Divemaster life – living legends
Great diving experience this week!
I’ve been at Crystal Divers for almost 2 months, I’m having really great time, meeting very nice and interesting people and the best scuba experience ever! At this moment I’m about to complete the Dive Master course. Part of the courses are, theory lessons which gives you the mandatory knowledge to be a professional DM, water skills and practical application which make you getting confident with what will be one day my daily duty and last, but not least, assisting Dive Instructors during their courses and sometimes we just go for fun dives as well!
I have been studying and diving almost with all the instructors and the divemasters, any day spent with each of them it’s always been fun, safe and professional. I spent the pass two days diving as assistant with two legends of Crystal Divers…
and probably two legends of diving in Bali!
They’re the only two Crystal’s instructors I never dive with before: but this moment came! I was really excited to finally spend the day with them! These guys have thousand and thousand dives logged in their logbook: if counted together it’s more than 15.000!!!! They basically spent more time of their life underwater than on-land
I was really looking forward to see how these guys behave underwater, what’s their approach with costumers, how they spot fishes…basically how they do the thing they most love to do, scuba-diving!
I’m talking about the two “living legends” Magic Toto & Amin!
Destinations of the two days were: Tulamben, wreck dive to see Liberty (US Navy cargo ship from WWII, sank in 1963 after been torpedoed by Japanese submarine in 1942) and Padang Bai the next day to see some cool underwater creatures!
Both days started with a nice ride to the diving sites: during the trip Toto and Amin entertained our guest whit amazing stories about their diving adventures and about life in the beautiful Bali. Me and the costumers were extremely entertained by them I was impressed about the passion and joy they’re transmitted us!
All the dives went very well: we seen many different type of fishes and coral, met Mr.Frank the Barracuda, white tip sharks octopuses, dozens of tiny nudies and many others beautiful creatures….oh…and I’ve finally seen pygmies!!! YEAH!!!!
During the dives I was almost their shadow underwater. I wanted to stay close as much as possible to them, learning from their movements and their behavior. I was totally amazed by them! They look like fishes: it seems they’ve got gills! They know each dive site we’ went diving like their own pockets.
Diving with these amazing guys was an experience that I recommend to every diver: both experienced and beginners! They transmit you love for diving, for underwater life and for life in general. Their smiles are very contagious…and that the best way to start every day!
…oh….and watch out for special fish when you’re next to Magic Toto….you might be able to see the Picacku fish 😀
//Roberto Divemaster trainee, Crystal Divers
Divemaster life – Rescue course
What a day! Can’t believe how much fun learning can be.
A couple of days ago me and Jill (not just a great divemaster trainee but also an amazing friend) helped Andre with a rescue course in Sanur. An experienced diver called James had decided it was time to learn about taking care of others in any kind of dive emergency. Me and Jill were being the victims for all the skills he needed to learn.
I’m telling you: so much fun!
The day started out when I, Andre and Jill arrived to Crystal Divers at 08.30.
Andre made a briefing for us, so that we would know what was about to happen later.
Basically it was more or less panicking and being tired, being out of air underwater, cutting ourselves or being overexerted.
James would had to recognize the situation and handle it the best way he knew.
Half an hour later James arrived and we all packed ourselves to a cozy green bemo, and drove 5 minutes to the beach.
A small taxiboat took us to the real boat, where all of our gear was waiting for us with another divegroup from Crystal.
Me and Jill checked so that everything was on board, and afterwards started setting up our gear and weightbelts.
Because the other group was doing 2 dives and we were only doing one, we let them enter the water first.
While waiting them to get ready, Andre briefs James about the skills.
Me and Jill help the other group find their fins and other small stuff, so things would be as easy as possible for them.
When we got in water, Andre keept signaling us how to act.
We were practicing panicked diver and overexerted diver for several times, and me and Jill really started running out of air for
real as we needed to breath so shallow and quick.
But I’m telling you, it was so much fun seeing how he managed the situations with both Jill and me.
Before we were done with the underwater skills, James needed to organize a find-a-missing-diver-situation.
We all went up, and Andre told me and Jill to go down to a certain spot we had decided earlier.
We went down near to a Jackline on the bottom, and when James and Andre arrived, I was acting unresponsive.
