Divemaster Arno
I have completed my training as a Divemaster. I have passed all the theory exams, the swim tests and the practical application part of the training. I’ll need to mail in some paperwork, pay my annual dues and liability insurance and I’ll receive my authentic Divemaster card!
This was different than the Rescue Diver training I took a couple of years ago. Rescue Diver is very physical. You have many rescue exercises to do, some of which are quite demanding. For Divemaster, you have to learn a lot of theory (physics, physiology, decompression theory) as well as how to interact with student divers and instructors. However, it´s not physically quite as demanding. I´m glad to have completed both training now. Next step would be the Dive Instructor certification, but I think I´ll wait to get a bit more experience to go for it, although Gabriel tells me it´s essentially focused on marketing.
Three more dives yesterday, and another three today, including a night dive. Nigth diving is really a special experience.
There are at least four different things interesting about diving: the equipment, the fauna, the landscape, the physical experience.
For some people, diving is a great excuse to buy piles of gadget and expensive and complex equipment: compressed air cylinders, exotic gases (argon, helium, nitrox), underwater lights and cameras, etc… You dive because you have to test the equipment. Others couldn´t care less about the equipment: if they could swallow a pill and breathe underwater without equipment, they would.
For some people it´s all about the fauna and flora. They know all about the mating habits of the mantis shrimp and can distinguish between the juvenile, male and female parrot fish. When they’re in the water, they look in crevices and under overhangs for the rarest species. They often have cameras, but not for the equipment, but as a way to record their finds.
Some dive sites, especially deep ones, don’t have much animal life. Instead, there’s the beauty of the reef to enjoy, the towering coral heads, the butresses, the swim throughs, the huge barrel sponges, the fantastic underwater landscapes that feel as if they were from another planet.
And then, there´s the experience of being free from gravity. You don´t weigh anything anymore. You can move left, right, forward, back or up and down. You can move just as easily upright, horizontal, on your side or upside down for that matter. Moving is effortless. You barely have to think “up” and your breathing pattern changes, affecting your buyoancy and causing you to rise. Or a quick flick of your fins and you are propulsed forward.
I´m not much into the equipment, and although the landscapes and the animals are fascinating, I like the physical experience the best. At night, this experience is intensified. You can turn off your light, look away from the other divers and you find yourself floating in space, with nothing around you but the sparkle of the photoluminescent plankton as you wave your hand in front of you and the sound of the bubbles as you exhale. For a moment you feel like Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Actually, I think I´m getting a sense for what astronauts feel like when they travel back to earth. Yesterday I was lying in bed reading, and I wanted to roll. I pushed against the headstand, and I was surprised and disapointed to realize that my body would not just float away as I had been expecting, and as it would have underwater. Instead I had to prop myself up, then clumsily move around. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to get out of the water, just like sometimes you have to get back to earth.
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