It’s been a while since I started my voyage to become a VDST TL** and the journey was anything but a straight line. Especially because of the corona pandemic, there have been multiple delays and cancellations on courses and exams :-(. But about a month ago, I finally took the last steps towards becoming a full blown dive instructor stared my voyage to the dive resort Gulen (Norway).
The weather was unfortunately very unpleasant the first few days, but one of the reasons for me to do the exam in Gulen was to test my metal. I got what I wished for… Never the less, all the exercises where there to prepare us for the coming courses and to press upon our future students a rich amount of personal knowledge and experience in harsher conditions. So as the course continued and the exercises got harder and plenty, we certainly gained both of the former.
About the middle of the third day, weather became much more palatable and we enjoyed both the scenery and the warmth of the sun in Norway. We also had some spectacular sunsets and very often were up far to long (the sun is up very long that far up north and sometimes you forget the time talking about diving, wrecks and.. well diving)
Also now with the weather improved, we finally where able to do what we came for: wreck dives! The gulen area does sadly lack a rich fish life (probably all eaten up by now) but the wrecks are plenty and spectacular! The first 2 wreck dives I sadly had to sit ashore, as I had troubles with my ears ;-(. Day 4 finally was the day that I got into the water for some wreck diving!
The wreck diving and also so diving at the house reef continued for the next days. By the time we were close to the finale, all the divers and instructors started to look a bit rough around the edges. Also the first pieces of equipment had their failures. Every now and then a diver came out rather wet in their dry suit :-D.
Finally (and much faster than everyone thought) the last day and the final dives were in front of us. A final dive to the Frankenwald as a “fun” dive was finishing up the course for all the participants successfully. Not everyone got their certificate yet, as there where requirements missing for some (corona made it rather difficult to get everything in order in time). But everyone was happy non the less. The challenging environment meant that only participants with solid diving experience where participating, which made the whole experience very pleasant. It was instructive and challenging but most important: It was a lot of fun!
This concludes the sports diver part of my instructor training. The instructor training for technical diving will follow most likely next year.
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