James needed to get me to the surface, and with a little misunderstanding the skill was getting too realistic…
When I did my own rescue diver, we did Rescue 7 skill right after this one. That skill is the one where the rescuer keeps giving the victim rescue breaths while taking off his/her gear off and towing him/her back to the boat. Once James had got me to the surface, I kept on acting unresponsive, evenhtough we were supposed to be done with the skill. After a few moments I started hearing worried voices ”Lumi? Lumi, are you okay?”, but first though it was part of the game.
When I finally response Jill was pretty horrified and said that it wasn’t a funny joke. Yeah, sure, but I wasn’t trying to be funny. Sorry Jill! 
Once everyone was okay again, it was time for surface skills. Mostly same as underwater, but much more exhausting!
Definitely no need to hit the gym after all the jumping in water…
After all we all were so to say okay. I might have fallen off the boat just by being clumsy, normal me, but no big injuries done.
In any case, we had our amazing rescue diver James taking care of the ”small” leg-covering scratches!
Amazing day and 4 smiling, happy divers coming back from the dive!
//Lumi Divemaster Traine Crystal Divers
Second Hand Clothing Sale!
Protecting Our Ocean Planet One Dress at a Time 
It was a beautiful sunny day at Bali Crystal Divers for the big second hand clothing sale fund raiser for Project Aware. The first task was to create a spider web of display line around the Santai Restaurant to hang the clothing from. We had hundreds of items of clothing, shoes and jewelry donated by Crystal’s amazing family, friends and staff. There was something for everyone! From baby clothes to leather skirts and a pair of blue shoes (maybe not from Elvis, but close!!).
We even had some tasty home-baked goods donated for sale at the fund raiser. Not only did we have great donors, we had fabulous buyers! We had buyers waiting patiently under warm sunny skies for the opening time to make the first dash for bargains. We held all buyers to the same start time so that all had a fair chance at all the bargains. Thanks to all who participated, over 11 million rupia was raised for Project Aware. It was an impressive accomplishment given that prices started at only 1,000 rupia. It was also an opportunity to spread the word about practicing re-use, recycle and re-purpose rather than just throwing things away. Bali is working hard to change this throw-away approach to life and Crystal Divers are doing their best to change attitudes one dive and diver at a time. Nothing went to waste! All the items not sold were donated to another charity organization to support the animals needing help and rescue around Bali. This was a win and good time for everyone involved!!
Read more at Project Aware http://www.projectaware.org/update/bali-crystal-divers-protecting-our-ocean-planet-one-dress-time
Divemaster life
Even though I needed to wake up at 05:45 to be at Crystals by 06:30, I woke up feeling happy and enthusiastic about the coming day.
I had been helping Magnus with Open Water Course for 2 days, first in the pool for the confined water exercises and the diving in Sanur Channel the previous day.
Now it was time for Tulamben and the amazing wreck we were about to see.
When I arrived to Crystal I first made sure all the needed equipment was packed.
Right size BCD’s, eno
ugh fins and wetsuits for all the divers…
Nothing really complicated once you figure out the system, just a routine we make to be sure everybody will have a great day diving.
As soon as the customers were there, we all hop in a minibus and head to the Northeast part of Bali.
The drive took around 2 and half hours, and we had a lot of time to chat and laugh and also sleep a little, as it has been an early morning for everybody.
Once we arrived I started setting up Magnus’s equipment, as that is the way we work.
Divemaster trainees always do the equipment setting up, as it is good practice for themselves, and also that way the instructors will be free to help and guide their students.
In a normal fun dive i would had set up also the guest’s equipment, but now that it was part of their learning, they needed to do it them self.
When everybody was ready, we walk to the beach for the dive.
Magnus gave a briefing for the dive: maximum depths and things we were about to do and see.
Then we get in water and dive for about 40 minutes.
During the dive I kept on counting the divers, so no one would be separated from the group.
There was absolutely no problems with that, as the new open water divers were pretty good on following the leader.
After the dive we change the cylinders, once again the students made their own and I did both mine and Magnus’s.
Then we walk back to our car, have a little snacks and check the menu for lunch.
We needed to wait for an hour to be able to enter the water again, but we didn’t waste time just by sitting bored.
The next dive the students needed to do couple of compass exercises, and they were practicing the use of compass along with me and Magnus.
