling. I quickly took off my BCD and fully inflated it for him to lean on and even though he could stand up he hung on for grim death. After a few minutes his breathing slowed and his family helped him back to shore. We carried on, It wasn't until much later we realised we'd actually helped this person, looks like our rescue training paid off.
8 Sept 05: Egypt Back in Sharm for a couple of days diving prior to the IDC
August. I know we're supposed to be studying but were coerced into a 2 day session around the Isle of Wight. Stayed over on Friday for an early start (06:30) to dive the Camswan followed by the SS Luis.
Shock horror! Our first UK dive - Stoney here we come. Oops. This actually turned out to be Wraysbury where we spent 2 days assisting on a Rescue Course. Conditions weren't ideal, with visibility down to a meter it was hard to monitor students but we all had a great time.
30 Apr 05: We travel to Sharm to pose as Divemasters in order to get a reduction on our bar bill. Well actually we went to get reaquainted with the staff at Ocean College and to remind them that we'll be back in September for the Instructor Training Course
Ongoing experience. Katie & Simon at The Dive School have been guiding us towards the IDC by using us as DMs for their regular Tuesday night pool sessions. They get free DMs, we get invaluable experience with their students and teaching methods.