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

Mapping Trip

Mapping is one of the Dive Master requirement, we need to make an underwater map of one dive side in Bali. Seven of us will make one dive site map and the choice goes to TULAMBEN DROP OFF “The fantasy wall”. Minni helped us out to make a choice this time because almost all other dive sites have been made before. So we need to prepare all the things to bring to Tulamben because we wouldn’t do only the paper map, we would also make the 3D map so need more preparation than others right. We planned what we need to do, the tools we need to bring, the equipment to make the 3D structure, transport, tank and the accommodation. We haven’t been going in one go because we will be in the car with the other customer so it saved some transport money. Three of us – me, jink and imam – went first because we need to do the deep specialty before we begin our Mapping diving. The second group planned to arrive in Tulamben at night with motor bike and the last group would be arriving next morning with motorbike as well.

First day…

We were ready to do the first dive now!

The first group is me and Eri, the second group is Jink and Vintty, and the last group is Nico, Imam, and Made. Each group have their own duty. My group’s duty was checking the compass heading, finding the distance for the place we mapped, and surface compass heading from entry point. We did the dive for 60 minutes and we had lunch with Minni and Tony (from PADI). We were talking a lot about what we gonna do after we finished this course and he adviced us about how to find a job. It’s really a good advice for us and a reward for our 1 year course. The second dive, my group need to count the kick cycle from the wall, the details of the wall, and the distance from the block. We were done with the diving for day 1 now! We made the structure for the 3D Drop- Off map. We have been doing it together and it looks like we are a good team. We made it from cement and all of us have our own speciality in this thing Like Nico is good in mixing the cement First structure was done in first day and we need to make it dry then we can continue to the next structure. Not an easy time because if we use cement for all of the structure it will be really heavy (it’s still heavy like hell even with the steroform inside!!).

Second day…

This dive was focusing in the wall contour and the interesting points. We need to find the distance and the depth for all of that. It took us not so long to do that because Eri and Jink already familiar with Drop Off. We were finished earlier that day and we were playing in the beach for a while collecting the rocks, the sand for our map and Jink took us to the edge of the beach and we dug a hole about a couple meters from the sea and yes, the water indeed not salty. It’s so weird but that is the mystery of Tulamben. The rest of the day we spent to finish the contour of the 3D Map. We discussed a lot about the contour and we need, is to wait again to do the next dive because there was still something missing in our mind. We also went to the hill on sunset, Eri showed us the place where we can see the Agung Mount and the sea in high place. It was a good view and really nice to end our Mapping Trip to Tulamben. We also a made sketch for the paper map that night. We had fish grill dinner like always and Eri’s family and friends came to join us there and we had a little party that night because this is the end of our trip to Tulamben. Thank you for the hospitality of Eri’s Family!

Third day…

Final dive today because some of us will go home today and we needed to finish the contour at Crystal. We were diving for 1 hour to make sure again the interesting point of the place. And that was it. We finished our mapping dive and time to go home now. We were separated into 3 groups again to go home…

This Journey was also the first journey for all of us and it tightened our friendship. We will do it again for celebrating our Instructor maybe That was our 3 days Journey to Tulamben and for finalizing the map we were doing it in Crystal with our document. We put the rock and the sand to the structure, made Jukung miniature, the coral, sponge and paint it. The hardest part was searching for the material for the miniature because we can’t use play-do! The play-do cant be hard and we need something that last forever. So we need to skip this part first and focus to another map. The paper map is not so hard to be finished because its only drawing so we finish it in less than a week.

I was searching the material to create the miniature and with Milan help, I found the shop where they sell CLAY! I could move forward then. I made some miniature of jukung, coral, sponge, and the block. We put all the miniature in the place and paint it. It Looks pretty cool now and we need 1 month to finish all the things.

Oxygen Provider in Crystal Divers

One afternoon in Crystal Diver when our Dive Master – Alex; Dive Master Trainee – Gael and Robin; Interns – Eri, Wulan and Imam; and our new Instructor – Tony and Milan; gathered in the class room to listen about oxygen provider lesson. Some of us already certified as oxygen Provider but it doesn’t mean we don’t need to refresh our skills for these lessons. We still need to practice more and more so we can be confident if something happened in the future.

Else taught us about Oxygen Provider while Taka was teaching the AI course for Yaiko and of course Mari with her Dive Master Course. We were not only set up the oxygen normally but we need to set up it blindly. It is because if emergency happened, it would not be in the calm situation so we need to handle any kind of situation that can be happened in the future. I can tell you that afternoon all of us did a good job for setting up the oxygen.

Thanks for the lesson and bandana Else!! And of course congratulation to ALEX and GAEL  for their Oxygen Provider Certified 😉 If you want to join us like that fine afternoon, just come to crystal divers and join our course here!

DIVE MASTER COURSE

Dive master is the first pro level in diving. We already can be a guide and a teacher for refresher aka certified diver who long time didn’t dive. So they need to be refreshed about all the skills. There are some requirements to be a Dive Master: Certified as PADI AOW and Rescue Diver, 18 years old, Logged 40 dives, Complete the EFR training within 24 months, and of course the medical requirement as well.

To be the Dive Master is a different level with OWC until Rescue Diver level, in this level we will be trained as a professional who can lead a group or advice students. So we need to learn how to do all the things in the right way and using our good judgment. That’s why in this level, they will give us so many task to do like guiding, assisting, preparing, repairing, etc.

Beside the 9 chapter theory and 2 exams, we also need to complete some of the skills such as:

1. 400 meters swimming
2. 800 meters snorkeling
3. 100 meters diver towing
4. 15 minutes floating
5. Equipment exchange
6. Assisting confined water course
7. Assisting Open water Dives
8. Assisting theory open water course
9. Assisting Advance Open water Dives
10. Assisting Rescue Divers
11. Skill Circuit
12. Rescue no 7
13. Deep work/ specialty
14. S&R work/ specialty
15. Assisting DSD Confined water
16. Assisting DSD Open water
17. Discover Local Diving ( or we can say guiding)
18. Setting up the dive site
19. Mapping
20. Briefing
21. Skin diving
22. Physic
23. Physiology
24. Skills and equipment
25. RDP
26. Equipment
27. Days with equipment boys
28. Equipment service
29. Scuba refresher
30. Log dives

So far most of us already did some of the skills above like assisting open water ( in theory, pool and open water), assisting AOW, S&R work, Deep work, equipment service, and of course the log dive already 60 +

We were gathered in the pool side and this time Minni was giving us some tips to put our equipment in the right order and that’s the way the BCD should be prepared for all the customer. We also got a gift from Minni, the Crystal Bandana, and she had something to do with that bandana for the first task as DMT. We were asked to use the bandana to close our eyes while assembling and disassembling the BCD and regulator.. good gift and good way to use it :p We were needed to show it as if we teach students. We need to speak loud becase there were a lot of DMT around so our voice need to be louder than the others!!! Like Minni said in the first time, NO SHY in here! After this all the DMT jumped to the pool to do the 24 skills circuit with Minni.

We have time to do it slowly and of course with guidance from all our instructors in Crystal Divers, we need to try to be the best like always!