As soon as our dive computer beeped for us to be able to dive again, we went down to the beach, put our gear on, do the buddy check as in all the other dives and walk in water.
Magnus made the students do their exercises and I took care that the other student felt confident as the instructor focus on the other one doing the skill.
When they were finished, we just continue the dive in Coral Garden, dive site right next to the wreck.
We have a dive pretty much as long as the first one, and during that time we saw a huge range of different fish and coral species.
Always a great feeling getting under water and just focusing on your breathing, not worrying about anything you would at the surface.
After the dives we have a tasty lunch, little ice cream from the shop near by, before starting the journey back to Sanur.
Once back in Crystal we all sat down to have a drink and do our logbooks.
Remembering all the small things from the dive, logbooks are a nice way of going back to the dive for a moment.
Then we waited for the transport for the guests and said goodbye to those new certified divers.
As they left it was also the end of our working day.
I’d say it is a pretty good way of spending a day!
//Lumi Divemaster Traine Crystal Divers
How far are you prepared to go to become a PADI instructor and Live the dream as a Dive professional ?
How far are you prepared to go to become a PADI instructor and Live the dream as a Dive professional ?
Daily Challenge in the Big Buddy house competition, Today the Candidates where challenged to a treasure hunt for very random items. They were divided into 2 teams and had 5 minutes to plan where to find all the things they needed to find to win the challenge.
These are the items that each team had to find to accomplish the task and WIN the challenge.
Find each item on the list:
E-mail a group photo of your group to: info@crystal-divers.com
Team Minni Lovers AA Team
1 Saron 1 red shoe
1 offering
10 cigarette buts
3 different flowers
1 acceptable drawing of rescue exercise 7
1 tourist
1 dictionary
1 hut/hat
1 newspaper from today1 Padi flag
1 tooth brush
1 item from Robin
1 cake
Sea weed
Something with the Indonesian flag on.
1 Padi pen
These had to be represented to the Judges Minni Vangsgaard and Robin Bylynd.
After about 20 minutes the Teams had all they needed but ONE item….. funny enough that item was a “PADI pen” so it all came down to how much they wanted the PADI pen to win the competition. Minni sat with a bunch of them and bids came in from various teams on how much they would pay or what they would do to get one of the PADI PENS she had in her possession but she didn’t let of of her PADI PENS. Eople ran around like headless chickens desperately looking for the “golden Pen” the PADI pen.
GRRRRR where is the PADI PEN ?? I bet i can get it from the PADI RM
It went so far that they tried to contact on of the examiners and the PADI regional manager to get a hold of a PEN …. Without success after 30 minutes and people driving around to various centers and various places to find the PADI PEN both teams made a smart move making their way to our Platinum course director Minnis house to find one there. However the Spanish not as polite as the English or maybe not as smart don’t know you be the judges of that. But the Minni lovers team was the most bold one they barged in the house and managed to find a PADI PEN which made them win the challenge. Very well done Mini Lovers !!!
Today’s candidates have finished ALL Theory curriculum all that is left is some pool and open water practice and then the IE starts on Friday and you can see the determination in the candidates eyes SOON we will be instructors and then we will head of on a few days MSDT.
Well done Teams and well done by Master mind planning the schedule
8 IDC Candidates & 8 peoples lives that is about to change Forever !!
Latest update from the ongoing IDC here at GoPRobali with Crystal Divers Bali.
There has been a few hectic days on the IDC but i am sure we all agree on that we all having a good time.
We have managed to get ahead of our schedule due to ambitious candidates and master planning from the Course director Minni Vangsgaard. Exams been done on a daily basis, class room presentations becoming better and better and the candidates can start seeing the progress they have made in such a short time. Presentations scores are high exam score getting higher and the confidence is now growing by the minute. However they need to think about what they are saying some times, “Is everyone turned on ??” “just stick it in” does this sound like something you should be saying in the class room ? not really right ? haha
The Big Buddy House challenge keeps going on and making us all to have a loud laugh every now and then specially with the secret hand signals they incorporate in the pool presentations. The competition has even out and turned. The Big Buddy team “minni Lovers” has caught up with the dominating AA Team. Minni Lovers has now gone past the A Team and is leading the competition. Time for the AA team to pick it up.
The last few challenges has been very tight but then the slow starters “Minni Lovers” picked up the pace this is how they caught up with the AA team.
They had a challenge where the Team had to swim as many lanes Underwater as possible as a team effort AA Team Crushed the minni Lovers with 11 lanes against 8. And i think Minni Lovers got pist of since they were way behind the Dominating AA team.
The day after in the evening it was raining and thundering heavy so we decided to do a POKER/PIZZA/BEER night and after AA team was picked of one by one by the Minni Lovers and the JOKER (IDC staff instructor Robin) It finally came down to 2 persons left on the table the JOKER and Danielle from the Minni lovers Team. The JOKER tried a full on Bluff and went all in Danielle was quick to call and it turned out she has pretty good hand which gave her the WIN of the poker night and also the Big Buddy challenge of the day.
JOKER… why so serious !!!??? its only poker.. if i dont won next time i will get very very angry
Some people prefer to use the pizza as a hat rather than eating it.. come on what a waste !!??
Also due to the facebook rape earlier in this week of on of the Candidates random pictures of the guilty person has showed op around crystal. Any marketing is good marketing so bring it on see Robin on his tour around Crystal. However chili in the regulator is not very nice !! Revenge is best served cold… don’t forget that
The next Big buddy challenge was the following day when we had a open water diver workshop in Sanur chanel. After the Open water workshop were the candidates learned how to control an Open water dive during an open water course and how to conduct some of the most challenging skills such as 5 point descent with a large group, CESA, and fin pivot in case of abit of a current .
After the work shop we had nearly 1 hour to do a Dive against Debris for project aware to collect and report all the rubbish we found. We collected 154 items to a total weight of 12kg from the dive site Sanur Chanel. And the team that collected the most was Minni lovers so they won that challenge. There was another challenge in the same day which was who ever found the most strange item. The most strange and valuable item was a Tank boot, and that was also the Minni lovers who found so they won 2 challenges in 1 day.
This means that Minni lovers are now 1 challenge ahead of the AA team also the Minni lovers are ahead of AA team in the Most likes on Facebook challenge.
Finally it was time for a well deserved day of and what better way to celebrate that than having a heavy night out. It was a great night with lots of good drinks and lots of dancing on stages, dance floors More in details exactly what happens is something you will have to ask the candidates.
Today on the 22/11 we were all rested out and ready for more learning. The candidates started of the day with General standards and procedures EXAMS… huhuhu BUT they all did great then it was time for some Equipment sales and Con ed sales workshop and pool session again.
IDC in Bali, Letfovers, Purple high heels, and popcorn Cravings, The Big Buddy House
Day 3 of the IDC and we getting further into the curriculum and one step closer to the crowing the winning team of the the Big buddy house challenge. For those who Missed sign up for this IDC really missed out on a great time. Just seeing the Staff instructor Robin being the contact of the day in The Purple high heals should be reason enough that being here is a must. So if you missed sign up for this IDC don’t miss the next who starts in Jan 15th
Minni Lovers started of the day winning the first secret challenge that PLatinum Course director Minni Vangsgaard had planned. Basically the Minni Lovers had the highest presentation score on their first presentation. WELL DONE !!!!
The day continued with Some RDP theory some back to basic information and some more complicated things such as M value, half times. Talking about half times after that it was time for lunch. I think already after 3 days the lunch is very appreciated since some already starts craving for it before the days starts and once its served any leftovers can be handed to J……
If you want to be able to change peoples life’s by teaching them to dive you need to know your skills. And their critical attributes so that was next on the schedule and for some reason Julien was a magnet everyone had to sit in front or next to sometimes even on top of him…. Come on give the CD and staff instructors a break if we can see him we can score him ….. hmmm or maybe was that a plan? Also we wnt onto tying knots and using lift bag in the pool BUT some where some how something went horribly wrong. One of the candidates was tied up together with weight belts and lift bags SMBs was the briefing that unclear?
The Big Buddy challenge of the day was a Treasure hunt for equipment, the candidate teams had to find a set of equipment eac based on clues given. 1 at the time until they found them all and then get in the water and get down to the bottom. One of the most funny part of this challenge was when the candidates had to run out to the bar and get an assignment from the bar tender that they had to finish before they could get the next piece of equipment. That included finishing a Smirnof ICE and eat 2 bowls of popcorn as fast as possible. Woooow we must have given them to little lunch based on how hungry they looked see for yourself.
FINALLY they had “ALL” their equipment they thought…. However somethings was not quite as completed as they thought. You know when you sometimes get frustrated that it takes long to gear up and get into the water once you reach a dive site? Today that was not the case a good guess is that the equipment setup and the gearing up took around 30 seconds. But there was another problem they forgot to make a weight check which meant that the to teams hit the water almost at the same time but none of them managed to go down to the bottom which was the finish line for the competition. Also there where a few things missing or wrongly “found”. Which ended up with that the Judges called it a FAIL so no one won the challenge it w a tie 0-0. Well done J
Day 4 of the IDC kicked off with a presentation on how to teach students in Confined water and a short marketing session. Referring back to the last post regarding being “Fraped” (facebook raped). There is revenge in the AIR something’s been going on throughout the whole day but nothing has been said how and whats been done to revenge but it has been done.. stay tuned to find out what.
Time for another great lunch in Bali at Crystal divers restaurant which everyone was looking forward to some more than others, and the leftovers was well taken care of from one of the candidates, no names but …… took care of them again. And dont forget the deserts of the day.
Time for some pool work again today they had to present their first Pool presentations all from the open water course. And you can tell these candidates are dedicated, Justine was assigned to swim very fast on the UW swim skill and she swam o yes she swam so fast no one could really see what happened but she snapped the fin and got crap and had a laugh attack.
The big Buddy challenge continued with another competition between the 2 teams today it was all about WILL POWER and breath holding. What team can get the furthest under water added all the lanes together. 4 persons per team and the wining team walked away winning after swimming a total 11 laps as a team WELL DONE. AA Team is dominating the challenges so far. Minni Lovers pick it up !!
Day 7 & 8 ~ Open water time!
Yesterday was the first time the IDC candidates jumped to open water. This time they would learn to set up and find the dive site, manage the students in open water and Project aware time! Early morning we have gone to Sanur Channel with Minni and Taka. They needed to see how to use the buoy and line under the water. They practiced stationary skills and using the line for ascent skills. After that we were ready to do an underwater clean up of the dive site.
Minni was taught us about physic and pointed out 7 important things in physics. Yesterday we also have special guest from Thailand, Tony Andrew. He is temporary RM for Indonesia and he taught us about business in Diving. We finished earlier today and the IDC can relax a bit and enjoy the day because there will be no assignment for the next day
Today we have a really great day with the presentation of physics and skills & environment! They all learnt so many things these days and become better day by day. We also have “Adventure in Diving” presentation today. We were closing the day with the passing score on the theory exam 3 for all candidates! Now you all can enjoy your holiday 😉 Have fun guys!
Day 6 ~ Confined Water Presentation 3
The IDC were doing really well for these couple days with their knowledge and confined water presentation. They have learnt about those presentations and this time for open water presentation. Minni explain how to do the open water presentation and give some assignment for the group.
After lunch we were jumped to the pool for the confined water presentation 3, each candidate already got their assignment. Some of them still nervous and some of them did really well. The Staff Instructor also learnt to score confined water, they were really eager to get to know more about it.
At the end of the day, the IDC Candidates were doing their standard exam and of course the IDC staffs were also there to help out. Too bad one of the IDC candidate didn’t feel really good so she came home earlier. Hope you get well soon Julie!
IDC Day 2 ~ DSD and EXAM
Second day of IDC was a refreshing day for the IDC. They will jump to the pool for the first time also doing their first exam. The day start with presentation about “Risk Management”, the presentation gave us the picture how we minimize the unwilling moment to be happened we are doing the course and fun diving as well.
Next resentation was about “Start Diving” the main point is we need to immediate take people to do scuba diving without waiting for days. For this part we can sell DSD – Discover Scuba Diving! You just need couple hours to do and that’s what we did in the class and pool – the DSD workshop. Finally they were jumped to the pool and refresh their mind.
Today they also show their ability to sell equipment and continuing education, they learnt the equipment feature, diving course , how to know what student need’s and how to close the deal! At the end of the day, we gave away the first exam to know which subject is the strongest and the weakest for each of the candidate so we can work through it during the IDC.
